The Cherry Creek Sneak and the Bolder Boulder are behind you. Now you’re trying to decide what to target for your next big goal in running.
Maybe you want to run a personal best in the 5K, or you want to improve on your Bolder Boulder time for October’s Governor’s Cup 10K. Perhaps you have a fall marathon or mountain relay planned.
Why not try something different and spend a few weeks focusing on the mile?
Many coaches say the speed you gain by training for the mile will make you faster across all distances, including the marathon.
If you haven’t run a competitive all-out mile since high school, training for it can be a great way to perk up your training. Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein was talking about moving up to the marathon last week when he said something that applies here, too.
“I think you have to constantly change the stimulus of what you’re doing,” Ritzenhein said. “Otherwise you get in a rut.”
Racing the mile can be fun, too, as long as you don’t mind a few minutes of anaerobic agony. Boulder’s Pearl Street Mile is one of the Front Range’s most enjoyable races, a family-friendly, weekday evening festival that annually attracts more than 600 runners competing in seven waves, one at a time. The Boulder running community turns out – from Olympians to plodders – and the atmosphere is electric.
This year the 10th Pearl Street Mile will be held Aug. 17, concluding a summer evening race series that includes a 2K (June 22) and a 3K (July 27).
The Boulder Road Runners conduct summer all-comers’ meets twice a month on the University of Colorado track. The meets include sprints, middle-distance events, distance and field events.
If you train for the mile, test yourself a couple of times in track races or time trials and then run Pearl Street as a goal race, you just might surprise yourself in your next marathon.
“All distance events from the mile on up are based on velocity at max VOb uptake,” said Dr. Joe Vigil, a former Adams State coach who guided Deena Kastor to an Olympic bronze medal in the marathon. “That figure is derived from the greatest speed that you can run a mile. You always work on speed at the mile.”
VOb max is your maximum oxygen uptake, a gauge of your aerobic engine.
“You should always work at speed development,” Vigil said. “You work on volume (mileage) to increase the VOb max, and you work on speed to increase the velocity at max VOb .”
Mile a “different kind of hurt”
Ric Rojas, who coaches in Boulder, calls speed an “essential element” for the marathon and notes that Frank Shorter was world-class for 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track. A few days before Shorter won his gold medal in the 1972 Olympic marathon, he finished fifth in the Olympics 10,000 meters.
“The core of what he did was speed work,” Rojas said. “He taught that to American distance runners. Then there were two decades that it was forgotten. It just baffles me, because in the ’80s and ’90s it almost completely went away.”
Lakewood coach Dave Reese has his runners run monthly mile time trials, whatever their goal events. Using their mile times, he is good at predicting their times when they race 5Ks, 10Ks and the marathon.
“It gives you a basis for all races,” Reese said of training for the mile. “It means everything. Without it, improvement can be very little.”
Vigil, who has two doctorate degrees in exercise physiology, also has his runners do mile time trials. He crunches their times through a scientifically derived formula to predict what they can run in their goal race. In the spring of 2001, Vigil predicted Meb Keflezighi was capable of running 10,000 meters on the track in 27 minutes, 12 seconds, based on a mile time of 4:57. Keflezighi set the American record at 27:13.98.
“He ran 1.98 (seconds) off his true potential,” Vigil said with an impish smile.
Training for the mile is grueling, so you shouldn’t try it unless you’re ready for a hard track workout once a week.
“In a way, training for the mile is a lot harder than training for the marathon because it involves lactic acid,” Rojas said. “A lot of people don’t like it. They’re afraid they’re going to die if they run a hard mile, it hurts so much. It’s challenging, but it’s extremely beneficial.”
Reese agrees.
“It gives you a different kind of hurt, and they don’t want to make that commitment,” Reese said.
Training for the mile primarily involves weekly track workouts composed of short, hard intervals of 150, 200 and 400 meters.
“You might do four times 600 meters, very seldom anything longer than that,” Rojas said. “You have to be able to run at (goal) race pace or faster.”
Make no mistake, training for the mile is challenging. You should attempt it only if becoming a faster road racer is worth a few minutes of excruciating, lung-searing, head-spinning pain.
If it is, you might be amazed by the results.
