ROTC Distant vs. Sprinting

[cwc73]

Hello everyone. I have a simple question--I think.
I am in ROTC, so I do a great deal of running M,W,and F in the mornings. I get to the weight room M,W,and F evening.
I want to make my 1.5 mile run faster. I have heard that if you run shorter distances at much faster than normal paces, you will get used to the faster pace and be able to keep the pace eventually.

I want to know If it would be a good idea to run on a treadmill at the end of my work out at a much faster pace(almost a sprint). I want to start out running a quarter of a mile. I want to get my quater down to a minute. If i reach this I will raise the distance to .3 and so on.

Will this sprinting build muscle and speed up my 1.5 mile run time?
Thanks!!!!
cwc

 

[Synpax]

No. Sprints don't translate to anything other than sprints. It's not even a cardio/aerobic/resperatory exercise, it's an anaerobic one.

You need to do intervals - .25 - at a little faster than your goal time - with maybe 30 seconds of rest between each - but more important are doing distances that are LONGER at a slower speed than your goal time - IE - 2, 2.5, 3 miles. These will make a much bigger difference in your time.

I am currently being trained by probably the best training team in the country to run distances of 5k to 26.2 miles+. We do a lot of different workouts - but we have _never_ done sprints.

 

[cwc73]

Are you saying ( on the short intervals) to run at a slightly faster pace that I would run that same quarter mile during my 1.5 mile run. I wasn't necessarily saying that I should sprint, although I know a 1 minute quater mile is sprinting, but I should run it faster than normal. Right?

 

[txarmyguy23]

well Sprints can help but only if your doing longer speed workouts raning from 1000meters to 2500meters...Speed workouts can greatly help a distance runner but you can't susbstitute quality distance runs either....What kind of distance is your rotc program giving you?

 

[cwc73]

usually anywhere from 1.5 miles to about 2.5~3.0 miles.

 

[philipusmcr]

If your in ROTC, I can give you some advice... do mountain climbers. It's how I upped my 3 mile run time from 20:20 - 18:00 in 2 1/2 weeks. On the side of course do some long distance running. Sprints might help for instant power, and help a little bit in distance but if your trying to be good at distance>Practice distance.

BTW when doing mountain climbers, bring your foot all the way up next to ur hand (you might have to "jump" a little). This strengthens a TON of muscles > (most important):calves, hams, butt, quads, stomach(*VERY VERY IMPORTANT), shoulders, chest, back, tris, forearms, hip flexors, and a few more small guys.

 

[USMC fighter]

Hey Phil what kind of mtn climber workout did you do? I cant seem to break 21:00 on my 3 mile no matter how often i run.

 

[Synpax]

I don't know what Philip is talking about but his mountain climbing didn't do jack for his run time and if he did have that much of an increase in two weeks, it was something else. Maybe the climbing gave his cardio system a good recovery period or maybe he was better hydrated.

If you have three workouts a week, I'd suggest the following routine:
Day One - Do 5 1000s at slightly faster than goal pace with a 200 meter recovery jog. this will make your body better able to handle lactic build-up in your muscles.
Day Two - Do a five mile fartlek with the second and fourth mile at goal pace and the first, third, and fifth at a comfortable pace. This will help build aerobic capacity and your anaerobic capacity.
Day Three - Six miles easy. Increment this up by 1 mile until you get to ten each week. This is the most important run of the week because it goes a long way towards building aerobic capacity. When I say easy, I mean very easy - so that you could talk to someone when you run - a convesational pace.

Keep this up, do your stretches, and always do about a half mile warm-up and cool-down SUPER EASY on each day.

Listen man, there are about a million guys out there that will tell you different, but everything I say here is backed up by science and by extremely elite athletes. I have three coaches right now - one was a US olympic finalist in the 5k (his time is in the low 13s), another was an elite marathon runner, and the third was recently ranked the number 5 triathlete in the world for olympic distances. I also have sitting on my shelf the text fot the CSCS that I am currently studying for. I've run three marathons and had multiple USMC PTs and scored 288 out of 300.

You can keep going around asking for different people's advice, but on this one I suggest you take a leap of faith on and trust me.

 

[philipusmcr]

Im talking about bootcamp mountain climbers... I know you know what I am talking about USMC. And as far as what synpax says, to each his own. But one thing I must emphasize when doing mountain climbers is don't just shuffle your feet. You NEED to bring your lead foot ALL the way up next to your hands. Granted I will not give all the credit to my mountain climbers, as I said before. A lot of other things on the side helped out. A lot of things are personal too when it comes to health/running/lifting. I just thought I'd put in an exercise that people never think about doing or they don't do it correctly.