Got a one-mile run on Monday. Looking for some advice on how to perform my best.

Eating and hydration: any advice on how/what to eat and hydration day before and morning of? Most likely I'll be doing this super early in the morning.

Strategy: I've got a couple numbers in mind. A goal and a stretch goal. I don't want to go out too fast, burn out, and miss my base goal. But I also don't want to get across the line with too much gas in the tank and miss the stretch goal.

Any advice on how to strategize during the run? It'll be on a treadmill so I can be precise with my pace.

And this isn't any kind of a big deal. Just for fun but as a competitive person I want to put up a good number.

What's your baseline fitness like? My buds and I have a trophy that we award when we get together for the fastest 5k. Race is usually run while hungover from the night before. You'd have to strategerize a little for a 5k but for just a mile I recommend balls out until you start puking! I tried that plan for the last 5k we did and despite crushing the first mile sub-6, the hangover+90 degree temps meant I was stopping to puke the rest of the run lol. Advice above is assuming you don't have a heart condition or something…and this post is not medical advice yada yada

Lol man that sounds miserable. I will caveat my request for advice with "this is not that big of a deal and I don't want to hit a time bad enough to vomit over the matter."

Baseline fitness is.... good? Decent?

My goal is under 7 minutes, stretch goal is 6:45. Last time I did this (it's been a while) I didn't quite strategize well and no joke crossed the line at 7:01 which was maddening.

If the last time you hit 7:01 wasn't too long ago and you feel you are in similar shape, you can try today for something like 7:30-8:00 and see how you feel. What percentage of max effort would you say it took you for that time. If you do 7:45 and you feel good and say it was 80% max effort then 7 or under is still a reasonable target.
Since you only have five days, I would do some interval training to get used to faster speeds. Something like a 6:30 pace on and off. Start with shorter sprint intervals and every day build up a little longer.

Depending on what your typical running load is, you are bound to just negatively impact the 1-mile run with any hard workouts between now and Monday.

Assuming you've done decent work between your last mile time, I'd set the treadmill at 6:50 and go. Evaluate at the 3/4 mark and see if you can pick up the pace for the last 1/4.

I did the 12 minute run for distance pretty recently and did that at an average pace of 7:45. 80% is probably about right... hard to say though... I pushed it at the end so when I got done I was exhausted. I ran the first mile at about a 7:50 pace, then bumped it up a tenth or two for a lap, and I was able to run my last minute at 6:50 (and of course pushed harder as the clock ran out).


Today's workouts were intervals. I'm a little sore from leg day two days ago but was trying to gauge my speed.

We'd do 30 seconds at our "push" pace, then 30 seconds a little faster, 60 seconds going hard. Then we'd walk and recover for 90. Then the next round was 30/30/45 walk 90, then 30/30/30 walk 90, then 60 all out.

My paces for these were about like this:

Round 1: 30 sec/30sec/60 sec - 6:50/6:6:30/5:55
Round 2: 30 sec/30sec/45 sec - 6:45/6:25/5:53
Round 3: 30 sec/30sec/30 sec - 6:40/6:20/5:50
Round 4: 60 sec: 5:46

Then we basically repeated that. First round in the next block I had to dial it back, but was able to duplicate my efforts after that little breather.

I think I was trying to do what you were saying -- trying to make 6:50 feel like it's not fast. I walked out of today feeling pretty confident about my targets.

The Pilot said:

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Depending on what your typical running load is, you are bound to just negatively impact the 1-mile run with any hard workouts between now and Monday.

Assuming you've done decent work between your last mile time, I'd set the treadmill at 6:50 and go. Evaluate at the 3/4 mark and see if you can pick up the pace for the last 1/4.

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That seems like a good plan. Three laps at 6:50 then check in.

Definitely not going to do any weightlifting. Might do a workout tomorrow or Friday (it's just the first half of Orange Theory so like half an hour on the treadmill doing some intervals or inclines or something).

Last workout this morning.

Did .6 miles at 6:30 with heavy legs.

I think I'm gonna be good. Plan to roll with 6:50 for three laps and then figure out if I need to hang on for dear life or if I can push for the stretch goal.

Success probably hangs on keeping it under control during St. Patrick's Day nonsense.

1-2 mile warm up with strides beforehand to get the legs warmed up. Warm up pace should be a very comfortable pace that keeps your HR low, and strides should be ran at around your goal mile pace for 10-20 seconds with at least a minute or so in between strides. Do about 6-8 strides during your warm up, then a brief recovery and then run the mile.

Have a great run and let us know how it goes! I recently ran a one mile time-trial on the track and it was tough, but fun.

My 17-year old son (runs XC and track) paced me to a time that was 1 second faster than my target time. But he kept turning around to check on me and later said "Dad, you were breathing SO LOUD" haha.

fwiw, for the 1-mile benchmark, I've started at 10 for 30 seconds then dropped back in the 9.0-9.2 range. Found it easier to start fast and try to hold on.

Same, I end up splitting fairly even 1st 800 and 2nd 800, but the individual 400m lap times tend to have some differences. From fastest to slowest it's typically been Lap 4, 1, 2, 3.

For me, that 3rd 400m just hurts.

kwammer said:

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fwiw, for the 1-mile benchmark, I've started at 10 for 30 seconds then dropped back in the 9.0-9.2 range. Found it easier to start fast and try to hold on.

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I think part of what made me come close but barely miss it last time was the beginning when I was getting up to speed. I think coming off the blocks quickly is a good idea.

Thanks for all the tips.

Crossed the line at 6:44.

Note for future reference I can start pushing for the end a little sooner. I think better strategy could've gotten me 6:39.

Oh well gives me something to shoot for next time.

Nice run. Better than we thought. Looks like user name checks out!

bagger05 said:

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Thanks for all the tips.

Crossed the line at 6:44.

Note for future reference I can start pushing for the end a little sooner. I think better strategy could've gotten me 6:39.

Oh well gives me something to shoot for next time.

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Next time use a track. I do tons of intervals on treadmills, but never a time trial.

We have a mile trial every fall with the HS XC team. I've done it 5 times now, and have 2 left, when my kids have all graduated. At age 47, I went 6:43. Then 6:20. Then 6:07. When my daughter was a senior and my son was a freshman, I ran 5:54 and beat my son by a second. Training for 3 years and hitting sub-6 at age 50 was pretty cool. This past fall was 6:02.

I have 3 important training workouts. Paces assume a 6 minute mile target. The first secret was to move almost all interval training indoors. That's the only way to hit the interval splits in hot weather. So, on the treadmill:
- 400x6 repeats at 9% grade and 9 minute pace with recovery laps at the same speed. These are tough, but they build muscle and are much easier to recover from than sprints. They are a cheat code for building speed, especially for older runners who can't recover as fast.
- 4xmile repeats at 7 minute pace, with slow recovery laps.
- 10x400 repeats at 6:30 - 6:40 pace, with slow recovery laps.

These indoor interval workouts got me from 6:07 to 5:54. The only speed workouts I do in hot weather now are strides of no more than 30 second duration. Anything longer and I have to slow down, which ruins the point of the workout.