Many cross country runners try to become faster and cut their race or mile times. When you don’t get a time you want, it’s stressful and it makes a runner feel like they are slower than they actually are. As a distance runner, I strive to cut my mile time to get better individually so I do not cause this stress upon myself. Through this experiment, I tried to find ways to cut my mile time that could be impactful for me and others. While there are many things a person a can do to shave their mile time, it just takes the time and dedication for it to happen. Literature Review There are many causes for a slow mile time.
You get faster when you recover from and adapt to stress (Fitzgerald, 2014). Not enough sleep causes stress on your body which affects your running. Distance runners hear their coaches say “running is 90% mental” so if a runner has a poor mindset, you’re only using 10% of your running skills. “A well-balanced core improves your running economy, the result: faster times” (Purton, 2007). If a runner does not have a strong core, it could cause your times to be slower. For any sport a person participates in, a balanced diet is needed. Without the proper nutrients, your body won’t function the way it needs to for your run.
A runner should stay hydrated, if they don’t they could become dehydrated during their run, affecting their time. All of these facts are contributing factors to why a person’s mile time might be slow. A person can prevent all of these causes if they would like to. To cause less stress on you, you need to get an adequate amount of sleep (Fitzgerald, 2014). Since running is mostly about mentality, having a positive, optimistic view on things can be beneficial to cut time down. To build a stronger tighter core, abdomen workouts are the a great activity. Plank lifts, superman, and bridges.
In a good balanced diet, you should eat from the five main food groups – whole grains, fruit and vegetables, protein, dairy, and fat & sugar (Nordqvist,2015). To keep from getting dehydrated, you should drink at least 2-3 liters of water per day (Brown, 2011). To improve in running, you should do most, if not all, of these tips. Methods Before conducting this experiment, my time was slower than my previous year in cross country, it was harder for me to stay up with the girls that I ran with the year before. My goal of this experiment was to decrease my mile time in order to be near my times of my freshman year.
I had to change some of my routines to do this though. I had to drink at least 100 ounces of water before practice everyday. In order to stay healthy, I had to eat a more healthy well-balanced diet that provided me with the nutrients I need. At practice, I had to throw in more surges to try to get faster and stay up with everyone else. A surge is when you put forth a short burst of energy to power forward whilst running. My plan for this test is to change a total of 5 variables: amount of time, times repeated per week in the first stage, more stretches, times repeated in the second stage and amount f water.
I changed my amount of time from around ten minutes to closer to nine minutes per mile. For the first stage, I recorded three days a week. For the second stage, I only recorded two days a week. For both stages, I added a few more stretches into my routine to keep my muscles loose and not sore. I drank two bottles of water during both stages, before the experiment I only drank one bottle of water a day. According to the experts, the more water you drink the less likely you are to become dehydrated while running for a long period of time. Findings 1 chart of graph, ? page
For my baseline data, I calculated my average mile time at cross country practice, I did nothing different than I have in the past. The time I was trying to get under before this experiment was an average of a ten minute mile. For the next two week, I tried to stay under a average of a nine minute mile. The tool used to measure my time was my GPS running watch for all of the data. To try and improve my running, for the next two weeks I drank at two bottles of water compared to my one bottle before the experiment. I also added some extra stretches in my legs to try to not have then as tight and sore after practice.
At the beginning of the experiment, my average mile time was 8:47 on a hilly course, while it was hot humid and sunny. For two weeks, I changed the amount of water I drank and the balance of my meals. I drank one extra bottle of water and ate more veggies and fruits than I did prior to this conduction. For the first two weeks, I logged three days per week to get six days of data. The first day with the change, my average mile was 8:13, this day was breezy and the run was flat with occasional down hills which might be a factor to why it decreased so drastically. On the twelfth of August, my average mile was 8:24.
The weather was humid with a light breeze, our course had few hills which helped my speed because of the down hills. Downhills help runners because it takes little energy to fly down them, the uphills take the most energy. For the fifteenth of August I ran on a hot, humid, still day with many uphills and few down hills, resulting in an average time of 8:33. The next logged day I ran was the seventeenth of August. This day was hot, humid, and the route I ran was super hilly. The way I ran, I had to run against the strong wind, this could be a factor to why my time was slower than the previous runs.
On the twentieth, the hills were helpful and small. The weather was nice, breezy yet a little humid. I logged a time of 8:16 on this date. On the last day of my first two week experiment, I ran an average mile time of 8:28 on hills while it was raining. By the end of the first second week time period, my average mile time was 8:29 with all of the logged data, 18 seconds faster than my base start time: 8:47 for a mile. For the next two weeks, I changed one variable to see if it would help my time. I only logged two days per week, giving my body more time to rest and prepare to go hard.
All other ariables remained the same. With all of the variables I changed just for two weeks, my average mile time decreased greatly. For the beginning of stage two, I changed the amount of days I recorded down to two from three. By changing this variable, I have one more day to rest and help my body recover from a hard run. The first day of stage two was August 25th, this was an awful day to run, it was extremely humid, hot and wet out, making it hard to breathe, my average mile was 8:37. Due to illness, I did not run again until the 1st of September, it was a hot, humid day, with some hills. My time was 8:48.
The reason it was so high was because I was ill and had to take a few days off from practice. On occasion, we do fun things at practice, like scavenger hunts, on the fifth of September we did a scavenger hunt, which means we sprinted the whole thing in hopes to win. My average mile was 7:14. Some contributing factors to why it was so much faster could be that it was such a short run, it was flat, and I had the desire to win so I went as hard as I could go. For the conclusion of my constructed tests, I finished on a perfect day. It was a short flat run with great weather, a light reeze and cloudy, I ran an averaged 8:02 mile.
For the second stage, my average for the two weeks for a mile was 8:10 which is 19 seconds faster than the end of stage one and 37 seconds faster than my baseline time. Implications For cross country runners around the world, getting a faster time is always their goal. This experiment can help all distance runners get faster times with only changing a few daily routines. The studies show that these factors can and will help you shave seconds off of your mile time. It just takes time and effort to do so, you have to be motivated and dedicated to reach your goals.
