every high school of any reasonable size has enough distance running potential walking around its campus to win league, section, and even state championships in cross country... yet, year after year, you'll find the same schools winning...

over time, it's become quite apparent to me why this is the case...

hint: it ain't the water (or the shoes)...

So what is the conclusion?

Is running piss poor intervals going to be faster than just adding mileage each day?

I'm of the mind "Who cares" wrt this question, since this is basically the same post as trying to get someone to a BW squat in the fastest time. Since its either going to be trivially quick or slightly faster.

At least every kick-ass school I ever been to had one of these.

Let's return to the original question.

Date of test?

I favor running lots of mileage at 9 1/2 to 10 minutes a mile. Don't even attempt to run 1 1/2 miles in 12 minutes until the day of the test.

How is the test conducted? Many runners on the track or must you run alone? If there's 10 to 15 runners it should be easy to pass the test. Find someone running the right pace. Follow him. If you're the lone runner, then it's tough. Also tough if too many are on the track.

Basic training. 8 weeks. Recruits never ran faster than 12 minutes a mile in training. Always ran in formation. Yet 75-80% of recruits easily beat 8 minutes for the mile and we ran in army boots.

I've been trying to reach pretty much this exact goal.

I had been setting the treadmill at 7.5 mph (exact 8m mile), and could only make 1/2mile before my legs gave out or I got winded with 180+ bpm (lol health riskaments), and wasn't seeing any improvement at all.

Past couple of days I took the advice in this thread and started running slower, longer, and on my local high school's absurdly nice track. Tonight I ran 1.5 miles in 17:01. I didn't feel winded at all, but my legs were killing me. I felt it mostly in my right shin and my left medial quadriceps head (vastus medialus).

I'm going to start running 2x/day. What's a reasonable goal for progression here? 20 seconds off every run? Tonight was windy as ****, so my next run should be way faster.

progression varies from person to person...

some days you'll actually run slower than the day before. it doesn't matter. just keep running and the times will eventually drop... kinda like poker.

good luck.

Great. Now I'm gonna get banned from running.

I ran after waking up today. Was definitely running faster, and my legs gave out at around a mile. The stopwatch on my phone ****ed up, so I have no idea what my actual pace was. I might go ahead and drop the $10 on a real stopwatch.