The 5k and dry heaves

Question
Hi! About 6 weeks ago, my high school cross country team began our late summer training program to enter into the cross country season. We began hard and trained rigorously, starting with 60+ mile weeks, and slowly evening out to about 50 mile weeks with biweekly speed drills, i.e. 16x400meters, running the 400 in -85 seconds, and hill workouts.
As a freshman, my lifetime PR was 17:40, which I achieved on my home course, a comfortably flat, grass course considered one of the easier ones in the area.  Now, as a sophomore, I just recently beat that PR, and hit 17:37.  However, during this PR it is clear that I did not run intelligently and went out likely as much as 20 seconds too fast the first mile (5:20ish as opposed to our coach's reccomended 5:40ish).
I have two excellent coaches, one who runs the 5k currently in the low 14 minute marks and is just out of college, and the other an ex assistant college coach who runs it currently in about 16 flat, at age 29 or so.
Back to the race though; during the race, and afterwards, I sometimes did not feel like I was pushing as hard as I possibly could have.  After the race I did not feel terrible, and, unlike many other races I have competed in, I was able to just walk around and be calm - as opposed to a few certain memorable finishes where I felt close to passing out and on the verge of regurgitation.
Now, my problem is the very end of the race, specifically, the last 400m.  During this time, which is always a sprint, but not as fast as I can possibly go becauase of tire from the race, I always find myself dry heaving to the finish.  I see this as  a problem because it seems that once I attain a certain speed the dry heaving begins, and I hope this does not factor in on the track I hope to run in the spring, and later in my running life when I honestly hope to train to achieve sub 16 minute 5ks.
I try to eat healthy meals pre race.  I eat bananas for calcium, and bread and pasta pre race in general.  I do, admittedly, still drink soda and on the rare occasion eat junk food.  I drink milk on non-race mornings.
I am about 6'0" and I weigh 170.
If you have any advice on how to improve my times or how to stop dry heaving or overcome this dry heaving, or anything that can just improve my over all physical capability, I'd love to hear it.
thanks :)

Answer
Hi JJ
Thanks for the fantastic description of your program,bio,and problems.This sure makes my job easier.Your build up pre season looks real good,but i didn't see any tempo,LT work etc.Finishing the race and feeling quite confortable immediatly after it is over aside from dry heaves tells me you are very strong,which is most likely your qualty pre season build up.More than likely you have enought speed,but are lacking LT work and some hard tempo.1000's 45s recovery,1200's 200 to 300 float,2000's,400 jog.Put these in the proper order and you should see a big change.I figure your coaches probably have something like this in mind,but i don't no.I think if you work hard you can run 17:10 To 17:15.

As far as the dry heaves go this is a fairly common thing when you push to hard.It is a very fine line when this occures.The factors probably responsble include:decreased blood flow to the intestine and retention of food in the stomach during running;build up of acid and metabolic products in the blood;and overactivity of the vagus and sympathic nervous stsytems which stimulat the vomiting center.No serious consequence for you.You just tryed to squease a few more seconds in the last 600.You went beyond O.D.Bread and pasta to close to the race is not good.To heavy and slow in the digestive tract.Experiment during the week when you do some tought workouts after school.Start with a quality breakfast and taper to your race workout foods as the day moves on.This will give you the confidence you need which turns into better performance.TEST,TEST,TEST,It then becomes set in stone.
Well JJ i hope i covered it all.If you have futher questions just get in touch.I would love to know how you do as the season progresses and you incorporate some of the things i talked about.Would be appreciated.

To a new personal record
soon.

to your success

John
www.rentacoachinternational.com