Sub 35 min 10k at 30 miles per week?

This summer, after two years of running consistently 45 - 65 miles/week, I broke all my PB's from 800m up - 2:04, 4:20, 16:28, 34:24. I got accustomed to the mileage, as some of you predicted. After some consecutive weeks of 60-65 miles a 50 mile week now feels easy. On average I ran at an easy pace of 8 minutes per mile but 1-2 times per week, when feeling good, I ran a part of my run (3-5 miles) faster, usually as a progression from 6:40 to 5:50 pace, sometimes with the last mile very hard - 5:30 - 5:40 pace.

Like someone else said, you need to look at the steepness of your improvement curve and be realistic - I broke 18 within 18 months of my first run, for example, but took two more years to knock off another 50 seconds. Then I spent years giving my all to break 17. I have noticed throughout the years that I can generally run 17:30-17:40 at almost any time of the year with little preparation, but it's very, very hard to get in 17:0x shape, and when I do, it's very hard to hold it. So this is likely close to my limit. And being 46 years old, that's okay by me.

However, if you only run 30-odd miles a week, you could have a lot of improvement left in you still if you manage to do it without getting injured. Your PR for the HM is bad compared to the rest; a direct effect of low mileage in training. When I had your 5k PR, I was running sub-1:22 for HM, but I was also running 50 mile weeks.

When I managed to get up to 65-70-ish miles a week for a period of time, I dropped from 17-mid / 36-low / 1:20-high to 17:0x / 35:2x / 1:19-low. So mileage worked for me to get from a similar situation to where you want to be.

Dude...read previous post

haha, yeah.... *note to self, look at the end of the thread first. I forget to do that sometimes. :)

Still, my experience could be of use to someone else reading. Maybe not a total waste of time to document it.