HOW MUCH CAN U IMPROVE YOUR FIRST YEAR OF RUNNING?

Korre wrote:

With good speed and as a high school senior.

that's one hell of a sentence

I ran a 25 minute 3 mile time trial at the beginning of my freshmen season (I had no idea how to run hard for three miles coming out of middle school) and was able to run 19:30 by the end of the season. The next season I ran 18:45, then 17:12 the next.

I'd say a 19 minute guy could run around or a little under 17 in one year with no injury, but that's not a given (I say that would be great). Probably upper 17's. Just my guess (but I'm not a coach or anything and could be way off).

Not sure, but Jim Ryun, as essentially a novice in running, went from about a 5:38 mile at the beginning of his sophomore year of high school to <4:10 the following summer, IIRC.

Not a guarantee, but you wanted to know what someone who's talented could do...

my experience wrote:

I ran a 25 minute 3 mile time trial at the beginning of my freshmen season (I had no idea how to run hard for three miles coming out of middle school) and was able to run 19:30 by the end of the season. The next season I ran 18:45, then 17:12 the next.

I'd say a 19 minute guy could run around or a little under 17 in one year with no injury, but that's not a given (I say that would be great). Probably upper 17's. Just my guess (but I'm not a coach or anything and could be way off).

10mpw for 19 and 70 mpw for 17high? Right, maybe if you're endurance is was good enough for equally good prs in all distances.

I ran my first 5k at age 19 in 17.40 having started run about six months earlier. A year later I had run 15.37

What mileage were you running?

My sophomore year of HS, I did track with no previous running experience. My first 1600 was 5:43. Two and a half months later, I ran 4:56. The following track season, I ran 4:39. The season after that (senior year), I ran 4:27. I never did more than 30 mpw during track season. I could have been a helluva lot faster had I understand Lydiard concepts of high mileage.

I'm sure nobody cares, but my 3200 progression was 12:22 (start of sophomore track), 10:42 (end of sophomore track), 10:19 (junior PR), and 9:52 (senior PR).

So basically you can improve a lot in a fairly short amount of time, even with low mileage. Maybe I could have gone 4:15/9:20 if I had put in 70mpw.

about 40mpw I guess - nothing special, a few steady runs and a longer slow run plus maybe one speed session.

Mr. Xeno

Good post

Yes I as well enjoy reading about such improvements.

Nobody knows and nobody can tell you with any degree of accuracy whatsoever

I started running at 36 and the first 5k was 24:14. 6 months later i was into the 18's. It took two more years to get into the 16's.