The 5 year curse kinda cursed me as well. More 2 years PRing oh happy days I am not old then a year of darkness followed by 2 more years of PRing.
Wondered through the what went wrong years as most chronically injured runners do.
Found a new form of exercise and put them running shoes away. Told myself all was good and that I really did not enjoy running that much. Da Nile is a mighty river.
Started again funny I always turn to running when going through a stressful life change(worked out). It pumps me up and gives me a pair.
Now I am smiling not sure where this new relationship with running is going to go but I have been able to keep the number one mistake, irrational exuberance ie the old boom bust cycle.
My week well I am doing well and have played put a structure around what I am doing:
7 days in the week equates to 7 efforts with 3 days being hard 7,6,5 followed by 4 days 1,2,3,4 being easy.
7 6 5 1 2 3 4
The hard days are also ordered so the hard efforts go from the most stress to least followed by the easy efforts that go from the least to the most.
The actual workouts can be what ever works for me. Right now these are tempo runs of 15 to 20 minutes for days 7, 6 and 5. The easy days just increase a bit in effort each day as I recover from the hard days.