So I am a former soccer player who could do an 4:40 mile and a 18 minute 5k in high school just through training for soccer. From age 21-24 I got incredibly out of shape and I'm now looking to become a fairly competitive runner.
Coming off the couch and being around 35 pounds overweight at age 24 this July I ran a 33 minute 5k. By the end of August I was down to 27 minutes and now I'm down to 24 minutes. I like to have serious goals and want to know with hard work how long it will take to get to under 18 minutes.
In general, my training plan was to build up my mileage by about 10% per week with every 4th week being a rest week until I get to around 80 mpw. I plan on running on grass to help deal with the impact of building this mileage. I would keep my heart rate in zone one/zone two exclusively in order to build miles. The only exception to keeping my heart rate low may be some hill training. Then I would start to mix in threshold and interval runs as prescribed by Daniels' or Lydiard.
What do you think? How long should it take to hit my goal and what should I be doing to get there?