At What Point Do You Just Accept You're Not Fast?

Probably not but do you have a coach?

No I don't have a coach.

I think it's just one of those things. Some women are fat and have to work really hard to be thin. I'm really skinny, always have been. Can eat whatever. But I'm slow when it comes to running. A lot of women who train as much as I do will be faster than me. I suppose I could always run more miles and be competitive with them, but it seems crazy to me that I need to run more than 40 mpw to be able to run a 6:30 mile. Other women do it on 20-30 mpw.

Starting in you late 20s is a serious limiter. Most of the good runners you are comparing yourself with probably ran in HS and College. They have trained harder and for much longer than you. Not that they necessarily do now, but once you've run some good times, those are possible for the mind and body. They also learned to train thru coaching and experimentation. If you dedicated yourself in the same way a college athlete does, you might find your true potential. But having a job, family, house, etc. is another serious limiting factor.

Not suggesting you should dedicate yourself that much, just noting that there may be differences in more than just talent. Circumstances, experience, dedication matter. But so does talent. The reality is that very few people besides you care unless you are a national champions type runner. There is always someone faster on a given day, even if you are the Olympic Champ. Enjoy running. Enjoy the process and the personal benefits. Improve for your own fun and satisfaction.

what's your training like at the moment?

Join a local club or get a coach. It can't do any harm.

Pretty much no matter how good you are there will always be people who are better than you, always people that make you think to yourself "wow, he/she is so talented. I'll never be that good." The thing is, they're thinking the same thing about the people who are better than them. If you want to really enjoy the sport and reach your potential, you can't let this type of thinking get to you. Instead you need to take pride in how good you are now; take pride in how hard you've had to work to get to where you are; take pride in how much you've improved and how far you've come; think about all the people who used to beat you, but now you beat them like it's nothing; most of all, enjoy the journey, the constant pursuit of self-betterment. Maybe someday you will be able to run 6:30 pace, but even if you never do, at least you enjoyed the ride.

Like others said get a coach. The problem is finding one who will be competent and tailor a program to what you need at different times in your development. Most important of all is run with people that are better than you. I was a collegiate athlete but I suck now because I have no one to train with (mostly because of my demanding career).

The way I have started improving is running more workouts. Start out with repetition training and interval training. The workouts don't need to be grueling just a change of pace.

Some I have been doing: 3 miles + 10 X 200 (mile race pace with 1 minute rest) + 3 miles; 3 miles + 4 X 800 (5k race pace with 2 minutes rest) + 2 miles

Tempo runs were a staple when I was in college, but I find the fast stuff is helping me get back better.

Just a disclaimer: I use to run 90 mpw and most of my workouts were 6 miles in length so where I am at now pails in comparision.

What's your speedwork like, and what do you reckon you could run a 400 in? Do you actually do "sprints" i.e. 100s, 200s, and shorter, or something longer like 800s? Since you got a relatively late start, you might need to spend more time working on actually sprinting (ideally 100s or shorter in my opinion) and doing drills to improve your mechanics - improving knee drive, quickening turnover, etc. I'm sure you could strongly improve your base speed with the right specific training and you should find carryover into the longer distances - but keep in mind that speed doesn't come overnight.

It's also important what race distance you were running those 7:15's for. If that was for a marathon that's really not bad, but for a 5k that could imply that your base 400/mile speed isn't that quick. Not that you need 59 400 speed to crack 20 in a 5k, but if it were around 1:30, that'd definitely give a direction for where your "limit" lies and what you could focus on.

In line with improving your speed look in high weight, low rep lifts. Squatting and dead lifting would help with your speed and help prevent overuse injuries. Also your butt will get tighter.

When the horribly unhealthy, out-of-shape, beefcake male passes you on the home stretch. Nothing bruises the ego quite like that experience.

discouraged wrote:

Other women do it on 20-30 mpw.

The fast runners always tell everybody how little they run because they don't want the slower runners to train as hard as they do and beat them. They're probably hammering out 60 mile weeks.

Ha! my husband has been telling me to do weight training and squats. I haven't done any type of resistance training.

And 7-8 is my pace for a 5k and 10k. I've never done a marathon but I'm guessing if I did basic training (ie: 15-20 mile long runs) I could probably finish around 3:45.

no matter what you can be pretty good without talent. That's the nice thing about running. But to be FAST you need talent.

As a women you'll never run sub 18 5k without some kick*ss genetics, let alone Dibaba's world record 14:11 5k.

discouraged wrote:

Ha! my husband has been telling me to do weight training and squats. I haven't done any type of resistance training.

And 7-8 is my pace for a 5k and 10k. I've never done a marathon but I'm guessing if I did basic training (ie: 15-20 mile long runs) I could probably finish around 3:45.

Do short ( 10-15 second ) hill runs 1 time per week. Develop your sprint speed. Pick up Brad Hudson's book, good insight on training.

Vanilla Bean wrote:

Do short ( 10-15 second ) hill runs 1 time per week. Develop your sprint speed. Pick up Brad Hudson's book, good insight on training.

Just curious how many reps should she be looking at? 6? Full recovery no doubt.

Halfway through Junior year. Of high school.

Full recovery, start at 4 build up to 10. If you have 45 minutes , 30 minute should be a good full warmup , running and drills. then 15 minutes for the hill set.

Some people can't run fast so the advice to "run fast" when doing speedwork is kind of pointless.

There is no denying that what may feel like sprinting to some is just jogging to the talented.

If you go to the track and sprint as if your life depends on it once a week and nothing much happens, you don't have ANY inherent speed.

This is such a great response, I just have to quote it for emphasis. bigtool hit the nail on the head.

Speed is all relative, unless you're the best in the world. I just broke 15:00 for the 5k and 4:00 for the 1500 this season, which were major goals I've dreamed of for awhile now. It made me incredibly happy. To some people, that's really fast, but it's relatively. But whoop-dee-do, who cares? if I raced Jenny Barringer at a mile, there's a 50/50 chance she'd come out on top. My odds are even worse against Molly Huddle in the 5k. And let's forget about racing anybody named Dibaba over any distance.

Point being: If I cared about being fast, it would be kind of pathetic to work as hard as I do and not even be better than our country's best women. But I don't care. Setting reachable goals and attaining them makes me happier than you can imagine. So keep working at it. Set goals. Work towards them. There is joy in the journey.