My Journey From a 17:30 5K to a 15:30K. Follow along, contribute, bash, or just ignore.

Great plan. That is everything you need in order to progress. You just need to increase volume, which is your plan.

Your plan is not too far off from my plan, but I'm 44, with a focus on becoming a 17min 5k runner. I get faster every year, and I have been running since I was 19, but I just started getting into racing and doing serious run training 3 years ago.

So far, I'm having a nice running season, and I have added racing the 1500m/1600/mile events as speed training for longer distances.

Also, there is no such thing as too old. An 85 year old runner just beat Ed Whitlock's mile record by running 6:20 something I believe. At some of the mile races that I do, there are 50 year olds who run low 4s and 5s.

As long as you keep the mind and body right, you can run fast for a very long time. Your fast may dip, but more of an age like wine type of dipping, where you will still run with solid speed.

Just here to give you my best! I'm 28, never ran in HS or College and have about the same goal as you minus my current best is 17:45. Off an on seriousness and never consistantly have ran more than 30 to 40 mpw. Took a long break over the winter but am getting serious this year . working on base at the moment and hope to get down there with quality workouts with meaning, consistency, and some hard work!

Good luck man! I'm 32 and sort of in the same boat, only I'm just at the start of trying to make a comeback. I will follow this with interest, and will hopefully be able to share some training ideas and maybe learn a thing or two.

Thank you for the responses so far. This should be fun.

I'll follow along, just moved to a new area with a new job and everything, I want to start again. 17:30 5k/4:40 mile speed guy here, I want to finally put in the work and change my awful 5k time. Welcome to the motivation club.

I will post here just so i will forever be on the front page. I am going for the PIAA cross country and to win there in AA.

Good luck man, we're almost in the same boat except your previous PR was much faster. I'm 32, just started running more seriously April 2016. Went from a 19:20 to 17:20 runner in about 10 months. Lifetime PR prior to starting back up last April was 18:30 in high school. Would love to be sub 16 in the next couple of years if possible.

Your plan looks great. As mentioned already, the your planned volume increase, alone, will make a big difference, barring injury. Is your weight a factor? Added mileage would help there, too.

My PR from my youth is identical to yours. But, I waited too long to get serious again. In my 40s I went for what I thought was a modest goal of sub-17. I consistently ran 17:30 early in the training, but only managed 17:10 after two years. Age is a tough adversary!

At only 32, you can do it! Enjoy the journey!

End of Week 2

Monday: 7 miles easy

Tuesday: 3.8 miles "steady"

Wednesday: 1 mile w/u, 8 x 400m w/ 60 second rests, + 2 x 50yd sprints, + 2 x 80 yd sprints w/ full rest. 79-80 sec for the 400s, 7 sec for 50s, 11 sec for the 80s

Thursday: OFF

Friday: 7 miles easy

Saturday: 7 miles "steady"

Sunday: 11 miles very easy with my wife

Total: 40 miles

Very similar to last week. I may have tweaked my Achilles again on the long run yesterday but hoping it calms down a bit.

I recognize that the biggest challenge on this journey will be just staying healthy. I plan on increasing the mileage at a ridiculously slow pace in light of that.

I'm thinking 55 miles ( weekly) by September and maybe 65 by the end of the calendar year. Crazy to think I'll have to work up to almost DOUBLE the volume I can handle right now by the end of this journey.

Hoping you do well!

Ran 18:53 in HS, then 18:33 a few years back. Hoping to train for the half this fall, so 5k isn't my race anymore. But maybe down the road I'll shoot for sub-18.

It can be done in a short period of time. I was running 2 miles in 19 minutes in July 2008. When I ran my 5k that October I ran an 18:33 at Bowman Cup. That was only 3 months of training!

Right now I started training for the half. I started 2 weeks ago today. I was running 9:50/mi and am down to 9:31/mi with just 2 weeks of base-building and NO speedwork!

Update

Macrocycle 1

Phase 1

Week 3

Monday: 7 miles

Tuesday: 7 miles

Wednesday: 1 mile w/up, 8 x 400m w/60 sec rest + 2 x 80yd + 2x 50yd, 1 mile c/d. 400s (77-80), 80 yds (13 sec), 50yds (7sec)

Thursday: 7 miles

25 miles total

Abbreviated week due to a vacation that the family and I are going to. I'll try to get in at least one run while we're there. I figure that a 2-day break won't kill me, it may actually help. I'm dealing with some nagging issues in my achilles and piriformis that are probably due to the more consistent training I've been putting in.

Some thoughts - I'm noticing during my Wednesday speed workout that I'm having trouble opening up my hips and letting loose at 5:10 pace. I feel pretty tight. Speed is not my cup of tea but that's why I need to focus on that.

I would like to get my 200m split on those 400s to see if I'm slowing down on the second half. I used to be able to run 80s per quarter for my tempo runs but I'm really breathing hard and tightening up in this workout. I definitely need to incorporate more strides at the end of my easy runs and constantly touch on that speed even after phase 1.

I am a little late to this thread, but I like what you are doing here. A couple of questions and thoughts.

Do you intend to keep doing the same repetition workout every week? I like to vary these workouts a little, often starting off and finishing with the same workout so that I can still have a measuring stick of how I progressed over the particular phase of the training cycle, but also to add some variability. For example, I might go with something like 4 x 200; 4 x 400; 4 x 200 one week, 8 x 400 another week, and then 5 x 600 a third week. I would then work my way back to the first workout and see how the two different instances compared. I don't always even look to a change in time as a sign of improvement. It could be that the same workout required a lower perceived effort, or that I produced the same time with the same perceived effort but in worse weather. This same concept of varying the workout but coming back to a core iteration of the workout as a measuring stick would apply to workouts you have planned for other phases as well.

It would be pretty common to see folks include both a lactate threshold and a speed session in the same week. It is hard to tell what you mean when you refer to "steady" pace - is that tempo pace, or just slightly faster than your normal distance pace? Do you think your body could handle two workouts (one tempo, one speed) per week? If not, have you considered maybe stretching your phases out and alternating between a tempo effort one week and a speed session the next? This is the approach I use with my wife since she is afraid that two workouts will result in injury, and I think getting consistent tempo work throughout the entire training cycle might be a big help.

What are you looking to get out of the M paced cycle? Are you just thinking of that as a way to get in long tempo runs? To me, that seems to potentially be the least productive part of your plan.

As to the tempo phase of your plan, see above regarding incorporating a steady diet of tempo work throughout the training cycle.

When you get to the 5k paced intervals, you may want to give some thought to starting with 1000s, then doing 1200s, then 1600s, then back to 1000s to see how the first and last workout compared. I would also give some consideration to stretching that portion of the plan out a couple of more weeks, particularly if you don't like my next and last suggestion.

Your plan doesn't have much race modeling work in it nor does it have any kind of taper phase. While that might be because you intend to do 4 weeks worth of work at your goal race pace in the form of intervals at 5k pace, you still might want to consider adding a couple of workouts toward the very end of each cycle that leave you feeling fresh and mentally ready for race day. You can even keep it short and make it only two weeks long. You might do something like sets of 200 at mile pace, 200 jog, 800 at 5k pace, 200 jog, 200 at mile pace about two weeks out from your race. This has the benefit of an interval workout and it also simulates what usually happens on race day (getting out a little hard, settling in, then digging down to finish). The last track session that I tend to do before a race at the end of a cycle is usually either the 200s/400s workout that I mentioned, or an 8 x 400 workout. I just like feeling fast and in control at the end of a cycle, and I also like doing something a little fast right at the end so that the pace on race day feels relatively manageable as compared to my last workout.

Like I said initially, I like what you are doing and think it is a good plan. I just thought I would add some food for thought.

Smoove, thank you for responding with such thoughtfulness and clarity. I follow your training posts on other threads and it's an honor to have you on board here.

I repeat the same workout during the phase because it is my understanding that physiologically it takes about 4 weeks for the body to adapt to a particular workload or stress. So I'm trying to maximize the gains I can get from that one 8 x 400m workout...which over time I plan on making 10 x 400...12 x 400...etc

But I see your point and will take that into consideration.

I'm also following more of a "linear periodization model" which is why I don't mix tempo and speed in the same week. I know that the recent trend is to go non-linear but it helps simplify the approach for me and sometimes simplicity is mentally easier. I also tend to think that I won't lose much of my ability to run at lactate threshold, for example, if I'm spending time training in other important zones and still running the miles. Am I right about that?

The M-paced cycle is there because in the past those types of workouts have given me lots of strength. I'v run a few marathons under 3 hours and it was the M-pace runs that made me physically and mentally tough. I'm talking about 8, 10, 12, even 16 miles at MP continuous.

I don't have a specific plan for racing which is why I didn't include a taper phase. I feel that with this plan I can jump into any race at any point in the year and still do reasonably well (with a short stint of sharpening for the event or distance as you suggest). I don't have a GOAL RACE because I have no idea how long this project will take. It may take 5 + years to reach sub-16! Crazy, I just hope to stay injury-free.

A few thoughts: I agree about the stimulus taking a few weeks to take hold, but I would say that 4 x 200, 4 x 400, 4 x 200; 8 x 400; and 5 x 600 all introduce the same stimulus for the same purpose (improving running economy), so you can feel confident that you can vary between those workouts while still introducing the same stimulus. You may want to consider dropping the 600m repeats should you decide to go that route though - 2:00 is a long time to maintain mile pace, and if you let your form break down as a result of fatigue, you will action be undermining the purpose of the workout. I would give it a try, but if you do, pay a lot of attention to your form and take more rest if necessary so as to allow yourself to be recovered enough before the next rep such that you're able to hold your form throughout.

I do think you will get some LT stimulus from the other workouts, but it won't be particularly intense stimulus because most of those other workouts will have recovery periods that are of such a length that your body will totally clear any lactic acid in between work bouts, so you really won't get much lactic acid build up other than during the later phases of each individual interval. If I were to pick one of my suggestions as most likely to have the biggest payoff for someone who is doing what you are doing, working in the LT stuff most weeks would be it.

I hear you on the taper, but you may want to pick an intermediate goal race just to have something on the calendar. I am a little bit of a dinosaur in that I came of running age in an era when people raced more weeks than they didn't, so I know I am a little biased here, but I think that you can race yourself into pretty good shape pretty quickly, and nothing prepares you for extended periods of pain like extended periods of pain. Plus, racing is fun and it also gives you a chance to reset your training paces.

If the M pace stuff works for you, have at it. That's definitely the one thing in your cycle I would avoid (especially since your focus is on the 5k and not the marathon), but everyone knows their own body best and just because it doesn't work for me, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

Just curious - why doesn't the M pace stuff work for you?

If you've seen my other posts, you know I'm pretty much a Daniels devotee. Marathonnpace doesn't do anything for you physiologically that easy distance pace would do (strengthen muscles and connective tissue , increase the number of mitochondria, etc.). It isn't fat enough to result in any appreciable lactic acid build up. So the added physiological benefits that I focus on just aren't served at that pace.

Now, some feel that Daniels is too limited on his view and hat there may be other hard to define benefits from running at that pace. We certainly haven't figured out the totality of physiology, and in any event I can't disprove a negative, so I won't say it doesn't have a benefit; but it doesn't have a measurable benefit tied to anything that I personally value.

There are psychological benefits of holding a steady,

Moderately hard pace, for sure. But again, that's not something that I focus on much and, to the extent hat I do focus on mental toughness and focus, I can get that out of my tempo runs and the end of a 4 x 1600 interval workout.

So, for me, there are costs by waybof added stress, but no upside that I value.

Clearly there is something there that you value and that you have found works for you, so I get that you want to keep it in the plan. One question for you though a - why after the rep and tempo work? To me, were I to include m pace work, it would be my first bit of hard running after pure base work and before my rep work. Of course, my tempo work would be peppered in through out, but if it weren't, I'd probably do base, rep, tempo, interval. I might flip flop rep and tempo in that order actually. But I'd definitely start with m if I were going to include it.

Ignore my last question. I see I had the order wrong. That order make sense to me.

before I get too old wrote:

Update

Macrocycle 1

I would like to get my 200m split on those 400s to see if I'm slowing down on the second half.

What do you mean I would like to?

If you don't have a watch with at least the capabilities of 50 lap splits, then stop what you're doing go to your local sporting goods store and pickup a cheap timex.

Click the lap button at the start, 200m, 400m, and end of recovery. 24 splits for an 8 rep workout.