15:50 5K PB- How much faster will increasing mileage make me?

more mileage would probably help your marathon and half for sure, but be sure to have some tempo and long interval in there too.

speaking from experience from my own half race; more mileage at your level probably wouldn't help your 5k very much, and it would maybe help a little more your 10k

so you're gonna have to chose which race you want to get better at (5k/10k, or half/full marathon) because in my and my teammates experience it's really difficult to try to get better at both at the same time

best of luck!

Make me faster wrote:

Info:

- 33yo

-15:50 5K PB, 33:09 10K....longer races close (1:15:35, 2:45 marathon)

Current overall plan when training:

- 50 miles/week with 2 speed sessions (4-7K of work), 1 LR

- I'll throw in half marathon paced tempos in the LR every other week or so

- I know increasing mileage will improve marathon and half time...my endurance sucks..

- if I get up to the 80-100mile range, how much faster will those longer races get? AND will those shorter races also improve?

Looking for people who have competed at this level, then took a chance with increasing mileage and saw the impact. I don't have a lot of time in my week, and I'm not sure I want to take the risk...unless I can be convinced that the potential is there!

Listen to Canova's video in another thread on this board and you will understand it is not just an increase in mileage that will make you faster but an increase in volume of high intensity work.

I dropped a good chunk of time in my 5k time when I jumped from running 20-30 mpw to consistently running 50-70 mpw.

My PR went from sub 16 at age 17 to mid 1530s at age 19 after just under 2 months of higher mileage. At the same time my workouts became longer and faster. I was typically running my mileage a lot slower. I ended up coming through 5k during my 8k about 10-15 secs faster than my previous PR. For me I was probably around 15 flat shape after the jump but only ran the one 5k during the high mileage stint.

So yes higher mileage works. A friend of mine was a lot slower than me in high school but started running 90 mpw in college and 120+ post collegiately and is now running sub 65 for half and sub 2:19 for the marathon. I think his high school pr was around 17 minutes.

You are a very solid runner. You are 33years old. This is a critical data point. The 17 to 19 year old example does not apply to you because that kid would have gotten faster anyway. You are fighting an uphill battle from now on and in your late 30s your PRs are likely over. I'm not being a doomsayer, but trying to be realistic.

In my experience, increasing mileage while maintaining a reasonable level on intensity will make you better at all distances and you will trend better at longer distances. However, you are already pretty decent across distances. With more mileage, you might expect a sub 2:40 Marathon and maybe even 2:35 but probably not a sub 2:30. Your 5k might come down 15-30sec. But won't become a different runner (ie. not suddenly national class). Also know that you will be very tired and your free time will be almost totally consumed by running, recovery and managing injuries at 90mi/wk. If those types of gains are worth your effort, go for it and love it.

For reference: I am late 40s, still a decent runner on 40mi/wk, ran D1 in college (avg 80mi/wk), kept good mileage and intensity through 20s, less miles since then. On lowering the mileage, the drop was not as drastic as I thought it would be (

You can drop 13.7 seconds if you increase your mileage!

your weekly mileage and workout long run layout is identical to mine. You should most certainly improve if you increase your mileage. Definitely raise it gradually though. if you can make 60 per week your new normal awesome. You could continue raising it that way to the degree you can handle. Just don't jump into 80-100 right away.

Just be mindful if it feels like you are getting diminishing returns on the mileage.

50 and 60 mpw seem to be the highest amounts of weekly mileage you can do without being more consistently tired/stressed out with training. Everything from there up takes more attention to detail with recovery and injury prevention, also time management.

also just curious about when you started running/if you ran in high school or college. could kind of give us a better idea of your talent/ability and your ceiling.

- All good points. The time, energy, injury management will be a challenge.

- ran in highschool, hitting low 17 high 16 5Ks and 4:19 1500 (training was definitely less than optimal, no logs so no exact idea what exactly I did) college I competed 1 year at the 33 10K level off of that 50miles/week type plan, and then focused on school and other sports while staying in 36 10K shape

- All of those PBs are from the last 3 years when I picked it up again and started building on that 36K 10K base that I always maintained off of 20-30miles/week and other sports

Ryan is that you ?

It is Donut Dan

If this mileage is fairly typical of your entire career then you probably have some untapped potential.

If you're going to go much higher then the first thing I'd do would be to simply add a second 4-6 mile run a couple of days a week - don't worry about pace, just get out there and run comforably without over analysing it. Some days you'll feel good, other days you won't. All it takes is getting up a bit earlier a couple of mornings a week.

You might be surprised by the results.

Try, say, 3 months of this see how things are going. If you're seeing improvements then, happy days, you can think about what to do to improve further.

Your 1/2 and marathon times are way slower than your 5/10. So it seems you may lack speed endurance so I think a shift to focusing on more race pace speed would help.

I ran 15:5# at age 43 off of mileage closer to 80 per week. Then bumped it up to 90~105 range for a fall marathon. Ran a 2:32 on a rolling course in the rain, with a 72 half tune up leading up in the weeks before. The big miles give you that strength that makes you feel bullet proof on a good day, even in iffy conditions. Obviously, not everyone has the same degree of speed versus endurance, but lactate threshold is quite trainable and putting in bigger miles will build a bigger engine. It’d be really weird if you didn’t go faster across the board as a result of a jump from 50 to 80 mpw.

I can't answer your question, as I've never run that type of mileage. However, I wanted to give a slightly different perspective anyway. I'm 38, and while I've been running for 25 years, the running bug has bit me hard recently. I think it's just that my kids have gotten a bit older so I have a little more time. In any case, I would LOVE to be 33 again. As another poster noted, it's not as good as being 19, but it's still young. You can go for it now, or next year or the year after, or you can never go for it. I say go for it! It won't be long before your chance to really run fast is behind you.

Make me faster wrote:

Info:

- 33yo

-15:50 5K PB, 33:09 10K....longer races close (1:15:35, 2:45 marathon)

Current overall plan when training:

- 50 miles/week with 2 speed sessions (4-7K of work), 1 LR

- I'll throw in half marathon paced tempos in the LR every other week or so

- I know increasing mileage will improve marathon and half time...my endurance sucks..

- if I get up to the 80-100mile range, how much faster will those longer races get? AND will those shorter races also improve?

Looking for people who have competed at this level, then took a chance with increasing mileage and saw the impact. I don't have a lot of time in my week, and I'm not sure I want to take the risk...unless I can be convinced that the potential is there!

My advice to you, first check what you can do with exact individual paces. Do you really use the best paces for you? Is there the best balance in your weekly program? If you don`t know how to check just Contact me if you want to. Im on Facebook or Twitter. My PR:s are 14.20/29.51 at 5 k / 10 k.

I think age is less of a factor than you're making it out to be. Eliud Kipchoge is very likely 40 years old, and his best years have been from 2015-now. With an extra emphasis on recovery, I think runners in their early 30s can continue to improve all the way into their late 30s.

The bigger issue here, in my opinion, is the big jump up in miles. Going from 50 a week to 80-100 a week is a process that should take several years. Jumping into it will likely lead to injury or burnout. I think OP would see improvements hitting 55-60 per week consistently while maintaining the same intensity,

You have several characteristics that are similar to me, for example, your age, mileage and PRs. I reset a bunch of PRs (for example, 15:40 down to 15:20) at age 34 by following a program similar to what Danny Henderson did for training. Here's a link to a six week block of his training:

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/TrainingLogs/dhenderson83.htm

Obviously, I never ran the paces he ran but I calculated the equivalent for someone of my level. Interestingly, a significant portion of his work fell somewhere between Daniels' T pace and I pace. I never found the training boring, the rests were always too short! All of the workouts felt progressive and as soon as it started to 'hurt', it was time to shut it down and recover for the next workout that was sometimes the very next day. Overall, I believe the reason I improved is that I simply increased the overall intensity in an already moderate volume program. On 'off' days I would sometimes just run 6 x 400m progressive with 15-20s rest breaks in the middle of a run. This worked for me and I suggest that the OP, or anyone else, give it a try for 6-8 weeks.

To add, I would call the intermediate pace between 'T' pace and 'I' pace, well, 'D' pace.

Awesome thanks for the feedback team! Definitely motivational just reading this and dreaming about it.

Bottom line I think the answer is- 100miles will almost definitely make my half and full faster, MAYBE my 5K faster, and there's a moderate risk of getting injured, too tired, and hating life. Which combo of the above occurs and to what degree..trial and error will be the only to know for sure!