Feasibility of breaking 5 min in mile for aging jogger

highhoppingworm wrote:

Given 19 min/5:40 when you were younger on not a lot but still some training I am going to go with it is going to be tough. Not impossible but I suspect you are going to have to work very very hard to get down close to 5 minutes.

Do you have any sense for how fast you could go out and run a 200 or 400 right now? If you can hit 63-65 for a 400 you have a much better shot than 65+

Nope, definitely could not run a 65 second quarter. I think I could go under 70 seconds, but probably not by much.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

In physical terms going faster is about creating more force at each step, regardless of cadence. This depends on the sustainable energetic processes in the muscles. Different training can give improvement of this. For aging runners or for runners not yet reaching their potential, all abilities is needed.

Research show that even runners at an elite level can improve racing times with strength, plyo and sprint work. Hill sprints have shown to give such an improvement by itself so just progressing to doing say 10x10-20s hill sprints twice a week can efficiently give the needed capacity building. This is as a complement to other workouts, not instead of

Thanks for sharing the encouragement (previous post) and the suggestions. You've motivated me to incorporate more strength training.

kmaclam wrote:

age-wise you're fine, got another 7 -10 years where this is doable. As noted, not easy. Maybe hook up with a running group/club in the area that does track workouts once/week? If you do all your running solo, might help to run with at least 1 other occasionally to get you out of your comfort zone.

Excellent suggestion!

Oof. You're way more of a runner than me, and hearing your account is a bit discouraging. But good on you for going for it, and good on you for turning in those solid 5k times in your 40s.

Thanks to all posters. So much good advice and perspective here.

Unfortunately, I'm embarrassingly technologically inept for an (old) Millennial and didn't properly quote in my first replies to some of your posts - so please excuse the repeated responses from me.

joggingfinnOP wrote:

Nope, definitely could not run a 65 second quarter. I think I could go under 70 seconds, but probably not by much.

Then lack of 400 speed is a problem if you are to break 5 in the mile.

You could be very aerobically strong like the 17:10 5 k poster and still not have enough speed to break 5.

You have to improve two weaknesses at the same time, speed and endurance.

Ideally, one would want to break the 5 barrier as a 12 year old (7th grader) or younger. But it's never too late. I don't know how old one can be, probably 60

joggingfinnOP wrote:

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

In physical terms going faster is about creating more force at each step, regardless of cadence. This depends on the sustainable energetic processes in the muscles. Different training can give improvement of this. For aging runners or for runners not yet reaching their potential, all abilities is needed.

Research show that even runners at an elite level can improve racing times with strength, plyo and sprint work. Hill sprints have shown to give such an improvement by itself so just progressing to doing say 10x10-20s hill sprints twice a week can efficiently give the needed capacity building. This is as a complement to other workouts, not instead of

Thanks for sharing the encouragement (previous post) and the suggestions. You've motivated me to incorporate more strength training.

Great ! Research has shown different things. First, heavy strength + plyos are better than just one or the other. Then also hill sprinting shows same results as plyos. So it could be that just some heavy strength + hill sprints takes you efficiently very far

I think as you age you need to maintain leg strength and turnover much more. For your goal I'd say do a hill session one or 2 times a week, and lots of strides and a few drills (hops, jumps etc) after any easy days. What you must not do is lots of slow long shuffling, you'll just turn into one of the million middle aged ultra shufflers out there.

Don't ever be discouraged, remember everyone is different and you are not him. You'll do it fine, have fun bro.

Certainly an extra 10mpw would help but what you really need is hard running. Just the basics. An LT run of 3-4 miles a week and an interval day with 300-400 intervals as the bread and butter repeats, but distances ranging between 200-1000 for the repeats. It’ll feel horrible for awhile because speed comes slowly when you age.

I have a little experience trying to break the barrier again.

I ran in HS and got injured my freshman year of college. My mile PR back in the day was 4:21 and I only ran about 30mpw in HS, so I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to run sub-5 when I was 31 and has been running about 20-30mpw for a year or so again. But getting back the speed took awhile. Just anything faster than about 5:30 pace felt like a sprint for awhile. It really took some dedicated repeat days to get comfortable at higher speeds. I was able to break 5 again though, and now I have made it a fun goal to see if I can break 5 each year around my birthday. We’ll see how far I can go. But don’t be discouraged if 75 second quarters fee all out for awhile. You’ll get it back.