Can I run faster at 34 than 17?

I am 400 / 800 slow man - forgot to register my account and preferred this username.

This is my first week of decent training, without being quite where I'm building to yet:

Mon: 10k easy

Tue: 10k easy

Wed: 11k easy plus upper body weights

Thur: 10k easy, including 6*150m hill repeats

Fri: 11k easy plus lower body weights

Sat: Will be rest

Sun: Will be a 5km tempo, aiming for 20 or under, depending on soreness from the weights. Will also have 5km easy. Will just do 10km easy if soreness prevents the tempo.

The hills felt slow but good, if that makes any sense - I hadn't slept much, was very sore from the weights, and was running them at 7am after finishing the gym at 1030pm the night before. Still got some good repeats in. Hoping I'll adapt to the gym in a month or so so it doesn't destroy too many harder sessions.

Will see what next week brings!

Thanks for the kind words!

Question for sprinters/mid-d folk:

Did strides for the first time in a while the day before yesterday, 6*100m. Not sprinting, but hard (maybe 400m pace). Ran 6 miles easy the next day with no complaints.

Can feel slight tightness in hamstrings walking around today, but it's minor. Was planning on hill repeats tonight.

I don't know whether to do it or not (or, if not, what else to do) - I have no idea if slightly tight hamstrings is a normal part of speed training that you just have to work through.

Should I try the hill repeats, just do a slow run, or rest?

1) 400m pace is sprinting. The 400m is the longest sprint there is

2) It's totally normal to have your hamstring be sore from sprinting. I found that it's hard to make my hamstrings ache doing longer distance training, but it's not so hard with short reps and weights.

3) Only you can decide if it's worth it. A little soreness and tightness is pretty much guaranteed when you're training for sport. Is it just regular sore? Or does something feel "off" about it?

Thank you. That's the trouble, I have no idea if it's regular sore or if something feels off. Even when I was training really hard in the last 10y (which I would often do), it was always distance stuff, loads of really hard tempo runs, etc. I haven't regularly sprinted since I was 18, so I don't know if what I'm feeling is normal.

Basically I can feel it slightly when walking, but it's not painful. I walked a few meters lifting my foot up to my bottom to mimic a hard run, and it felt like your bicep does if you do light weights for a few reps - tired, but not any kind of sharp pain.

I suspect it's totally fine but I have zero way of actually knowing.

Here's an idea. Give it a try, but progress the reps. Warm up. Do some drills. Do your first hill repeat at a pace barely faster than an easy run. Feel fine? Do your second rep a little bit faster. Keep going. IDK how many you were planning on doing, but I've done a lot of workouts like this. Just get a bit faster every rep until you can't get any faster. If you get a few reps in and it feels truly "off," then call it and take a few easy days until it feels better.

Just following up, one of my favorite double-workout days for mid-distance training was this:

AM: 4xmile @ threshold, getting a bit faster every rep, 90s rest. Medium effort and controlled.

PM: 8-10x150m hill w/ jog back, getting faster every rep. I start at something like 3k or mile effort. The goal is to run 10ish reps. The last 2 reps should get a solid anaerobic burn going, but this shouldn't leave you on the ground, dying, gasping for breath.

Many thanks - going to do the repeats but start slowly, as you advised.

Once I've got myself to running the weekly schedule I want for a month or so, I'll go to the track and time-trial 400m to see where I am.

Thanks so much for this. Did exactly what you said and ended up running 10*175 hill strides without pain. Great workout.

Update on training this week:

Mon: 5*175m hills very hard (aiming for 10 but misjudged effort). Felt like 400m effort. Walk back to start for rest.

Tue: Failed tempo - 1.5mi starting 6:30 pace and slowing throughout, aiming for 3mi. Clearly 6:30 is too fast for my current fitness – will aim for 6:40 from now on. 6*100m hard strides afterwards.

Wed: 10k easy, gym (upper body).

Thur: 10*175 hills – good workout. Walk back to start for rest.

Fri: 10k easy, gym (upper body).

Sat: Rest.

Sun: Failed tempo – 2.5 miles just over 7:00 (aiming for 3mi at 6:40). Then half a mile of 20s hard stride, 40s shuffle jog. Definitely affected by too many drinks at a friend’s memorial!

Total = about 38 miles.

Other notes: Very sore from lifting in the previous week until Wednesday – but no soreness from the subsequent gym sessions, so that’s a great sign. The tempo runs are discouraging, but it often happens when I’m coming back. Usually a couple of months of solid training gets me to running 3mi tempos at just under 6:20/mi, so hopefully it’ll come down quickly. Aiming for 3mi at 6:40 pace for a first step. The strides/speed feel amazing – fast and
smooth – but I don’t know how fast they are.

OK, I've found several open 800m races. I'll race 3 to 5 times throughout July and August depending on logistics. Obviously, I won't be as fast as I would have been with more time to train, but I don't really have anything to lose - I want to train for something.

Following are the goals, in ascending order of ambition:

Racing them all without injury or mentally cracking in a race

Sub 2:25

Sub 2:22 (my old best from age 17)

Sub 2:20 (would be absolutely over the moon with this)

I'll run a time trial probably in 3 weeks to get a sense of where I am.

I am in a similar situation, trained for one month, 30 mpw, fitting runs in as my schedule allowed for at the age of 30 and was able to run a 5k in 19:00. My PR in high school was 16:30. I am almost certain, if I were able to avoid injury, I would be much faster within one year training.

If you are athletic at all as a man, you can "peak" physically in your early 30s. This is probably because we didnt train in our college years so our fitness peaks at the end of highschool, stagnates for the next 5-10 years and then starts back up whenever you decide to resume training. We are actually fully grown at this point and able to perform at a higher level than our high school selves.

This is my case at least. Im sure there are plenty of fat slobs who will basically just continue to get worse and worse physically until an early death.

This week:

Mon: 10*175m hill in 34-35s throughout, walk to start recovery = 6.8mi

Tue: 3.75mi recovery

Wed: Alactic speed session as suggested by 'possibly' - 4*100m strides at about 800m pace to get legs moving, then 4*40m sprint. 3.25mi total

Thur: 2.5mi tempo around 6:50-55 pace - aiming for 6:40 pace but speed fell off after good first mile. Finished with about 5 100m strides approx 800m pace. 6.2mi total.

Fri: Gym (full body, very hard), 4.5mi easy

Sat: 5.5mi VERY slow (90s/mi slower than normal easy pace) - legs sore from gym, which shortened stride and slowed me down

Sun: 5.5mi easy

Total = 35 miles

Seems like I have to accept that my tempo pace is 7:00/mi, which is annoying. I feel very fast sprinting. The hill is about 4% gradient on average (it gets steeper, then shallower), so the session is probably about equivalent to 10*200m in 34-35s off 2m30s walk on the track.

Going to run the hill session, the short speed session, the tempo, and a hard gym session this week, with the rest easy running. I'm racing 400m on July 2nd and 800m on July 5th, so I'll judge what to target then. If I can get under 65s for the 400m, then that's something I can work with. I'll aim to go through the first lap maybe 7s slower than whatever I run for the 400m.

Good training this week, but will post tomorrow once last run is done. Got 400m race on Tue 2nd July and 800m race on Fri 5th July. How does this look for the taper:

Mon 24th = easy, approx 5mi
Tue 25th = tempo plus strides = 7.5mi. MAYBE gym, but might be best to leave it
Wed 26th = easy, approx 5mi
Thur 27th = track session, maybe 5*200m at 800m pace/2m rest = 3.75mi roughly
Fri 28th = easy, 5.5mi
Sat 29th = short easy, strides = 4mi
Sun 30th = short easy = 3.75mi

Total = 35mpw

Then Monday 1st will be rest.

Questions are whether the gym session on Tue is worth it, as it seems to take 3-4 days to fully recover from this at the moment, and what the Thur track session should be. If I was only racing 800m I'd just do a few 200s at goal pace, but since I'm also racing 400m, I'm not sure if I should throw in some faster stuff as well, to get used to the pace.

This week:

Mon: 5.5mi easy

Tue: Tempo - 3mi 6:45 pace. ~ 3:15, 3:19, 3:23, 3:29, 3:23, 3:19 for half splits. Expecting the pace to come down as I learn to push more in the middle mile and start slower. Also 4*100m strides before and 6*100m strides after. 6.5mi total.

Wed: 5.5mi easy

Thur: Alactic speed - 4*100m strides, then 4*40m sprints. Gym (full body). 4.2mi total

Fri: 5.5mi easy

Sat: 3mi recovery

Sun: 7*175m hills very hard - arms seemed to turn into cinder blocks, was just focussing on good form. Could indicate a poor ability to buffer lactic acid, which will be a problem in races, or could just be sore from gym. 5.2mi total

Total = 35 miles.

Last week of solid training is next week, before races start the following week. No idea what to expect there.

You shouldn't be sore from lifting. You will get more benefit and no soreness if you do the correct number of reps for each weight. Lifting past the point of fatigue is counter productive.

Thanks. Don't know as much about lifting as I do about running, so would be unsurprised if I'm making some kind of mistake there.