Wow, thanks for the advice. I think I might be running my easy runs a little to hard and I do need to put in a little extra mileage. I'm also thinking of possibly getting a pacer for a race so I can keep my self on track when i'm falling off a little bit...By the way, I'm a girl not a guy, hence the name girlyrunnr
Well, my daughter now runs sub 19 regularly, but she is all engine, just 10 years old. She did clip over thirty seconds off her time after the pediatrician told her to increase her calories and gain some weight. The ice cream and Mom's spaghetti went straight to glycogen rocket fuel everyone craves, and gets turned to fat if not burned. (Trust me, you will burn it on a 5K).
Also, she tells me she picks out some unlucky guy (who is slightly faster than her) and shadows him, letting him break the wind, wonder who's behind him, etc., so he runs even faster, pressuring her to keep up, and at the last klick pull around him so he's prodded into throttling up before he's ready to sprint, which makes her ramp up and try to keep her spot.
She has never run more than 5K, but this is a killer tactic, and has the high school girls' cross country team avoiding her. Her current PR is 18:05 for a 5K.
Keep it up, and like a good distance cyclist (about to ride a century), load up on the pasta the night before a race (well, be reasonable in the amounts), and watch the times drop.