Whatever you choose, at least stay in touch with speed year round. As one poster mentioned, 6-8 x 6-8 seconds short hill sprints, as well as strides at least twice a week. Plyos and strength training is also important at our age. There is no turning back time, but moving explosively will at least help slow the decay. Good luck!
How did you get in 19min shape BEFORE the first year of training? Or did you mean before training for this goal specifically? If you want to building mileage without intervals, do as you say but make two 20 min runs a week comfortably hard (one of which can include hills that you push a bit on, up and over), and a long run of an 1 hour (also hilly but not too much) with easy jogging in between and some strides afterwards. Once you get to the desired mileage, do a 5k time trial once every month and work with that as your current race pace for intervals. Do 6x800m intervals a bit faster than current race pace with 90 sec rest and 4 x 1200 at current race pace also with 90 sec rest and replace the long run with a 5k tt at 90% or just over current pace every week with a decent warm up and cool down. You can keep some strides after easy runs like 6 x 100m basically sprinting but not all out (faster than 800 pace but not faster than 400m estimated pace and with almost full recovery walk back) In between do 1 hour easy without a care for distance and never getting out of breath, with at least one rest day of no running per week. Consider taking an entire week off once or even twice every year after 6 months to avoid cumulative fatigue or burnout; you won't lose fitness (and don't do something radically different and intense during that time as you are likely to get injured). If you want to add light cross training/weights, go for it. Get you blood tests to check for levels of iron, magnesium, etc. During the one week of the month when you race, you can adjust the schedule to taper and recover. Eat and sleep well, and don't push through pain as in injury related. See how that goes. Adjust as needed and keep it interesting and as fun as possible. Ensure that your shoes are the best for your running gait and pay attention to and don't neglect other aspects of your life as everything affects everything else. Keep in mind that having a singular goal of this magnitude run the risk of depression if one is too rigid, get a setback, and also after attaining that goal. Always have something to look forward to during and afterwards. That's my suggestion. Some distances and times mentioned are also just suggestions; find out what you are most adaptive to rather than copying anyone or this advice. If not practical or possible please ignore.
How did you get in 19min shape BEFORE the first year of training? Or did you mean before training for this goal specifically? If you want to building mileage without intervals, do as you say but make two 20 min runs a week comfortably hard (one of which can include hills that you push a bit on, up and over), and a long run of an 1 hour (also hilly but not too much) with easy jogging in between and some strides afterwards. Once you get to the desired mileage, do a 5k time trial once every month and work with that as your current race pace for intervals. Do 6x800m intervals a bit faster than current race pace with 90 sec rest and 4 x 1200 at current race pace also with 90 sec rest and replace the long run with a 5k tt at 90% or just over current pace every week with a decent warm up and cool down. You can keep some strides after easy runs like 6 x 100m basically sprinting but not all out (faster than 800 pace but not faster than 400m estimated pace and with almost full recovery walk back) In between do 1 hour easy without a care for distance and never getting out of breath, with at least one rest day of no running per week. Consider taking an entire week off once or even twice every year after 6 months to avoid cumulative fatigue or burnout; you won't lose fitness (and don't do something radically different and intense during that time as you are likely to get injured). If you want to add light cross training/weights, go for it. Get you blood tests to check for levels of iron, magnesium, etc. During the one week of the month when you race, you can adjust the schedule to taper and recover. Eat and sleep well, and don't push through pain as in injury related. See how that goes. Adjust as needed and keep it interesting and as fun as possible. Ensure that your shoes are the best for your running gait and pay attention to and don't neglect other aspects of your life as everything affects everything else. Keep in mind that having a singular goal of this magnitude run the risk of depression if one is too rigid, get a setback, and also after attaining that goal. Always have something to look forward to during and afterwards. That's my suggestion. Some distances and times mentioned are also just suggestions; find out what you are most adaptive to rather than copying anyone or this advice. If not practical or possible please ignore.
Hi!
I didn’t actually train into 19-minute 5K shape. That’s just my natural fitness level. I ran it as a time trial about a month and a half ago, after almost 3 years of no running at all. Here’s the proof: https://ibb.co/HT5pGtVv It was definitely an all-out effort — went out way too hard on the first km and got slower each one after that. 😅 Also did a 10K in 40:32
Hello everyone! A small update. Today's the fourth day of my journey toward (hopefully) running 15:30 for 5,000m in August 2027.
My plan through the end of 2025 is mainly to build mileage gradually up to 30–35 miles per week (48–56 km). From January 2026, I’ll start doing sub-threshold work and then from March to early May 2026, I’ll add "true" threshold and VO₂max sessions. My first race is planned to be a 10K road race on May 9, 2026, with a goal of running around 35:xx. By that time, I also hope to drop about 11 lbs (~5 kg).
So far, my sessions look like this:
Day 1–2: 15 min easy runs to get started again.
Day 3: 20 min AM + 20 min PM.
Day 4: 25 min AM + 25 min PM
I live in a very cold climate, with temperatures currently around 2–6 °C (36–43 °F). Once winter hits, I’ll be dealing with snow and temps around –5 to –10 °C (14–23 °F), so outdoor running will get tricky. That said, I’ll take my business indoors to the gym once it gets rough outside. I plan to use the treadmill for my runs and mix in cross-training on the rower and elliptical to keep up aerobic volume without overloading the legs.
I’m keeping the runs comfortable...well it feels so at least, but I suspect my pace might still be too fast. Here are my splits from today’s afternoon run (5.3 km):
km Pace (min/km) Pace (min/mile)
1 4:39 7:29
2 4:43 7:36
3 4:42 7:35
4 4:45 7:39
5 4:35 7:23
+380 m 4:34 7:21
So overall, about 4:40 min/km (≈ 7:31 min/mile) average.
Another thing is that I have a naturally high max HR (208 bpm).
Today I averaged 166 bpm, which is roughly 80 % of max HR.
This was about 2½ hours after a heavy meal, and the cold could also have bumped it up.
My question is do you guys think I’m running these sessions too fast, considering the main goal right now is simply building mileage and aerobic base?