Sub-5 Minute Mile Every Day for a Month

Dude, you appear to have the most ridiculous and emotionally taxing running career of all time.

I can't remember the last time I had any runs even close to as dramatic as your normal days...

Erase Me,

Can you remember the last time you 18 miles (at a high effort) a day for two months?

I am not trying to knock you, it is a serious question.

If you can, and your regular runs are not dramatic, than you are one tough dude.

Wow Joe. I'd settle for just one sub 5 mile these days. Just curious, how old were you when you first broke 5 and what kind of training was it off of?

Joe Mac wrote:

Can you remember the last time you 18 miles (at a high effort) a day for two months?

I am not trying to knock you, it is a serious question.

Not to knock you but that is idiotic.

I am not sure what the objective is here, or if the goal is anything other than ordinary.

I was a serious Division 1 level runner. I would venture from my high school days (4:08 miler) through all four years of college that most non-injury or illness days included at least one sub five minute mile.

But that really isn't the point. Some of my teammates trained much more intensely (and with more distance) than I did, making, as I say, this objective seem fairly ordinary and not really meaningful.

Looks like I can answer two questions here:

One, I first broke 5 minutes when I was a Sophmore in high school. Up to that point I was running about 30-40 miles per week with lots of speed work.

Then I bumped up to about 80 miles per week when I met a local 2.20 marathoner and saw immediate success.

Then I was running about 100 per week my senior year and my time went from 4.30 (off 80 mpw) to 4.20 and my two mile dropped from 10.10 to 9.30.

In college my freshman year I ran about 80 per week and ran 28.10 on VCP and was well, pretty pissed. I went back to hundred mile weeks and my 5k pr by spring went from 16.20 to 15.30.

From there I continually progressed and when running well over one hundred miles a week, getting up to 147 my 5k pr went down under 15 minutes and my mile still improved as well to 4.17.

Ok so not a big improvement for those short race PB's but by increasing my mileage I was running my shorter stuff faster, and in one year in college I went from 74 minutes for a half (off of about 100 mpw) to 70 minutes for a half (a huge improvement).

I have very little talent, and I have put in a great deal of miles to get my PB'S. When I run I do not even look like anything resembling runner. (Quote from a text I received yesterday: "Ha, ha, if there f***s only knew how terrible you look running 4.20, they'd be even more impressed") So Lockness, you may have better PB's or it may come easier, which is ok, but for me, I have to run, a lot to be remotely average at it. I know there is a Kenyan smiling right now that could probably run a sub five minute mile per day for a decade. That's ok too.

I am not saying you need to run that much lockness, but certainly trying something different might not be such an idiotic idea from time to time, especially if you get some positive results out of it.

good for you! keep us updated

Joe Mac,

You sound like me. I train lots of volume, the right workouts, not cookin' myself on tempos, 8-9 hours rest, etc. and I don't run that fast (15:30, 31:30, 1:10), just keep churnin' it out and believe.

I had a scary thought this week, the more I run, the faster I get.

Thanks man, yea guys like me just keep at it. I know I am not good and my PB's are not impressive. But I make do with what I got and bust my balls everyday. I call it blue collar running. Ha, ha, yea I came to that scary realization too about 4 or 5 years ago...the more I run the better my PB's get.

Keep it up lads. Just keep crackin at it.

It's time for me to head out to Baltimore to grab some dark pints. Maybe I will come up with another great idea tonight.

Probably not.

Hit-Hawk-Pound after each mile. Spice things up a bit.

Dan Jennings....? Is that you? I heard this guy was finishing his sub 5 min mile by running head first into a stop sign.

"if I'm not laying dead on the floor after the race, someone hit me across the face with a board"

Is this the same Joe Mac that was once confused for Martina Navritalova while drinking jungle juice out of a stolen 5 gallon Gatorade vat?

I hope Joe is not out getting drunk tonight, he's going to have a hard time running a sub 5 minute mile tomorrow if he's got 18 pints in him.

You must not know Joe Mac

Yeah, a few extra pints of dark brew and tomorrow is going to be hard...

Hey, you are, by no means, alone. There are lots of us out there who work (worked, in my case...) hard at this sport and achieved, what, according to the trolls on this board are only modest results. Take me: I bumped my mileage from 90-100 to up to and above 200 (averaging 140/wk for a couple years) all with the meager result of improving from 35/2:50 to 32/2:27. And you know what? I was fracking happy as can be about it. I spent probably 15-25 hours/wk on my running in those days. That might sound like a lot, but consider this: That is probably less than the average American spends watching reality shows. If someone is going to lecture me about how pathetic my running was, then he better have achieved a lot more doing much less and have spent the balance curing some deadly disease. If you're doing something that injures no one and which makes you happy while still allowing you to be a contributing member of society (ane 'yes' being a teacher way way frakin counts) then you are living a life much better than does 99.9% of the humanity. No kidding.

Just got home and am hammer-timed. Tomorrow will be difficult. Didn't quiet have 18 pints tonight, but it was sure close. I am currently cooking top ramin to fuel up for tomorrow. Man tomorrow is going to suck.

Long live the Anne Frank room!!!