I've been a member of a running club for over 18 months now but for most of that time I have not been taking things seriously. I've been a bit lazy but also uneducated about running. I would run Monday and Wednesday evenings with the club and my weekly mileage was 8-15 mpw. My parkrun (5 km) time was 21:xx.
Since reading this forum I have learnt a lot. I have slowly worked up to running 30 mpw and I do it by running 4 times a week with 3 days off. I am on week 7 of running 30 mpw and my 5 km time (running on the streets around my neighbourhood) has improved almost every week. It has gone 21:29 > 21:00 > 21:00 > 20:46 > 20:44 > 20:36 > 20:11. Last week I did a half marathon for the first time (running at a sensible average pace of 7:50-8:15). My 5 km run is the only "hard" work I do and the other 27 miles range from 7:30 down to 9:00 pace. I try to do a long run of 10+ miles every week.
Right now my only goal is to be consistent with my routine but I'm genuinely surprised at the improvement (for me it's a big improvement). I upload my runs to strava and the graph makes for interesting reading as I sometimes maintain 5:30-5:50 pace for 30 seconds or so before dropping right down to ~ 7:30 pace when I encounter a difficult hill. I think there's a lot more speed in my legs but I lack the fitness to utilise it. I want to try and make the most of running 30 mpw instead of running more, as bumping up my mileage up made me very tired.
I'm 32, 5'10 and weigh 138-145 lbs.
Thanks