Can I beat my high school mile PR in my late 20s?

if you ran a 4:13 I'm sure that you know all of the answers to your questions

with regard to if its possible: a solid MAYBE: if and ONLY IF you train your ass off. slackers don't run 4:13 miles regardless of age

You absolutely can PR. You'll need consistent training, though. I wasn't as fast as you in HS but took a few years off after college. I ended up running a 4:14 mile in my late 20s after coming back to the sport. The time off actually helped me I think. I was also an assistant coach on a stacked HS team, so I trained with the top boys a lot. Our top kid was a 1:51/4:09 guy his senior year, so me getting to work out with that caliber of runner was a big help. I'm not sure I could have run that fast if I had trained solo. It took me about two years of consistent training to get back to setting PRs after my post-college layoff.

Do you have an group of similarly talented guys you could train with, even a few days a week?

Awesome that gives me hope! Did you focus your training specifically on the mile or did you do cross country training with the HS team as well? As an assistant coach, did you come up with the training plan for yourself and the 4:09 guy? What did that look like?

No, unfortunately I don't have a group of guys to train with. I could maybe try finding one though. Otherwise, I may just try going at it solo.

1. Yes, it is possible - your age is not particularly a limiting factor if you have stayed active (which it sounds like you have).

2. You probably need to do a decent amount of mileage - I'd imagine the minimum is 50-60 miles per week. But it is silly thinking that you are just looking to improve your mile time: that may be your FOCUS, but you are looking to improve all of your times (at least from your current fitness) as that maximizes your odds.

3. I would imagine you need lots of easy running to build your mileage - if you have been doing only 8 miles per week you have a lot to build (though your "cross training" of other sports counts for something). Try getting up to 30 miles per week pretty quickly, then more gradually after that. Work in doubles if possible, even if you think you aren't doing "enough mileage for doubles".

I was MUCH slower than you in high school, a little slower than you in college (4:20 mile), and ran right around 4:10 for a 1600 at the age of 30 (converted from 1500). I was training most of that time, but there were certainly stretches during my 20's where I was injured/banged up/hard pressed to break 5:00 in the mile.

Thanks for the response! What helped you cut down your time from college til 30? Did you do anything different or just continue with the same training from college?

missingrunning wrote:

Thanks for the response! What helped you cut down your time from college til 30? Did you do anything different or just continue with the same training from college?

The elements that helped the most were hills, doubles, training partners (but not "racing" during practice), and consistency. I had a few stretches where I was running more than 100 miles per week, but a lot of my best times came from 70 miles per week. Not to say that the higher mileage didn't help me, but I wasn't able to stay consistent at that mileage.

I ran a 3:55 1500 in a couple different seasons during my 20's, and the main thing that was different before running 3:52 (right after turning 30) was that I had a good base of hill workouts before really crushing a month of track workouts. The month of track workouts was still moderate as far as frequency, but I ran 1 or 2 really solid workouts each week.

Thanks for the insights. Did you have a coach or anything after college? Any recommended resources to figure out what workouts to do? Since I didn't really race in college, all I have is my high school training log which may or may not be the optimal plan to follow

I didn't have a coach for the most part, although I did have a retired D1 coach giving a little guidance before I PR'd. I pretty much shaped the overall training plan, and he'd give specific advice on the track workouts.

When I first ran 3:55 a few years after college, I pretty much followed a plan straight out of a Lydiard book. I thought it worked pretty well and was following the same plan the next year, but then hurt my achilles at the end of the hill springing phase and decided against trying it again.

missingrunning wrote:

Awesome that gives me hope! Did you focus your training specifically on the mile or did you do cross country training with the HS team as well? As an assistant coach, did you come up with the training plan for yourself and the 4:09 guy? What did that look like?

No, unfortunately I don't have a group of guys to train with. I could maybe try finding one though. Otherwise, I may just try going at it solo.

I kept it pretty simple. I would run about 60 mpw with one day off per week. Weekly long run of 14-16 miles helped a TON. I never did doubles. I also consistently did longer tempo runs, like 4-5 miles at like 5:30ish pace or faster. Track work was a lot of 5k pace stuff for a few months followed by mile race pace stuff for a few months. 5k pace stuff was like 5 x 1600 or 10 x 800. These would have 1:1 rest. So like mile repeats at 5 min pace or 800s at 2:30 pace with equal rest. Mile pace stuff was like 2x8,4,4 or 3x800, or 8x400with 2:1 rest. So a typical workout would be 2:10, 65, 65, 2:06, 63, 62 or 2:10, 2:08, 2:06 or 65, 65, 64, 64, 64, 63, 63, 61 All of these would have twice the rest as the run. Well, maybe not the 8x400. The rest there might be 75-90 sec. I never really did strides since I am already on the faster end of the distance spectrum. My times drop of pretty hard after 2 miles. My 5k PR is not as good as my mile PR.

As long as you don't get injured, you should be able to do it. Hire a coach or talk to your old HS or a local college coach/assistant. Don't rush it. Take your time with training.

For #3: I'd keep playing soccer at least once a week. It's great for developing lower-body balance, agility, mobility, etc.—pretty much everything you need to run healthy.

Maybe you should try LRC.s magic online coach JS ? He's really great and coach all distances

from sprint to ultra with bravura.