Rate these first ever 5k and mile times

18:31 is actually really good for only running 2 days a week. I reckon you can get sub 17 in a year with less strength and more running.

That's a very good 5K time, and an excellent mile time for an inexperienced runner.

Strength and general athleticism are good, and maybe that's your goal, and if so that's perfectly fine. But getting closer to your potential as a runner does in fact require a lot of running. 5-6 days a week, building up to 30-35 miles per week gradually, would be a good start, and 45-50 might be the next step. If you feel like you've maximized your gains from lifting, you might want to try focusing on running for a while and see where it gets you. Just be ready to spend a little while doing stuff that feel ridiculously easy to prepare for the harder work ahead. And read a good book about training so you know what you're doing.

Yeah, that's a good time given that you've been training strength rather than endurance. 5k is definitely an endurance event and you will benefit more from mileage than strength.

I bet that last mile SUUUUUUUCKED. I did the same once - went out in about 5:40 when my mile PR at the time was probably 5:30. You learn to pace pretty quickly after that.

oh it was awful. After the first mile I was running and gasping for air. Would breath in but air wouldnt go all the way to the lungs, hard to explain lol

The app I had told me the pace so only reason I trucked on because knew it was doing pretty good but yea was dying and actually felt physically sick afterwards for maybe 5 hours

Is this on strava? Because if it’s not, it doesn’t count. Sorry.

A 4:56 mile on no training is harder to believe than an 18:31, but both are solid times.

Did you play soccer? How old are you?

If you really did that, you may want to try training. I think you could get sub 17 within a year or so. I did 19:45 my first race also with no real training, and I thought that was good.

I used an app called Runkeeper? Googled best 5k apps in case I needed to record and screenshot it for virtual 5k , that was near the top. No idea if that app or others have history of inaccuracies ? It does break pace down time by each mile though so just going with what it’s telling me.

Run noob so no idea about the apps to use

Never played soccer or really any running sport. But am tall (6’3, 190 lbs) and have relatively strong legs (450 pound deadlift) from lifting. Do cross training as well , HIIT training 2-3x a week before Covid shut down so many small gyms. Always been good with endurance fitness type challenges, so felt that plus long strides and pretty strong legs would make it feasible

Planning on trying just a one mile run next week at some point when my body feels a bit better , can use that strava app and see what happens lol maybe I’m a fraud

Wow that’s really quite an absurd mile time for someone without serious training, and it’s even crazier to do that the first mile of a 5k. I think you’d love running if you got into it, I myself love running and lifting, and I started with lifting. It’s all the same, we are just addicted to getting PR’s. I must say I like running more now simply because I think it is beautiful how much pain one must go through to achieve a PR. It’s noble to go through that much pain just so you can attach an arbitrarily smaller number to your mile PR or whatever. In weightlifting you don’t quite get to fight demons trying to PR like you do in running, although the competition with oneself is still there. You have some serious talent I can’t wait to see what you get on the mile, but please do it on a track, the gps is good, but only accurate within probably 5 seconds. Another indicator of your potential will be how fast you can run a 400, one lap.

Tired runner wrote:

18:31 is actually really good for only running 2 days a week. I reckon you can get sub 17 in a year with less strength and more running.

Might be able to go sub-17 now if you don't go for a mile PR in the 1st mile.

Agree on the PRs. When I got into lifting and really pushed myself loved seeing it increase. Though it gets frustrating spending so much time in the gym and focusing on diet to get my bench press to barely around 225 when many lifters achieve that in a few months. Long and lanky arms make that pretty hard

Was thinking either a track, though there’s a bike path where I live that is long straight stretches. I feel the time would be better without having to turn a bunch like would in a track. Idk my agility has never been great but can get fast once get going

The pain is true. the 5k time I did was pure mental anguish for half of it. And afterwards my entire body was sore for half a day which definitely isn’t the case after a standard 4 mile run or even a lifting session

meanstringbean wrote:

The pain is true. the 5k time I did was pure mental anguish for half of it. And afterwards my entire body was sore for half a day which definitely isn’t the case after a standard 4 mile run or even a lifting session

If it's any comfort, once you get the pacing right, there's much less anguish involved.

[/quote]

Agree on the PRs. When I got into lifting and really pushed myself loved seeing it increase. Though it gets frustrating spending so much time in the gym and focusing on diet to get my bench press to barely around 225 when many lifters achieve that in a few months. Long and lanky arms make that pretty hard

Was thinking either a track, though there’s a bike path where I live that is long straight stretches. I feel the time would be better without having to turn a bunch like would in a track. Idk my agility has never been great but can get fast once get going

The pain is true. the 5k time I did was pure mental anguish for half of it. And afterwards my entire body was sore for half a day which definitely isn’t the case after a standard 4 mile run or even a lifting session[/quote]

My friend you executed the quintessential death march, in quite the dramatic fashion too. Usually if a the 1st and 3rd mile have a difference of more than 20 seconds, Id consider it a death march, named for the considerable pain involved. The other guy was right not all races will be that bad. In distance running it’s proven that running the entire race as evenly as possible is optimal for the best time. Also, obviously your gonna do whatever you want, but in terms of racing, the track will definitely give you a better time simply because it’s designed to be fast to run on, and also it will be good to take splits for each lap to see if you’re running evenly, not to mention there’s no way of verifying a distance if you ran it on the roads. I’d aim for around 4:40, so about 70 seconds per lap.