Thoughts on 5,000 TT result

I'm loving the maths. Thanks Canefis.

Maybe you should review the statistics. The all-time top 10 list is comprised of guys who are 18-25. Sorry to disappoint you. 17 minutes is a great life time goal for you.

Yeah I'm not going to battle Cheptegei anytime soon, but to think that I can't go below 17 is very pessimistic. I think it is very doable.

I know you came here trying to boost your ego so you can't be persuaded facts. That is oretty typical of the LR community. It is primarily based on opinions I stead of facts. The facts are that people lose muscle mass and lose speed starting in their late 20s. You are past your physical peak but if you had never trained, you could battle with Mother Nature to improve somewhat. The odds are that you will see another 30 seconds of improvement over the next 2 years and you will then go in the other direction. 17:30 is embarrassingly slow for someone on a running website but is decent for someone in the general population.

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Canefis wrote:
Interesting. Usually young people has limit with aerobic base, not a power in legs (plenty hormones/good recovery and easy to build muscle power).
How to be sure:
1) ride on bike with one leg, if pulse more than 150++, aerobic base is poor.
2) run on road with pulse 120 bpm 20min, if avg pace > 06:00min/km++, than same....😄

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At age 26 I was in ~18:40 5K shape in March, 17:50 5K shape in May, 17:20 in July, and 16:45 in September. I had run 10-20 miles per week (rarely more than 3 miles at a time) for 4 years before that (and before that I ran 800/1500 in college). During this training period, I started at 35mpw and built up to 65mpw (peak 73), with probably an average of ~50mpw from March through November. I was running 6 days per week, with a tempo of 20-30 minutes, some repeats (800/1K/1 mile), and a long run each week.

So I'd guess OP can get below 17:30 in two months, esp if he's willing to increase mileage up to 45 or 50mpw.

Right now, in a well-executed race, you should easily run 17:20. Sub-17 with a year or so of consistent training is reasonable. These results would mirror my own 5K progression when I entered masters running after a 15-year competitive hiatus. I ended up with 16:36 (although 800-1500 were my best events).

Ego definitely played a role in my post, that I can acknowledge. Oh and I'll take that embarrassing 17:30 any day of the year. You may be very right, or very wrong. Time will tell. Thanks for chiming in.

That's the stuff. Awesome progression. Can you share more insights about your training?

16:36 as a master, wow. What milage were you running?

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jiggyjiggy2 wrote:
16:36 as a master, wow. What milage were you running?

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I ran 14 flat at your age and was still running 15:40 as a master. But like I said, it gets slower every year.

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jiggyjiggy2 wrote:
Interesting tests. Does this take into account my specific Max HR mentioned in the thread, or are 150 and 120 just some arbitrary benchmarks like the 220-age?
Also, how do you account for weather? I tend to run in hot and humid weather which skews the HR data.

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I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on this one, Canefis. 120 bpm could be zone 1 for someone and zone 3 for another runner. A % of Max HR is better than suggesting a one-size-fits-all arbitrary number.

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jiggyjiggy wrote:
I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on this one, Canefis. 120 bpm could be zone 1 for someone and zone 3 for another runner. A % of Max HR is better than suggesting a one-size-fits-all arbitrary number.

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Not far off, it is 59.4% for me. But still, 120 bpm would be 66% for someone with Max HR of 180. That is a big difference. Does that not skew the results of said assessment?

Just keep doing what you are doing with say 2 workouts per wk your workouts you are doing are good - one longer and one shorter reps.

Your long run is long enough you don't need to go past 15. Maybe gradually add a bit of mileage mid week.

Right now you could probably run 20+ secs faster in a race than a time trial.

Just keep chipping away at your pb, improvements tend to come after a while at the same level so don't worry if you stall for a while.

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jiggyjiggy2 wrote:
Thank you for the anecdote. I don't know, I'm not that sold into the age limitation. My running age is 7 years old. I don't think nor feel that I peaked just yet. Especially given the improvements that happened during the last year. I was doing 70-80 km weeks training for a marathon in 2016, but my 5K was no where near as fast.

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real run go wrote:
At 29, you are unlikely to make a huge improvement to your PR. Low 17s is certainly possible though. I set my 5k PR at 24 after college on 40MPW as opposed to the 65 I was doing in college. It got progressively slower after that even with bumping mileage above what I did in college.

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