A couple of months ago I ran a 5k time track trial(my second 5k ever) and got beat by the 2 soccer kids on my team. I ended running 18:43 with good weather. It's been 2 months and I have gone from 20/30 MPW to 40/50 with faster training speeds. I could definitely see something around 18:30-18:15 if I were to have a real race and not a time trial(I also got flats instead of running on 50$ trainers).
I don't really need to focus on tapering for most of this "season" as the California 2020(now 2021) cross country season has been delayed we probably won't have more than 3 races.
Pr's: (400/800 are before I started training seriously)
400m: 64 seconds(extremely unofficial GPS run on road)
800m: 2:32
2mile: 11:52(80 degrees weather)
5k: 18:43
As you may have guessed I'm really slow twitched and can handle long runs and more mileage a lot more than others but my short-distance speed is lacking(Idk if it's because I haven't finished puberty or just genetics).
So assuming I maintain 40-60 MPW for the next 10 months, could I run a 16.xx cross country or track 5k during the real and not Corona-fied 2021 XC season?
I can't keep losing to soccer kids.