Mileage Advice for Sub-18 5k

If you don’t have at least one run a week where you go longer than an hour, work up to that some time in the first month. By the end of the summer, get one run up to 75 minutes.

Weekly mileage doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot, but your max long run does.

Keep doing the hills + strides.

Schedule in some shorter runs (4-6 miles) where you just run by feel but pick up the pace as you go. Over time, you should be dipping under 7:00 miles without it feeling like it’s killing you.

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

Weekly mileage doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot, but your max long run does.

I would say the opposite is true

I agree that the opposite is true.

I recall my first xc 5K in late autumn 1975 what I was 17 y.o. too, The result was 18.35. At that time I was not training regularly with my mileage way way less than your 35 mpw, But when I went running, I had some fast segments every time (assume at a speed 3'15-3'20 min/km with my PB at that time slightly above 3.00). It's not right, but it was so.

It looks like you are a rather "volume-oriented" than "speed-oriented" guy. In this case you indeed need more mileage per week than the latter ones. But again, 35 mpw is more than enough. Just structure them in a proper way. One interval, one tempo and one long-run per week. As for the long one, 60 min seems to me absolutely enough, even 55 would be OK. Better concentrate on 2 (hard) workouts per week when you run at your "target" speed.

Good luck!

P.S. When I was doing 35-40 mpw at the age 21-22, I had my PB's around 8.45/15.20/1.06.30 at 3/5/20 km, respectively. So, you definitely have a great potential and good years ahead!

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

If you don’t have at least one run a week where you go longer than an hour, work up to that some time in the first month. By the end of the summer, get one run up to 75 minutes.

Weekly mileage doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot, but your max long run does.

Keep doing the hills + strides.

Schedule in some shorter runs (4-6 miles) where you just run by feel but pick up the pace as you go. Over time, you should be dipping under 7:00 miles without it feeling like it’s killing you.

????????? This is literally the worst advice I have ever seen. OP it I was you I would focus on getting up to 50-55 miles a week by July and holding that for 2 months.

Schedule could look like this...

M - 6 recovery

T - 7 easy + strides

W - 2 up, rotate between 3-4 @ LT, 5-6 @ Sub LT. For you this is probably 6:15-6:20 and 6:30-6:40 respectively. 2 down.

Th - 6 recovery

Fr - 7 easy + 6-8x 15s hill sprints

Sa - 6 easy

Su - 10 progression with fast finish (maybe last 2 hitting 6:20s)

Total - 50 to 55. Maybe take every 2nd or 3rd Monday off.

I ran 5k several times in under 16:00 and never did more than 45 miles / week.

tired man wrote:

I ran 5k several times in under 16:00 and never did more than 45 miles / week.

Cool. And I’m sure Bekele could run under 14 in 20 miles a week. What is your point? Did you simply need to point out that you have more talent than the OP? Different people need different amounts of work to hit different goals jacka$$

I think the point of tired man was not about his talent, but emphasise that 5K does not requite too much volume, especially as the topic starter considers the time of 18+ min.

Also note that he (topic starter) is very young and probably approach his target from the speed side and not from "endurance" side. However, it should be his choice.

Orient wrote:

Also note that he (topic starter) is very young and probably approach his target from the speed side and not from "endurance" side. However, it should be his choice.

I have read all of the posts and it sounds like I should definitely try and increase my mileage a bit, but not very much, maybe to 45 mpw. Do you have any suggestions on speed workouts I should do to approach my target 18:20 race from the "speed side" like you mentioned?

I really like the look of this, I am definitely gonna try it out. It doesn't involve any hardcore intervals, which is nice because base and interval training does not work well with my body.

Right now I do not think I could be able to hit 6:20's as a sub threshold pace, but that is definitely something I am going to work towards. I know that an 18:20 5k pace is 5:54, so I will definitely have to speed up. I have my schedule written up, it should take me about 8 weeks to build to 50 mpw and then I will have anther 2.5 months left, so I will stay at that mileage to really get it into my system, and then I am sure my paces will slowly speed up.

35-40 miles of this is “easy” or “recovery.” It’s just a lot of junk.

What are your current PRs? What shape do you think you're in right now? This would help see how aggressive of a training plan you need over the next 16 weeks. Good luck!

You mean 70-80% of it is easy aerobic running? Ya no kidding... what a revolutionary concept for a base phase.

This is very solid advice. I think the point isn't that a specific mileage number doesn't matter AS MUCH, since there is no magic number where mileage x => race time goal ... because everyone is so different. Two very important things to focus on when building is that long run TIME (not mileage) and number of days running. Work that long run up to an hour and then eventually 75 minutes is spot on. Be comfortable with that hour run before moving up. If you're running 5 days, increase to 6 by adding a low mileage day. If you're running 6, add an extra day every other week so that you alternate between 6/7 days. As a young runner, you don't have to run 7 days/week every week to be successful, but I think there is a huge difference between running 5 and running 6. If you focus on building long run time, and frequency, the mileage will be building too as a natural consequence of those two things.

Armin Tamzarian wrote:

If you don’t have at least one run a week where you go longer than an hour, work up to that some time in the first month. By the end of the summer, get one run up to 75 minutes.

Weekly mileage doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot, but your max long run does.

Keep doing the hills + strides.

Schedule in some shorter runs (4-6 miles) where you just run by feel but pick up the pace as you go. Over time, you should be dipping under 7:00 miles without it feeling like it’s killing you.

Dude maybe you could just do this:

Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri easy run 6 miles, 4 x 100m strides @ mile effort

Wed 1 mi warmup, 12 x 400m-ish hills at a bit slower than current estimated 5K effort with jog down recovery, 1 mi cooldown. Rotate this with 8 x 600m-ish hills and 6 x 800m-ish hills.

Sat 10 mile long run, easy pace then pick it up the last mile or two. If overly tired on Monday, be sure to run Monday slow and skip the strides and don't pick up the pace quite as hard or quite as long next time.

Sun off

That's 42 mpw and oughta be plenty for you. Keep it simple, rock and roll!

erios22,

you wrote: "Do you have any suggestions on speed workouts I should do to approach my target 18:20 race from the "speed side" like you mentioned?"

My suggestion is in line with common practice, nothing special.

1. 5-6 x 1000-1200 m with 1.5-3 min rest in between (you may start with 3 and then reduce depending on the progress), once a week Try to stay with your current 5K speed on each interval. When you can make 5x1K under 3.35 per km, you are ready for 18.20, for sure.

2. Tempo or CV for 6-8 km (could be one week tempo and another - CV).

Good luck!

Orient wrote:

erios22,

you wrote: "Do you have any suggestions on speed workouts I should do to approach my target 18:20 race from the "speed side" like you mentioned?"

My suggestion is in line with common practice, nothing special.

1. 5-6 x 1000-1200 m with 1.5-3 min rest in between (you may start with 3 and then reduce depending on the progress), once a week Try to stay with your current 5K speed on each interval. When you can make 5x1K under 3.35 per km, you are ready for 18.20, for sure.

2. Tempo or CV for 6-8 km (could be one week tempo and another - CV).

Good luck!

CV for 8 km is insane. That's a race, not a workout. CV is the pace you can hold for 30 minutes, and for an 18 min 5k runner, an 8k race should take just under 30 minutes.

Maybe 6-8 x 1k @ CV with 1:30 jogs. Or 4-5 x 1 mile @ threshold with 1 min jogs.

I have not raced since last october, and my 5k pr is 20:55. I know that makes my goal of running a 18:20's and even sub-18 sound ambitious but I have been running since then and I am in better shape. I definitely think I can do it if I stay consistent though

erios22 wrote:

I have not raced since last october, and my 5k pr is 20:55. I know that makes my goal of running a 18:20's and even sub-18 sound ambitious but I have been running since then and I am in better shape. I definitely think I can do it if I stay consistent though

You are young and that goal is certainly possible! I'm not saying it's a lock, but I think it's great to have ambition and you should work toward it.

The only caution I'd issue is for you to train at where you are at right now and not where you'd like to be, because you'll train the right systems and in make better progress over the year. Maybe do a TT to see where you are at. If you're not up for a full 5k, even a mile test run could give you some good info.

Don't build too fast to prevent injury and stay consistent, and things will go as well as they can.