What kind of 5k pace does 60 mpw *generally* merit?

It took my from 19:30 to 17 flat. But in reality, that statement isn’t true, it was the workouts. Do workouts it will do a ton, mileage helps but it isn’t all.

I am not doing anything speed related besides some progressions and fartleks, which I just do when I feel good. I am not doing inervals during base...

I was barely running 20 miles a week. I only ran 5 days a week when I ran that 20:55 and now I run 6 or 7 times a week.

So would you suggest maybe sticking to a slightly lower mileage and holding that for longer? It's my last xc season and I just wanted to be the best that I can, so I was just pushing the famous "60 mpw". Anything under 19 would be amazing though.

I'd say you'd come into the season at 19:30 and end the season at 18:45.

When my son was 21 and I was 49 we both were running about 60mpw. He ran 14:49 off it, and I could only run 17:53 off it.

Ill stay vague, in a cycle upping milage should get you to sub 20, if combined with workouts (tempo/track). In years of work, sub 18/17/ or possibly 16 is possible ( the latter may take lots of commitment)

erios22 wrote:

I am 17 years old. I have been running since 8th grade but nothing consistent at all up until these last few months. I built up from 30 mpw and I am about to hit 60 mpw.

If you ran 20:55 off 30 mpw and now you've doubled your mileage, I'd think you should be able to go sub-20 easily, and very soon, if you keep up the mileage. Keep up the mileage and start adding 1, then 2 workouts per week, sub 19 and should be realistic, if not much below depending on your talent.

I'm a 47-year-old, no talent hobby jogger and I just ran 19:15 off 60 mpw (hoping to go sub 19 tomorrow).

At age 17, low 17:00's is likely attainable, if not much lower, depending on your natural talent.

Do a time trial after a mini-taper and you'll get a general idea.

Knight ran 13:40 on 35MPW. 60 is dumb for regular people.

Hobby coach wrote:

There is no relation between 5k pace and a 60 mpw training.

I would disagree, the meta-analysis that strava did with the data freely uploaded to their site demonstrated strong correlations between mpw, pace, and marathon performance

it would be easy to work that backwards to 5k, but the goal of that study was only marathon pace

to put it another way:

mpw was the strongest factor (r=0.7) with the marathon performance, with a relatively narrow SD [20 odd minutes]

Miles per week is an almost useless metric. Run workouts as frequently as your legs will let you and run easy as much as you can in between - that’s how you end up with your ‘miles per week’. An arbitrary number is just that if arrived at any other way.

If I were to guess based on limited info, I'd would guess you're in low 19s shape. With some speed and vo2max-specific work, you could potentially get that around or under 18.

Given the information provided 18s or 19s, and with a focused training program plus workouts 17s before too long.

Here is my progression -

16-17 - at 0-5 mpw (sporadic running) about 20 minutes

18 - at 10-12 mpw (consistent but low miles) 18:50

19 - at 35-40 mpw (training daily, but mostly summer base miles) - 18:00

20 - at 60-70 mpw - low 16

Don't try to chase PRs by only running more mileage. My biggest regret in high school was between freshman& sophomore year when I chased 60-70mpw totals instead of maximizing tempo, fartlek, and hill repeats.

You're going to have a lot more fun, and probably get into better shape, rippin' a 20minute tempo, jogging easy on grass the rest of week, and only run 35 mpw than increasing your easy mileage to 60mpw.

Congrats on the strong training block!

I wouldn't worry about the estimates you see on this board. You ought to compare your performance this season to your performance last year. (Not to the uninformed estimates of random posters on a running site.)

P.S. Don't get too hung up on the 60 miles per week number. It's a nice goal, you'll get there eventually. But listen to your body, so you can stay injury free and consistent. That's the key.

Ran 15:20 5k/32:20 10k on 45 to 50 miles a week, but most of it pretty hard - two track sessions and a race, or three track sessions per week.

You should be able to go sub 18 easily if you're truly doing easy runs around 8min/mile.

Correct. Some people run 13 minutes and some run 23 minutes on 60 MPW.

How fast are you running your fartleks and cutdowns? While the weekly mileage matters (in general, increasing mileage is good for your fitness—so you’re on the right track to improvement!), what pace and effort you’re running your workouts at is more predictive of race performance.

Doing fartleks could mean doing 12 x 1minute hard/1 minute easy with the hard segments at 6:00-6:15 pace, or 6 x 3 minutes hard/2 minutes easy with the hard segments at 5:20-5:30. Doing cutdowns could mean doing the final 2 miles of a 6 mile run done mostly near 8-minute pace in 7:10 then 6:45, or it could mean running the final 4-5 miles of a 12-mile long run in a 6:05 average, with the last mile at 5:45. Both of these scenarios fit the general description you’ve painted of your training, but they would point to very different levels of fitness.

So, can you give a couple examples of the types of fartleks and cutdowns you’ve done?