I need help

Also I'm a girl not a guy, realized I didn't clarify that LOL

Provide an example of your training. How many miles a week do you usually run? How often do you take days off...are you running 7 days a week?

You are really slow. However you have improved a lot. Congratulations. Why are you so slow? Are you overweight? Training and maturity helps. Are you a male or female? You need to run faster than your race pace several days a week. Maybe do some hills? You will improve for sure.

Sorry so responded before your post about being female. This is encouraging. You are not that slow for a female. You will improve. Hills and a longish run, maybe an hour run as along run will help. Do strides also. You can improve a lot if you focus on the process.

I'm running 25-30 miles per week lately, I need to do more but my high school coaches call long runs like 4 miles and there's barely enough time during practice to do any more than that. I've been running 5-6 days a week, sometimes 7 if I do a recovery run on Sundays and a Friday evening shakeout for a race on Saturday. Mondays are typically a distance workout... mile intervals, 800m repeats, etc. Tuesdays are "long runs," Wednesdays and Thursdays are another workout, typically one of those is at a hilly farm which distance can vary but normally a 5k race pace mile and then some 500-600m repeats. All of these include lots of loops with a giant hill the entire time.

On the easy mileage days, have you tried adding maybe 2-3 more miles after practice or running easy runs in the morning before school to add on more mileage. 🤷‍♂️ Maybe do a long run (6 - 10 miles) on Sundays if the coach isn't giving you enough mileage during the week.

There are div 3 teams that will take you. You will be surprised how not fast some of those teams are. A local div I team has girls running slow as 23 to 24 minutes still on the team. It's hard to tell how much more you can improve w/o knowing more about your training.

I have a description more up in the thread in response to someone else asking^^

Stick with and keep pushing. You’re gonna get there.

Great improvement! For ANY high school girl who improves a lot in high school, the potential to continue after high school is great. SO many girls are superstars in middle school/junior high and then get worse or just don't improve in high school.

1) Up your mileage slowly between now and college (and yes, as of now D3 or NAIA is in your wheelhouse...and YES, you will be able to run in college even with a 25 minute PR (however, I think you will get better still)...not at every school (the top DIII schools don't have room for you unless you improve a lot), but a ton of DIII colleges will eagerly take runners with 20-25 minute 5K PRs. Emphasize your love of the sport and your improvement when you contact coaches.

2) Maintain a healthy weight...not too much, not too little. Talk to your doctor about this if you need to.

3) Make sure to get new shoes often enough. This prevents injury, and it is one of the biggest mistakes that high school athletes make. I realize they cost a lot of money, but they are worth it. Put 400-500 miles on a pair of shoes, OR you notice little nagging pains, OR you wear the soles out quickly because of how you run, then get a new pair.

4) For DIII and NAIA, especially for someone with your relatively slow times, you will need to contact the coaches. Email address are easily found on their websites, usually on the Roster page (typically a link to coaches there). Look at their rosters online, and get a sense about whether you think you can run there or not. Obviously, if all the women have PRs of mid 18s in HS, then you likely won't be terribly needed or wanted. BUT, there are a TON of very good academic DIII schools with small rosters who would welcome you. Again, emphasize your love of running and your improvement thus far. MOST NAIA schools are religious schools, so know that. That's a great fit for some people but not all.

Good luck to you.

+1 on all of this and what someone said about adding easy miles on easy days. The other thing to figure out is an injury prevention routine. Look up a prefab routine that includes hip and glute strength. Being able to run consistently without injury is the key to improving. Keep us posted!

Ok I'll definitely try that. I've started doing longer "cooldowns," like at least a mile but I need to be more consistent with that. I'm not one to be patient and go for longer with recovery runs and cooldowns but I'm sure it helps

Mileage. Lots of daily mileage. And enjoy it!