It (sadly) took me 80 miles per week to go from a 20 minute 5K to a 16 minute 5K

You're a badass. Good for you, actually putting the work in and seeing where you landed.

BIG PROPS, MAN!

Your post is such a breath of fresh air on these boards. Inspired by what you have done, and I hope you continue to improve. How are your times looking in other distances?

Good job man

Awesome work, thank you for posting.

Is your volume all singles? Do you take any days off? Do you run any "cycles" where it's like two really hard 80 mile weeks, followed by a slightly less intense week, or is it pretty consistent throughout?

You should consider training for the 800/1500 over the winter, set some marks down and then resume with 5000/10000 training. It might rejuvenate your 5000 times.

You have pretty good talent based on 10 weeks of 20mpw training to get to a 20:30 in you mid 30s. Either that, or you were in pretty good shape to start.

16:30 is solid for late 30s. About a minute faster than I ever ran, but I moved quickly up in distance to the marathon. I also max out about 50 mpw. Any plans on doing longer distance?

16:30 is fast, well done on sticking with it.

What's the sad part?

That's not sad. That's awesome. Great post. As a fellow older guy who took up distance running at 34 as well keep working hard. Masters glory awaits!

This is awesome. Well done! Gives me some hope. I'm 42 and I recently ran 18:16 off of a training plan that peaked at 60 miles. Running for about 6 years and just starting to get things figured out. I'm just starting a plan that will peak at 70 miles. Maybe I can end up somewhere near 17:30 as well.

Big time congrats! There's nothing sad here at all.

The Narwhal wrote:

Awesome work, thank you for posting.

Is your volume all singles? Do you take any days off? Do you run any "cycles" where it's like two really hard 80 mile weeks, followed by a slightly less intense week, or is it pretty consistent throughout?

In the beginning, when I was running in the 17's, I would run a lot of doubles. Like 4 in the morning and 5 at lunch. Then, work and family life revved up and I started getting up at 5:00am and running 8-10 miles super slow with a few strides at the end. When I was in the 80mpw range, I was running every day with a easy long run on Sunday and two workouts during the week (after work when my body was well awake).

I was absolutely obilterating myself in workouts which was not the smartest idea, but I ran so damn slow the rest of the time I felt like I was doing myself a favor. If the workout was too hard or if I was not hitting the splits, I'd quit the workout and just run the rest easy. I learned that dragging myself through a bad workout wasn't good for my morale and it was also my body telling me something.

Exact mileage build up during the 16 minute race was :

October 2020 to March 2021 was 45-50mpw (easy miles with a 4x1000 workout once per week)

March 2021 to April 2021 was all easy miles with strides and a few "uptempo" 5 to 6 mile runs around 6:40 pace:

50

51

60

60

65 - 10K Tempo/Race (38:02)

70

70 - 10K Tempo/Race (37:53)

70

Beginning in May 2021:

80

83

80

82

81

80

81

50 - 5K Race (17:48)

70

65

77

70

71

80

80

60

61

30 - Race (16:25)

Lenny Leonard wrote:

BIG PROPS, MAN!

Your post is such a breath of fresh air on these boards. Inspired by what you have done, and I hope you continue to improve. How are your times looking in other distances?

Thanks!

To be honest, I have not really RACED a 10K. I did run a hard tempo 10K in a race in the high 37's off dead legs. In September 2018, I ran a half marathon in 1:28 at the end of a training week. I have not done a lot of long threshold work that would allow a good time for a half. My longest interval sessions was 6 x 1 mile on a track at 5:55 pace and that was really hard for me at the time.

Congrats, man. You put in the work and saw steady and significant improvements. That's all any of us can really ask for. Keep crushing it.

You're in your 40's and running 16:30's which is faster than 99.9% of America can run for even 1 mile. You should be proud of yourself. You are getting after it at your age and putting in the work to do so.

Also, you're in your 40's...why the hell are you getting depressed and angry over a 5k race? At your age, running should be one miniscule component of the life you are living (family, friends, etc.). Enjoy it for what it is. Keep crushin' it. It doesn't get any easier from here.

Congratulations on your achievements.

Can you describe your workouts in a bit more details?

Like paces and rest time between reps?

Go for sub 15.30 just keep doing what you're doing.

Super determination and persistance , im sure there is more to come , keep grinding

Agree , i like the higher mileage regime , it works for alot of us

Dear God wrote:

You're in your 40's and running 16:30's which is faster than 99.9% of America can run for even 1 mile. You should be proud of yourself. You are getting after it at your age and putting in the work to do so.

Also, you're in your 40's...why the hell are you getting depressed and angry over a 5k race? At your age, running should be one miniscule component of the life you are living (family, friends, etc.). Enjoy it for what it is. Keep crushin' it. It doesn't get any easier from here.

The sadness comes from having to run so much to obtain times that others can attain on far less mileage (and time invested). I would love to have that ability to do more with less. But, life is not fair. There are elites in my town running 80mpw and hitting 14's.

Depression and anger comes from investing a lot of time, effort, sacrifice, etc, and failing and having a bad race. It's natural. It's been nice to take a break and reflect on the effort and success, but there were ups and downs for sure.

Slow 5K Guy wrote:

The sadness comes from having to run so much to obtain times that others can attain on far less mileage (and time invested). I would love to have that ability to do more with less. But, life is not fair. There are elites in my town running 80mpw and hitting 14's.

But guess what, you didn't need 80 mpw to achieve that. You could get to 16min 5k with half that. The key here is (track) interval training. Improve your 800m / 1500m times and your 5k will improve as well with little adjustments.