Matching your first year of running PRs starting again in your late 20s

I ran all through high school and a few years in college. Took about 8 years completely off after I have found that my strength has come back pretty easily once getting in shape (was able to set PRs pretty easily at 5k and up) but the speed seems to take longer. Could not get close to what I could once do in the mile. Wouldn't even want to try an 800.

chasing the dream wrote:

I ran all through high school and a few years in college. Took about 8 years completely off after I have found that my strength has come back pretty easily once getting in shape (was able to set PRs pretty easily at 5k and up) but the speed seems to take longer. Could not get close to what I could once do in the mile. Wouldn't even want to try an 800.

I am similarly finding that the strength is coming back easily. Doing random tempos here and there feeling good.

Were you hitting the track for intervals during your come back? If not, do you think if you were, it still would have been a huge difference in the mile?

I am just trying to figure out if I should try to rebuild my speed, or save myself the trouble and go straight to training for 5K +

I have just gotten a bug recently where I am dying to get out on the track and race again.

Started running a little later at 18. First year PBs were.

56 400

2:08 800

4:41 mile

9:30 3000

27:15 8K

Last age I met those standards were:

28 - 400

40 - 800

41 - mile

41 - 3000

42 - 8K

first year plus some wrote:

Started running a little later at 18. First year PBs were.

56 400

2:08 800

4:41 mile

9:30 3000

27:15 8K

Last age I met those standards were:

28 - 400

40 - 800

41 - mile

41 - 3000

42 - 8K

Were you running continuously up until that point? Were there breaks in there? It is good to see that you were able to keep your 800/mile in check for much longer

DeadLegs12 wrote:

first year plus some wrote:

Started running a little later at 18. First year PBs were.

56 400

2:08 800

4:41 mile

9:30 3000

27:15 8K

Last age I met those standards were:

28 - 400

40 - 800

41 - mile

41 - 3000

42 - 8K

Were you running continuously up until that point? Were there breaks in there? It is good to see that you were able to keep your 800/mile in check for much longer

You can retain your speed for a very long time if you work at it. As an example, my 400m time as a 30 year old were faster than my HS and college 400 PRs.

The catch is that I was an 800/1500 guy back then. After graduation, I wanted to try something different, so I trained for the 200/400.

@Moving Down -

That is very encouraging to hear, thank you for sharing! Out of curiousity did you take any break between college and moving down to the 200/400?? If so, how long and did it take a while to get to your college/hs 400 before you eventually surpassed it??

DeadLegs12 wrote:

@Moving Down -

That is very encouraging to hear, thank you for sharing! Out of curiousity did you take any break between college and moving down to the 200/400?? If so, how long and did it take a while to get to your college/hs 400 before you eventually surpassed it??

I took a 2 year break but remained active doing other hobbies and barely gained any weight during that time.

It took me 4-5 months to get to my HS PR and around 2 years to break my college PR.

moving down wrote:

I took a 2 year break but remained active doing other hobbies and barely gained any weight during that time.

It took me 4-5 months to get to my HS PR and around 2 years to break my college PR.

That is great news!! Thank you for sharing this! You have me feeling hopefully optimistic. 4-5 months seems like a reasonable time to get to my speed back. Had similar 400 speed as both a collegian and a high schooler, so getting that level of speed back will be plenty!