Sub 17 5000m, reasonable based off these workouts?

Forgot to add, I mean would a sub 17 be reasonable in the coming weeks, I'd guess I might be in 17:20s shape now

I was flirting with the 17 barrier for a while, and to be honest, I would have crushed you in these workouts. Would definitely need more info to make a better judgement, but I'd say you are more in the mid 17s right now. Also, don't worry too much about what kind of shape you are in during the first few weeks of the season. If you are already getting overly tired and injured, build up slower. If you just put in some consistent weeks, you will get there

Makes sense, none of these workouts were really crazy for me which was a good sign. I was curious since I had to take a little bit of time from my hammy tweak, but It's pretty weird for me to be in like mid 17 shape after running 19:30 as a senior in HS, I was in shape for a 17 something but COVID kinda screwed me.

Excited to see where I get off a few months.

6 x 1k with 90 rest is a pretty accurate 5k prediction, so if you could get your 1ks down to 3:23 you should be able to do that. I don’t know where you are at in your training, but based on personal experience I would say you should be able to be right around 17 in around a month

I did those first workouts off 3 weeks of building mileage 25-45-50

Two weeks of workouts at 55-60, bad luck hamstring strain outside of running, so a week off and week at 25

This Monday I did 1.5 @5:49 pace, an improvement on the previous one, but I'm not doing any more workouts this week just to be careful with the hammy

62 miles (workout)

3 mile tempo 18:07

5x1200 4:14 90 sec rest

2x2400 @5:57, 2x800 @2:45, 2 CD

47 miles

16x400 in 80 in the wind, 60 sec rest, felt really easy and closed the last 4x400 in 77

This week

2 miles tempo in 11:32, 3x800 in 2:39, 3x400 in 73

2 min jog recovery until the 400s, with 400 jog recovery

Thoughts on any progress, that 62 was a big jump to real training so I'm a little fatigued but I think workouts have been very good recently.

I don't think you're close to sub-17 yet. I think closer to 17:30. I'd like to see some of those longer reps (1k, 1200) at close to race pace. If you're going to race at 5:30 pace, you need to train at that pace to get comfortable and efficient. You can allow yourself longer rest on the 1200s (2:30 ~ 3:00) if you drop the pace.

I see what you mean but I'm not designing my workouts. My group is generally 16:50-17:20 guys so it makes sense

My only other caveat is the 3200 tempo was at 17:55 pace and I was all ready cranking down, 5:49-5:43

TBH I don't even know if I'll race a 5000m this season as I originally thought I would, just more curious about people's thoughts on the workouts atm

Thanks for the feedback!

You're there.

Stop looking for specific workouts.

Don't overthink things.

Run a 3k time trial 9:45 should be good enough.

Then have a couple of pops at 5k on an easy course.

Do them as time trials and make sure you're fresh and you should be ok.

I see what you mean, I'm not really looking for any predictor workouts or anything. To be honest I made this thread for a 5k time trial to figure out a goal, we switched that to just a tempo run

Excited to see what happens in the coming weeks

I ran a 16:45 last weekend and on the Tuesday leading up to it I did 3 sets of 3x800 in 2:37-2:40, so a little tougher than your 16x400 workout but if you finished with 4 77's that's pretty good. I would say you're close if not already there. You just need to get in the right race and go for it.

Makes sense, a nice workout on your part as well

The exact splits were 80-77-79-73 for those last 4

Only have a few possible weeks to race this season, so fingers crossed

Sorry, to be brutally honest, you likely won’t even break 18. That 5x1k screams 18:10 to me. The true 1k repeat 5k predictor workout is 6x1k off 60 seconds - if you can hold even pace for this then your average should ≈ 5k pace. You averaged 5 1k’s with pretty long rest at 17:30 5k pace. You’re putting in good work but you’re not in sub 17 shape. Unless you have the race of your life and it’s a track 5000 in perfect conditions… even then I don’t really see you running any faster than 17:35. Good luck and report back.

The 800 and mile time are consistent with sub-17, but aren't solid indicators.

My guess is you're a early in your running "career" and aren't working from a sustained base of moderate to higher mileage - meaning you're speed endurance isn't as well trained.

Going from your prior 5ks, sub 17 seems doubtful. That's quite a jump.

I ran 18:30 on a hilly road course back in November, and I listed a tempo run at 18:30 5k pace in there

Sounds about right to me, I think the one other thing I should mention is that my workouts aren’t usually hall busters, only the 3200-3x800-3x400 workout was really hard

the only thing is most of my mileage is run at a moderate clip, so these workouts are just decent but I’m getting a good amount of endurance work all week long, makes sense why people assume I’ll be slower than I’ve actually ran

Some posters are really struggling on this thread because they don't understand proper workout pacing and can't comprehend what is possible without hammering workouts.

OP, it's obvious you're not a workout hammerer and training the right way. I think you're close, maybe a tad slower than 17, but you're on the way.

Not sure if it helps, but these are workouts I ran around the first time I ducked under 17.

I was in my mid-40s and had a bigger base, I expect.

* 800m at an all-comers in 2:11

* hard w/u 400 in 75, 200 jog, then 5 x 800 on 200 (2:34, 2:34, 2:41, 2:33, 2:33)

* 2 x 200m on 600m jog (27,27), 2 x 600m on 800m jog (1:45, 1:43)

* 2 x 2 mile on 2min rest (10:44, 10:51)

* 2 x 2 mile on 2 min rest (10:53, 11:28)

* On ~400 jog rest: 1k (3:10), 1.5k (4:58), 1k (3:10), 2k (6:45), 1k (3:20)

* 2 x 1 mile on 400 jog (5:15, 5:08)

*1 x 400 (61) on 800 jog, 5 x 300 (48-50) on 500 jog.

Can't really judge fitness based off "really easy" workouts, of course.

As a general rule of thumb though, if you do 8 x 1k w/no more than about 2 minutes of rest and it's a "hard" workout that'll be pretty close to your current 5k pace.