Club teammate splits 18:00 for a shakeout 5k

Maybe he’s just talented? snow days said it well in a similar thread - talent beats hard work when talent does a little work

165 isn't a low HR & if you're doing 5k on your easy days that doesn't add up to a ton of weekly mileage. If you're a low mileage runner, you can probably run faster on your easy days. Should you? Probably not like this.

I don't even understand the question. How can someone run an 18 minute 5k the day after a hard workout? For many, this would be quite easy.

How are we supposed to know what's possible for some random 18:00 5K guy that we don't know anything about? You know him and follow his strava. You tell us how it's possible.

Bro, 165bpm is near my max. You've got to give a ton more details for us to be shocked or reply in meaningful ways.

I do most of my mileage at 6 minute pace so a 5k a bit faster would be something I do on a day when I double. 10 at 6 minute pace in the morning and 5k A but faster in the afternoon.

No, I mean he ran it as a shakeout / aerobic run; I've seen him running alone before and he looked comfortable at like 6:10-6:00 pace, but never this fast. He also runs decent mileage (50-60 mpw), and is able to hit hard workouts that are on occasion double workouts, he also runs slowly at like 7:00 or even 7:30 sometimes as well but if he feels good i know he'll run fast. How can you run like this, going fast, while still being able to hit workouts well and not burn out?

I also know his max hr is a little higher than you'd expect , I was talking with him about HR training and he told me it's about 210 rather than 202

Well, there you go. You answered your own question. He cuns consistently, sometimes even twice per day. He make sure to do lots of aerobic training. He runs fast sometimes (threshold + anaerobic) but only when he feels good (recovery). There's no mystery here. He's doing what he's supposed to be doing.

He runs slow sometimes and fast other times when he feels good and has learned how to recover for workouts because he still runs within himself.
He sounds like he just trains smart

It'd be much better if you just provided the guy's 5K PR/PB or any distance PR? If they've got significantly better 5K then 18 mins might be easy/tempo for them and they may have taken it easy on the workout especially if it was a pack run and they are fitter than the others in the group.

It's only very high 15s (xc) but he's aiming for sub 15. Still, it's crazy to me that he doesn't need a warmup (only like 0.9 miles in 6:00, so 6:40-ish pace) and then runs a 18:00 5k without exerting himself too much as evidenced by his HR.

Basically an impromptu tempo

Are we o.p. debating the difficulty of running roughly 3.106 miles at a bit over 5:47/mile? Are we debating the wisdom of running at roughly 5:47/mile on easy days? Unless a runner is a sub-14 5000m guy, most likely not wise to run that hard on easy days. Is that what you are hinting?

I was surprised as how someone could run that fast on an easy day. I thought you'd have to run slow to recover, so you don't burn out while you also allow your legs to recover

He did run slow. Sounds like over a min slower than 5k pace for a short run. Most people if they aren't running 80+mpw don't need to run 3 mins off 5k pace to have an easy day like half this board believes...

yeah, he ran a slow 6 around 7:20 later that day. must have just been feeling good, since i know it's on occasion nice to let your legs spin if they're feeling great