Potential 5 minute 5K improvement in one year

Do everything your coach tells you to do, become a workhorse and work harder at every aspect of running (including recovery and all the extra stuff), and most importantly don’t skip assigned training especially not an entire summer.

I went from 19:05 5k at age 18 to 15:45 5k at age 27. You’ve already got a head start on me, let’s see how far you can go.

get your miles in. your improvement curve is fantastic, all you need to do is put in the work over the summer. your coach will take care of everything in the fall but it’s on you to do everything necessary in the summer.

Don't even worry about breaking 16 you still need to break 19. Running is a long game and the more you improve the harder it gets. breaking 17 wont be nearly as easy as breaking 19. You need to be realistic..... 21:51 is low talent as a Fr. But you can still get to sub 17 in HS or shortly after. It will just take a few years of smart training. I would only add 10 miles per year. EX Fr - 20 So - 30 Jr - 40 Sr - 50. Be cautious with miles and think long term. 2-3 months is short term. Train to be fast in 2-3 years. Run consistent miles add in resistance training and eat healthy. The goal is a college scholarship not a fast time and burnout as a sophomore.

Disagree with saucyboy420. Now is the time to ramp things up and improve. Going so slow is a uniquely American thing and has led to lots of mediocrity. I don't mean to say run 100mpw... but run as much as you can comfortably handle. If that's 40mpw, fine. If its 70. Great. Double as much as possible. Do strides almost every day. Run within yourself and hopefully a day or 2 a week will gravitate towards a tempo run. Biggest thing is to not push the summer in terms of pace or overly taxing workouts. Threshold runs and harder strides are all you need. And lots of doubles. A long run isn't necessary either. You can easily get into the 17s and maybe 16s. I've seen kids go from 24min 5ks as freshman and close to 6min milers to low 4:50s and 19:30 sophomores to sub 17:00 and 4:30 juniors to sub 16 and sub 4:20 seniors.

I love the caution about “overly taxing workouts,” but it’s way too easy for a young guy like this to hear 70mpw and not receive it in the way you intend. He won’t necessarily know it and won’t feel it right away, but there’s a risk that his response will, in effect, be to feel greenlighted for overtraining. Yeah, he might be able to handle that higher mileage, but it takes a pretty careful process of ramping up to figure that out.

old guy proud dad post before mine is really good overall. Just do that. But, also, low to mid-50s is plenty. Still leaves you room to ramp even higher as you become an upperclassman.

Why not? My first 5kbwas just over 30 minutes and my second was just over 24. It was about a month later and I cut over 6 minutes off the time.