Hi everyone,
I used to run XC/TF in high school and for about a year in college, but quit after my freshman year of college as a result of burnout and wanting to party. I had one year in high school where I was pretty fast. My PRs went as follows:
800m - 2:00
1600m - 4:25
3200m - 9:58 (oddly enough, from a 4x3200m relay split)
5k - 16:24
Those PRs are all from a breakthrough junior year. My senior year I set huge goals and bumped up my mileage and training a ton and ended up running slower than the previous year and burning myself out completely as a result (went from ~40-50mpw-70mpw quickly + more workouts). I ran my freshman year of college at a D3 school, but was still burned out from hs and didn't do any off season training, so was pretty terrible and quit after only one year.
Now, after 5 years of basically no running, I find myself getting the running bug again at 25 years old and want to take training seriously but also be realistic with where I am at. I have been reading Daniels running formula and at some point want to follow the 50mpw 5k training plan - so my first goal is to get up to 50mpw. I have the luxury of not having any goal race or training cycle, so my plan is to work my way up VERY slowly. Currently I am running about 16mpw on 4 4mile runs per week. It feels terrible but I'm just glad to be running again. My plan is to get used to that for a few weeks before bumping up the milage. Once I am at 50mpw comfortably I plan on following Daniels 50mpw 5k/10k plan and just signing up for a local 5k to gauge my fitness/get my VDOT value for training.
Here are some questions I have:
1. I've noticed I can keep a decent pace (~7:15 min/mile if my legs are fresh, ~8:00 min/mile if they are not) but my limiting factor in my runs is heavy/sore legs. I'm not to the point where I really have pain. Is this just because I need my legs to get used to running again after so long? Is this something I can just run through and it will go away eventually? basically if I run two days in a row rn, my legs will be super heavy for the next week's runs. Every other day seems to be ok, and if I take two days off it gives me fresh legs again. I have been running consistently for about three weeks now (6mpw, 12mpw, 16mpw, will probably hold at 16mpw for a bit to get used to it).
2. I know I am far from it - but one of my ultimate goals will be to break 16 in the 5k, something I was never able to do my senior year of hs. This is probably a bad question since everyone is different, but has anyone hopped into training after years off like me and run faster or comparable times to when you were in high school?
3. Will any of the training I did in high school/college even help me with my current training? or am I basically starting from 0 again with all of the years off I took?
4. I was more of a middle distance guy vs. just long distance guy and after my 5k cycle I would like to try shorter distance events again. How do you find 800m/mile races as an adult? I can't seem to find any road miles near me. I am in Austin, TX. Does anyone participate in track events as an adult? how do you find these?
5. Any suggestions other than Daniels? I was planning on using his plan since that is what my coach from high school used mostly, and it seems widely regarded as a good training plan.
6. Any other general advice for someone starting from scratch after all these years off?
I work as a software engineer these days, and essentially have loads of free time for training if I want. I run in the morning mostly since it gets hot in Texas in the summer, I plan on training just as seriously or more seriously than I did in high school. I want to see how fast I can get, even if it means base building all year before diving into any hard type of training. I might even consider getting a coach at some point before starting hard training.