Does anyone else have a very NARROW performance range?

Maybe because you're not training 'right' when you're putting in the miles? There has to be balance to fully reap the benefits from your hard training. Easy days, hard days. You body adapts to the stress and supercompensates on the east days so that you become stronger. Don't know if this is your dilemma but thought it was worth mentioning.

Troll

likeminded wrote:

I'm 21. I can jog 3 times a week and run a 15:30 5k.

Dude

this is LETSRUN, EVERYONE can jog and run a 15:30!

I'm similar. I ran 15:44 certified (but totally flat) road 5k just 4 months after starting to run, not averaging more than 40 mpw, then only ran 15:26 that next spring on the track after 70 mpw. A year and several 100 mile weeks later only down to 15:16, and finally the next year just broke 15 with a 14:59. Definitely not a case of constant returns to scale.

I ran 4:05 my first year for the 1500m, then 4:05 again that year, times the next two years included 4:05, 4:04, 4:02, 4:04, 4:04. Although I was never in a 1500m race where the winner ran faster than 4:02, so perhaps I could have been pulled along a bit faster.

My 3k's outdoors have all been 8:54, 8:55, 8:52, 8:58 (tt), 8:52, 8:55 (tt), 8:49 (tt). I did run 8:37 indoors though.

My outdoor 800's started with a 2:00, then 2:00 again, a 2:02, 2:00, 1:59, 2:00, 2:02.

Steeples have been 9:29, 9:19, 9:24.

The lack of significant progress probably contributed to my decision to stop running.

Yeah, I was pretty much the same. All my most "impressive" performances were the type where you say, "Wow, if I can run that fast off that little bit of training, imagine how fast I'll run when I get fit!" Except then I'd put in two or three years of awesome training and run three seconds faster. Annoying.

I remember coming back after eighteen months off with a knee injury, running four times a week for five months, and running a 1500 that was only six seconds off my eventual career best. For the next few years, when I was really fit and training hard, every time I ran a 1500 I'd think "Why the hell was that so damn hard when I was running almost that fast with virtually no training?!"

I guess "responsivity to training" is yet another aspect of talent...

SOme kids wouldbeat their shit dry if they could do that so stfu

At 21 years old, you'll quite lucky to run these times, however are you sure you aren't sand bagging us with your comment that you "jog" 3 times/weekand can pull off a 15:30? If you can run 65-80mpw (which sounds like you do quite often)and run 15 to low 15, you can probably drop down to 14:30 (a 3.3%ish improvement) in a few years with proper coaching and if you really want to.

Don't wait until you get older and have a job and a bunch of obligations before you think that you could have gone faster.

Guys my age wish that that could improve 3% from one year to the next in a 5km but, unless they drop a few pounds and quit their jobs or they train like Roger Bannister did whilst in medical school, its not happening.

Parting words: go hard now while you are young and being financially supported by your parent(s) and then rest on your laurels when you look back fondly out of your Wall Street office deciding if you want a Barolo or Cabernet Sauvignon for dinner.