How many years of serious running does it usually take for a runner to achieve a "breakthrough" of some sort? I am wondering because I started running last year as a junior in high school and ran 18:48 of of 40-50 mpw. Could I make improvements? So far I have run an 18:14.
bump
anywhere from 1 to 10 years i'd say
have fun
I found that I ran way faster at 20/21/22 etc. then at 16/17/18 off of substantially less training. Not saying that age makes up for training, but at least for me, I got a lot stronger immediately after high school. I'd say stick it out, gradually build your mileage base, and be in it for the long haul.
I started off as a 19:15 5k runner (soph) ended that year with a PR of 17:35 then I went:
16:25 (junior)
15:44 (senior)
And improved from there on.
I was only running about 20 mpw to start and built up to 65 my senior year. So if you just started I would say you have lots of room to improve. But everyone reacts differently to training.