21:31 5k on 9-12 miles a week

i'd just like to point out that this time would be sub-par for me for the first 5k of a morning jog the day after a hard workout when i felt like s***.

whooopidee-doo-dah-day i'm a letsrun jerk! ha!

I can relate's example above brings up another good point. He lost 60 pounds and dropped his 5k over 5 minutes. I'm sure there was some aerobic development too in that time but weight loss was probably key for him. Running is the most unforgiving sport with regards to weight. There's a reason most elites look like twigs.

So, how much do you weigh and how tall are you?

If you're a bit on the heavy side you may improve much more with an increase in training load. At 9-12 mpw you aren't going to lose much weight. Increase the mileage ( or even increase some aerobic cross training) and the pounds will come off.

Good Luck.

Run 5 miles a week 4 times a week and you'll be sub 19 before you know it... throw in a fartlek one week and a mini tempo the next and you'll probably drop even more. You can be a local road whore and be fairly competitive on 30 miles a week.

i would say 21 + for your first 5 no matter who you are is fairly decent... many people will give the line about how they ran that fast as freshman, but the difference is that most adults at 27 aren't nearly as active as a 14 year old kid... hence, it's just going to be easier for a kid who's already got some decent fitness to run a faster time..

I ran 17:20 off of 15 miles a week as a freshman, but i think more had to do with coupling that running with skateboarding everyday, playing hoops on the weekends, biking to friends houses... etc... as adults we just don't do that... so nice job on your time.

Well, thanks for the advice everyone, but I'm going to have to save it for another day.

Yesterday evening, I fell down the steps at my house and fractured my ankle. In a cast for 6-8 weeks. Non weight bearing.

No its not. Paavo Nurmi can still break 20 minutes and he's been dead for decades.

Try speed self style back patting instead, you seem like a natural for that.

Just Started wrote:

I'm 27 and just started running about a year ago. I run a 3-4x per week with my runs being 3 miles.

I never knew how to train and didn't run to train. I just ran. Usually as hard as I could. A friend talked me in to doing a 5k with him and I ran it in 21:31.

Is this a pretty good time off of 9 to 12 miles per week, even though I ran nearly all of those miles at a hard pace?

We could give you stories of how it is good or not good. Really it matters not. The fact is that you aren't running that much yet, you don't have many miles on you yet and you're still relatively young. Do you want to go faster? If so, run more and don't run them all hard. And then do it for a while. You'll likely get faster. Unless you intended to be a world class athlete, the only thing that should matter is how good YOU can be.