I want to break 5 in the mile

Do some 400m repeats. Here is the deal, if you are going to run a 5 minute mile.... 75 seconds for a quarter will have to come easy for you. In other words you shouldn't have to struggle extra hard to run a 75 second lap. When you get to that point then you know you are in fitness for a 5 minute mile.

400 and 800m repeats 2-3 days a week, crossfit the rest, forget higher mileage.

5:00 is 12 mph. Have a friend attach a rope and ride a bike at that speed for one mile, with the rope attached to you. First time he will have to take some weight, and you'll have to keep those knees up to avoid a major biff. Do this every week until you find yourself running with slack in the system. When you can "slack" the whole way, sprint ahead at the finish and throw your arms up, for you have gone sub-5!

Last Lap wrote:

5:00 is 12 mph. Have a friend attach a rope and ride a bike at that speed for one mile, with the rope attached to you. First time he will have to take some weight, and you'll have to keep those knees up to avoid a major biff. Do this every week until you find yourself running with slack in the system. When you can "slack" the whole way, sprint ahead at the finish and throw your arms up, for you have gone sub-5!

All I can picture is Napoleon Dynamite

To the OP, are you female? It really does affect the type of advice you'll get. For instance, you could just tell a guy to do very basic training and he'd be able to break 5 without much trouble, whereas a girl will actually have to do structured workouts and such to get to that level.

Some advice from an amateur.

Your times indicate it is in the realm of possibility for you. But you have to train specifically for it.

Hit the track 2 days a week. Do repeat 400s, or ladders from 200 to 800. Once you can do say, 8 x 400 at 73 or so, you will be ready.

When you actually race, you'll get to halfway on pace. The whole thing is how you feel when you get to that point. 75 second laps have to feel comfortable, and the only way to get to that point is to do track work under that pace.

Workouts I like are repeat 400s with 200m rest, and 400/600 repeats. My favorite track workout is to do a 1600m at a quick pace, and then do 8 x 400. That makes the 400 repeats feel like the last two laps of the race will actually feel.

You can definitely pull this off, but it will take 6-8 track workouts until you are ready.

You seem rather one dimensional to be in Med School.

I'm an old guy who has dropped down in distance from 10kms/5kms to 800/1500m races this past year, so I speak from practical experience instead of a coach's viewpoint.

Your training so far has been fine with a decent base (48mpw) and a 10km time that is dropping. I think if you can get the 10km down to about 37min or a little under you are ready to pop a sub 5:00 mile. All you need then is, as mentioned, to get accustomed to running 75sec/400 pace.

1) keep the tempos going as these will help you hold your speed in the second half of a mile/1500m. Tempos for a few months prior to goal race are very important.

2) you need to run some race pace workouts, 400s in 72-75 sec, like 8 X 400m with 1:15min rest; or 3 X 800m in 2:30 with 3 min rest. Do this once a week for 5-6 weeks before your goal race.

3) you need to make the 75sec pace seem easy, so faster than race pace training is necessary: 200s at 32-33sec; 300s at 48-50sec, short hill reps 100-200m at harder than race effort. About 1500m of this stuff (7-8 X 200; 5 X 300) with a couple minutes rest between reps should do the trick.

I will be slammed by Letsrunners for saying that I think MaxVO2 training is a waste of time. But in my experience I think doing a load of reps at 3km-5km pace (last year's training) did not prep me for the rigors of 800m-1500m racing as well as race pace intervals and tempo runs (this year's training).