Age 32. Started training in March 2010 for my ever first 5K after 3 years of being a hobby jogger. Average mileage has bounced around 45 mpw, to 70mpw at my peak doing Malmo stuff this summer
Here is my progression:
June 2010: 20:36 5K
September 2010: 19:07 5K
June 2011: 18:11 5K
Oct 2011: 17:46 5K
Give me an estimate of when I might hit 16:59 in 2012. How tough is the leap from 16's to 17's?
Thanks.
Whoops - I mean 17's to 16's. I'm such a silly goose!
March - April 2012 assuming the winter will interrupt your training.
It depends what your physiological peak is. you're 32, which is not too old but also not ideal. Your 5K PR's would be set at about 30 if memory serves. That is, your best time to set a PR 5K would be about 30 if you had been training since middle school.Your mileage is good enough (70-80 is what I've seen is best for 5K performance); are you doing enough quality? 2-3 times per week? Repetitions, intervals, tempo runs?You're still improving a good bit; 25 seconds from June 2011 to October 2011. I'm more of a Debbie Downer so I'll say it will take a year to break 17. The jump from 18 to 17 isn't too big of a deal in my opinion, but from 17 to 16 is extremely difficult for 99.9% of the population.Last thing: are you tapering? I read a good runningtimes.com article about tapering and apparently a 3 week taper might really work. You would decrease mileage from 70% to 70% to 50% of normal mileage in the 3 weeks preceding a race; you would still do a good amount of quality in those weeks.Good luck!
It'ssoooocoldintheD wrote:
Age 32. Started training in March 2010 for my ever first 5K after 3 years of being a hobby jogger. Average mileage has bounced around 45 mpw, to 70mpw at my peak doing Malmo stuff this summer
Here is my progression:
June 2010: 20:36 5K
September 2010: 19:07 5K
June 2011: 18:11 5K
Oct 2011: 17:46 5K
Give me an estimate of when I might hit 16:59 in 2012. How tough is the leap from 16's to 17's?
Thanks.