I'm 26. In the last two years I've run less than 30km total and biked about 50 miles, no lifting. Outside of the occasional pickup soccer game and some crunches, I've just been extremely lazy. Today a friend was in town and said "let's go run a 400 at the track". We did, and I ran about a 59-60. In one respect I was happy that I still have some natural speed. On the other hand it makes me feel like my best in HS (50-51) means I was either doing the wrong event of just wasn't trained very well.
Last month I was motivated enough to run 5k, and it was 22:40, and that was pretty rough.
I'd like to start training again, with something specific in mind, and I'll probably just stick to a cookie-cutter Daniel's plan for the time being. So I'm wondering if my (pretty laughable, but better than average) natural speed makes more sense to do 400/800, or if the fact that I never really got that fast even when training for speed in HS means I should move up to the 800/mile, which is something I've never training for before.
Thanks. I realize I'm never going to be that good, so this is all just making the best of a bad situation.