How many MPW when you first broke 16:00 5K?

1.senior year in high school (4 years experience)

2.40mpw consistently

3. easy miles and short, fast reps with a lot of recovery. no reps longer than 800 and only 3 tempos all year.

I was close to sub 16 for years on 60 mpw but kept running 16:02-04. Finally I went up to 70 - 80 mpw and ran 15:45. A year later on 60 mpw I broke 16:00 again.

I ran 15:51 at a road race before the start of my senior cross country season in high school. Over the summer I'd just been doing base training of about 60 mpw at 7:00 pace.

But our team did more intensity during the season than any other team I've ever heard of, and that must factor in there somewhere-- a pretty typical week (not our hardest week) once a season got going went like this:

Monday: 6x(mile repeats)

Tuesday: 5 miles at 6:30 pace am, 12x(1/2 mile repeats) pm

Wednesday: 5 miles at 6:30 pace am, 16x(400 repeats) pm

Thursday: 5 miles at 6:30 pace am, easy run pm

Friday: 5 miles at 6:30 pace am (day of race), race pm

Saturday: hills

I know it doesn't seem to make much sense philosophically, but it seemed to work well-- we won state several years in a row with several individual champions. And we actually had very few injuries.

1)Age 33, running steadily since junior high.

2)I did an entire summer of ~100 mpw, all low to moderate intensity.

3)A few half-marathons but no speedwork, and a fair amount of trail running. The sub-16 came in my first track session of the season at the end of August, 15:42 coming from a 16:01 PB.

ran 15:35 my first 5k , first year of college. This was after 9 mos. training at D1 school. Probably about 50 miles a week but serious interval work.

zxcvzxb bump

I could not have run for 6 months and then run for 3 weeks and break 16:00. I would just run the first week to get my leg muscles prepared. Then I would just run like 2 weeks of intervals - 3 minutes hard with 2 minute recovery. I would do maybe that 5 times and I would be in the 15:00s no matter what kind of poor shape I had been in. But I was never fully inactive. I would always lift weights or do other stuff.

Crossfit 3 x per week with p90x and finally broke 22mins for a 5k! That's proof right there!

I didn't do drugs like Adrienne herzog but she is hot!!!!

1. almost 7 years

2. ~105 a week

3. Traditional track workouts, some tempos. I was using a hybrid lydiard-daniels plan my xc coach helped me come up with.

//Went to one of those colleges with only xc. I'd been running for several months when I ran my first 5k the summer before 9th grade in just under 25 minutes. Didn't break 21 my first year of running so running in the 15s may not seem that great, but I'm proud of my achievements even if they took a lot more from me than others.

Cindy a climate scientist wrote:

I could not have run for 6 months and then run for 3 weeks and break 16:00. I would just run the first week to get my leg muscles prepared. Then I would just run like 2 weeks of intervals - 3 minutes hard with 2 minute recovery. I would do maybe that 5 times and I would be in the 15:00s no matter what kind of poor shape I had been in. But I was never fully inactive. I would always lift weights or do other stuff.

perhaps you could go 13:20s if you actually trained.

Ran 15:47 on the track when I was 16, summer before senior year of HS. Probably 35 miles/week.

my (converted) 15:50 25lbs weighted backpack ~5k was done on basically 10mpw (or even less).

Did a lot of sprint repeats. Extreme high intensity, super short rest, vomit, repeat. Bada$$.

Granted I also did a lot of weightlifting (low reps, high weight, high volume!) which may have contributed to my superior strength+endurance.

Any questions/I am here to help.

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

my (converted) 15:50 25lbs weighted backpack ~5k was done on basically 10mpw (or even less).

Did a lot of sprint repeats. Extreme high intensity, super short rest, vomit, repeat. Bada$$.

Granted I also did a lot of weightlifting (low reps, high weight, high volume!) which may have contributed to my superior strength+endurance.

Any questions/I am here to help.

lol, I love your posts X-fit guy. You are one of a kind.

Okay, I'll bite: what is a "(converted) 15:50 25lbs weighted backpack ~5k" ?

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

my (converted) 15:50 25lbs weighted backpack ~5k was

Er... wrote:

Okay, I'll bite: what is a "(converted) 15:50 25lbs weighted backpack ~5k" ?

Just like there is for altitude or high temperatures, there are formulas that allow you to calculate your times run with/without a weighted backpack. In this case I ran a 5k with a 25 lbs backpack.

Why? Because the added weight limits the muscle loss that is inevitable with long distance running.

Interesting. I note, however, that you say it was a "~5k", not a 5k. How long was it exactly and what was your time?

1) How long had you been training?

2) How many miles per week were you consistently doing?

3) What types of workouts were you doin

Plateaued quickly. Ran low 16 in just my 3rd 5K, age 20. But did not improve for another 5 years. In that time typical college training, 70-80 miles week through much of the year (100s sometimes in the off season), but 50-60 during early outdoor dropping to 40-50 by the end. First couple years post college, never actually ran any 5Ks but continued running, more like a 10K and up runner.

At 25 I jumped into my first 5K post-college and ran 15:28 off of 70s-80s and marathon training (long reps, long runs, and some fartlek every week).

1) 5 year

2)70

3)typical 2 track workouts per week doing mostly pace work, tempo once per week, one day off every other week.

Cindy a climate scientist wrote:

I could not have run for 6 months and then run for 3 weeks and break 16:00. I would just run the first week to get my leg muscles prepared. Then I would just run like 2 weeks of intervals - 3 minutes hard with 2 minute recovery. I would do maybe that 5 times and I would be in the 15:00s no matter what kind of poor shape I had been in. But I was never fully inactive. I would always lift weights or do other stuff.

Why is this even a question?? Can't everyone pretty much do this from birth?!? I have no talent and I did it when I was 10. My Mother dragged me to a charity 5k. I was probably 30 pound overweight at the time and I pushed my even fatter baby sister in a jogstroller. I ran 15:20.