here's my story: My senior year of college xc I pr'd with a 27:29 8k, then following graduation pr'd on the roads with a 16:45 5k and 34:40 10K. Then, developed ptt in my left foot and tried to restart training for all of 2012 but never made it more than a week before pain came back (probably ran 100-150mi total the whole year). Finally went to get fitted for orthotics and was able to start training consistently again. Took about 3 mo just jogging around, then really committed to training for the last 14 weeks.
so my training log says I've ran about 939mi in that time (14 weeks), including a a few easy weeks and week 14 which was about 23mi, which is the highest weekly average I've ever maintained for an extended period of time. I also started doubling 3x week, which I'd never done before. Probably the first ten or so weeks were just aerobic running till I got used to the consistent mileage (most non-rest weeks were about 80mi). And only started adding 1 20min tempo and 1 session of 4-6 X 400 at about 80 sec (goal 5k pace).
This program has so far resulted in 17:01/28:14/34:54 for road 5k/xc 8k/road 10k.
I guess I was hoping The mileage jump would be enough to get me back to the fitness I used to have. Also might be of importance: I've only ever competed on xc teams, never did track in hs or college (had other commitments during those seasons), so I've never really trained for anything faster than a 5k race.
So still being in my 20's and having never really done much speedwork (or even really much mileage compared to other former college runners) I think I should still be able to make some (dramatic?) improvement between my 5k and 10k times, even after a year off. Right?
So, what should I do know? I was thinking of doing a "season" of indoor track this winter to really try and develop some of the higher end speed that I've never really had (I ran a 4:56 1 mile once during an xc workout, pretty much the only timed, hard effort I've ever done outside of xc or road races).
Are there any obvious things I might be missing? Am I just not doing enough fast running? Does it take a little longer for increased mileage to affect fitness? If you have any insight that could help a wannabe mediocre runner out I'd love to hear it. Thanks!