I've run sub 15 5k with low mileage

John Clendon wrote:

I am on board with "A little twang".

Were you too aggressive moving to the 100mpw to begin with? Did you have the prior athletic/running history to comfortably run that milage with quality?

Report back to us in two years after only running 40mpw. My guess is you will be back to mid-15min 5k.

Too many assumptions without truly understanding your past training.

The guys that break 15 minutes with 30-40mpw are huge outliers. If you told me 70-80mpw with a lot of quality and speed, I'd be less skeptical.

back then, i didn't think I was too aggressive. I had years of running 60 mpw with lots of quality exercises and resting one day a week.

What I've done to increase my mileage, at the beginning, was really working better on my warm ups and cool downs so I added extra 10 miles a week just doing this. I really didn't feel the increase to 70 mpw. By then i started running during my rest day as well, and then I kept around 80 mpw for some months.

My long runs got longer from like 10 to 15 miles. Increased my easy days on like 2-3 miles. And added an extra easy 5 miles as second training. Well, i had the 100 miles on me. And I kept the quality of the exercises. It was not instantaneous, it took me over a year. I agree that It was kind of aggressive, but at the time I really didn't feel. I was happy to be able to run the magical number.

Stooge food wrote:

Would you consider yourself a speed oriented guy or a strength guy? I have you time trialed a 1500 or an 800? Also, whats your 3k pr?-And where did you get it? Do you enter ncaa meets unattached?

Well, you tell me.

I'd say I am more of a strenght guy.

I do have some PR's.

When doing 50-60 mpw

400m - 55.4

800m - 2:03.1

1.500m - 4:04

3.000m - 8:51

5.000m - 15:27

10.000m - 32:06

When running 90-110 mpw

3.000m - 8:56 (time trial, no competition)

5.000m - 15:19

10.000m - 32:10

* i haven't run other distances.

recently (running 35-40 mpw)

3.000m - 8:38

5.000m - 14:54

I haven't run other distances. Today I did a 1.500 test at the track and finished in 4:06. Though it was 2 seconds slower than my PR I didn't die in the end, and I was not 100% prepared. My guess is that in a competition i can run a 4:00 or even 3:59.

About your last question, I did it in a state competition in Brazil. I am not american.

cool story everyone is different this means nothing

This is a really interesting discussion for me. I appreciate your willingness to share more details - I'm always trying to learn and you have obviously had some very nice success. By the way - congrats on getting the sub 15 - that had to be a huge feeling of accomplishment... especially after you had given it a big effort with mileage and resigned yourself to it not happening.

A few things to note - you were having some nice success and progression before the mileage jump, while averaging 55 mpw for the 4'ish years. I wonder - had you plateaued and stopped improving? Or, did you just get enthralled with the idea of making a BIG improvement with the 100 mpw?

I wonder what your results in the 5k & 10k would have been if you would have immediately followed that 6 months around 100 mpw with a drop to 50-60 (or your current 40) to freshen up and sharpened up for racing. An earlier poster mentioned periodization, and I agree, the higher-mileage approaches I am familiar with (like Lydiard) use the 100'ish mpw in the base, and you don't expect to race well in that phase. It's only in the later phase when you drop your mileage and add more race-specfic workouts that you suddenly see the payoff. I am self-coached (from books), and follow such a program, and I have had many panic moments during base when I just feel slow, and like I'm not improving much. The first 2-3 weeks of faster workouts are the same. Then, suddenly things start clicking and I'm flying. I probably shouldn't repeat the same doubts every base phase, but I still do, even after 4 full training cycles now.

Anyway, enough about me.

I am curious - what would you say was different about your recent training (around 40 mpw) and your previous training that averaged 55 mpw? Obviously 15 miles less. Your current training has a nice weekly balance with many of the standard "key" workouts: a) speed; b) tempo; c) race-pace'ish intervals; d) long(er) run; e) recovery day. What was different about the 55 mpw weeks?

Also, what did your 100 mpw weeks look like? Particularly, what quality did you imclude (if any)? If you can outline a typical week during that period, that would be great.

Oh, and finally, i agree with you that I'd expect much of the aerobic base had eroded with that year off training. It's very possible that it wasn't a factor in your sub 15. But, i do know that the body doesn't completely "forget" previous training (much easier/faster to get back to a level you've been at before versus achieving that level for the first time) so i can't rule out that it played a role in setting up the sub 15k. It really is a cool puzzle - I don't think we can solve it, but I hope to understand your variables enough to learn what I (we?) can from it.

Thanks!

Well, you got the point: i was lowering my PB and i had some years stuck around the same mileage per week. So you start reading stuff around... and well, somehow I decided that to lower my 15:27 i had to run more miles per week. it was not that i was stuck in mid 15', but I had to train very hard to run a 15:27 and thought that to lower that I should add more miles.

I did lowered my mileage as part of periodization. I have always done that: when i was running 50-60, then 90-110, and even now. When I mention that i was running 100 mpw, it doesn't mean that I kept running until the week of the competition. My peak was 110 an that was generally 4 weeks prior to the competition. Then i gradually lowered until the race. A program of lets say six months (26 weeks) consisted of:

"base training": ~8 weeks (at the end of this period I was running close to 100 already)

"pre-competitive": ~14-15 weeks (from 90-110 mpw)

"competitive": 3-4 weeks (down to ~40 mpw during race week)

I actually use this approach now. Two weeks before the 5k I've run about 30 miles. The final week, about 25. But for most of my time I was running 35-40. As I said i spent a long time not running, so when I decided to come back to a good shape, I basically started running every day speeding up in the middle of the exercises sometimes. I remember after one month I've done a 10k time trial and i got 37:10. So I continued with this approach to regain aerobic base. I don't know exactly how many miles I was running as most of the time I didn't even have my watch with me. When I lowered that to mid-35 (that was like 3 months later) I re-started with intervals. In the whole period since I came back I am sure I didn't run more than 45 mpw.

The main difference between my training now and what it was back then is the respect i have for my body - back then It was like "OMG I lost one workout". Running was central in my life. I would run sick, i would run even when very very tired. Somehow today i feel more refreshed every workout I do. I now realize that in the past I could not give my max because somehow I was always tired.

About the years that i've spent running 55 mpw, the main difference is that I am doing shorter intervals. So i am able to do it faster. I am much more flexible now. For example, I used to do long runs at no slower than 6.20 pace. It didn't matter if I was dead in the middle after a hard week, I would push it until finishing it. Now I don't mind going over 7.00.

But I am doing more quality work in my intervals. I used to run let's say 5 sets of 1k at 5k pace (about 3.05). Now i am doing only three with longer intervals and 10s faster.

Here is what a 100 miles/week looked like for me:

Monday

am: short intervals. This could be 20x400m, 12x600, 10x800m. Or like a mix between them (like a piramid). The closer to the competition the more i rested between them and also did faster. Total was about 4-6 miles.

pm: 6 easy

Tuesday:

am: easy 6-8

pm: easy 6-8

Wednesday:

am: tempo runs / 3-5 miles

pm: easy 6-8

Thursday:

am: longer intervals. From Two miles down to 1000m were considered "long" for me. Total about 4-6 miles for these.

pm: easy 6-8

Friday:

am: easy 6-8

pm: progressive exercise. Lots of variations on these. About 6 miles total.

Used to run in the hills too.

Saturday:

am: easy 8

pm: massage/etc

Sunday: 14-16 miles

Add 2 miles Warm up and 2 miles Cool Down for short intervals, long intervals, tempo runs, and progressive, and voilá.

It seems a lot more than nowadays, right?

I can't even think of repeating these crazy weeks.

Thanks. Good stuff.

On the above periodization, how did the three races you mentioned earlier (a 10k, then a 5k, then a Half Marathon) fit into it? It sounded like all those were relatively close together.

Yes, I hear you. It seems like you made a few classic mistakes earlier (both at 55mpw and at 100 mpw), and are now avoiding them. That has to be a huge key to your success. a) not forcing an arbitrary mileage goal; b) not forcing paces on long runs, etc. c) not recovering properly between runs; and mostly: d) not listening to your body.

Well done in correcting those! Many of us never learn.

"10s faster" than what?

A bit confused here about "doing shorter intervals". Are you referring to the current Monday 200/400/600m intervals? Are you saying that you were not doing this type of workout (significantly faster than race pace)?

So, your intervals before were similar pace to your current Thursday session (around 5k race pace), but lower overall volume of quality.

How about the tempo runs? Were you previously doing a similar tempo/threshold workout?

How about your current rest day. What did your recovery day look like when you were around 55mpw?

And finally on the intervals. You originally said "2x2 miles, 3xmile, down to 800 minimum" and "4:45-4:50 pace". Were you really doing 2 x 2 miles at basically 5k race pace? Obviously 3 x mile or 800s make sense, but 2x2mi seems brutal.

Yes. Wow, what a difference. It's worth noting that despite aggressive mileage increase, you were still trying to include short intervals, long intervals, tempos, and long runs every week. I've never been able to successfully manage that. My periodization juggles those in & out, or spreads them across several weeks.

It's safe to say you were overdoing it with that training. At least, for what you could handle at that point in your career. The up one week and then falling off by 30 miles the next week is just one of many signs that it was too much. You seem to recognize that.

Hopefully you continue to improve. It seems like you have a lot of talent & potential room for even faster times. I would make the suggestion that there might be a happy medium between where you are now, and what you attempted. That happy medium might offer further improvement if you do plateau at some point. However, never lose sight of the lessons you've learned such as listening to your body and not forcing things. And, take the approach of eroding the rock over time (i.e. little gains, incremental gains), and not trying to blow it away all at once with huge jumps in training, or improvement.

It is one devious thing about running that we can often try too hard, and never reach our goal. Then, only by trying "less hard" do we actually reach our potential. Brutal for us type As.

I've run a HM about three months before my 10k, and the 10k about one month before the 5k.

About the Half, it was not planned to be there, i just had trained a lot and wanted to test myself. I assumed that my bad results was because i was not rested. I didn't really change my trainings a lot that week. I just rested on saturday and considered the Half Marathon as a long run. But all my week had been hard before. The week after was harder as I've run very easy on monday and tuesday. The 10k was about the same thing, though my recovery was better and two days later I was fully back to schedule.

About the 10s faster that I mentioned, I mean that while doing 90-110 mpw my intervals looked like 5 x 1000 at 3.05 with 60s rest. Or 8 x 1000. I only increased speed close to the competition.

Now I basically do it faster in all phases of training. I mean, today it looks more as 3 x 1.000 and my time is 2.55.

the same for the 400s. I used to run 15 x 400 for 69-70, now I run 10 67's.

The same idea for 600, 800. Less volume, higher intensity.

my previous tempo runs were slower than my race pace. I used to run let's say 6 miles at 5.25. No my tempo runs got faster, as I explained, I run like 1-2-3 miles, (rarely more) and for the 1 mile i go faster than my 5k goal time. The 2-mile I keep very close to 4.45 pace and the 3 miles I run around 5:00.

When I was 55 mpw my recoveries had a prescribed pace, around 7:30 pace. The problem is that some days I was too tired even for a 7:45. So sometimes i'd push to keep the 7:30, or, if I was really tired, finished over 8:00, but still did the volume. Today if I am feeling that tired i just don't run.

Yes, the 2 x 2 miles is one of the hardest exercises I usually do. I can't keep 4.45 though (that would be 1 x 2 miles as a tempo run). But i run around 10:00 each, about the same pace of my best 5k before.

I do think that I have a good aerobic condition, better than the average, but still far from being extraordinary. I know some guys who were able to break 15 with less training. There's one guy who started training when i was already mid 15 (back in 2010) and i actually lapped him during a competition. He finished 17:26 but had been training for just a month. This guy just finished a low 65 half marathon and is aiming to break 30:00 for the 10k, what I think it will be considerably easy for him. I do believe than i can run a 29:55 and a 65 in the future. Though I might need to increase my mileage to about 50 per week, I now aim to run a 14:35 continuing this approach of low mileage / high intensity. I might never reach this level, but somehow running a 14:54 was not as hard as my mid 15s', so I believe there's more to come.

As mentioned before everybody is different and talent/genetics rules. I think Tim Noakes says: Do the minimum amount you need to achieve your goal.

This underlines the importance of a) recovery and b) of running this "minimum amount" well before you decide to up the mileage.

In my club are a few experienced guys who tried to run more miles, expecting to get better but never did, because they had to lower the quality of the runs.

That´s a great veteran performance.

A few questions:

1. When did you start to run like this? What mileage before?

2. Details, please (what kind of workouts/rest/pace, easy days, cross training?).

3. Is this just your summer schedule? And during the winter?

Don´t worry to tell us; 99,9% of all m45+ will never be in touch of a sub 16/5k (lack of talent).

Impressive. wrote:

That´s a great veteran performance.

A few questions:

1. When did you start to run like this? What mileage before?

2. Details, please (what kind of workouts/rest/pace, easy days, cross training?).

3. Is this just your summer schedule? And during the winter?

Don´t worry to tell us; 99,9% of all m45+ will never be in touch of a sub 16/5k (lack of talent).

I will try to clarify some of your questions and give some insights about training in the process.

1) I started running 7 years ago. I mean, I started really training 7 years ago. Before that i used to run "just for fun". I'd run 21 for the 5k and 45 for the 10k before starting with real training. I liked the thing and after starting i became faster and faster, as my mileage increased from 30 miles at the beginning to 50-60 miles, a range that i've kept for about 3 1/2 years.

2) I will give details about my trainings. Directly from my training log, here's a week 10 weeks before I've run my 14:54.

Monday: 10 x 400 - 67. Rested 60s. Felt good, finished with a 64.

Tuesday: 6 easy miles. didn't think about the pace. Probably around 7.00

wednesday: 3.5 miles. Felt tired at the beginning. After half things started to get better. Last .5 finished strong in about 2.25. Passed the 5k mark in 15.50.

thursday: 1x one mile + 2 x 1k. Jogged three minutes after the mile. Jogged two minutes between each 1k. Started too fast. Finished the mile in 4.45. Rest was not enough. First 1k was ok in 2.58. Died in the second and finished in 3.10.

friday: i've jogged 40 minutes. Don't even know my paces.

saturday: 15k. Started 6:10, legs were tired. Slowed down to 6.40 for most of the exercise. Last 2k were good in about 6:00 pace. Total time 59:30.

mileage: ~37 including warm ups / cool downs.

here's my training log 3 weeks before the competition (after that I started tapering).

monday: 5 x 400 (63 - rest 2 minutes) 5 minutes jog + 5 x 200 (29-30s) rest 60-75s.

tuesday: easy 40' jog

wednesday: 2k - 5'57". Started really fast, first k in 2.52 with a first lap of 67. Second km was 3.05 but was not so tired in the end.

thursday: 3 x 800 (jogged three minutes between each). 2.20 / 2.20 / 2.18. jogged for about 5 minutes and run a 600m in 1'41". Was happy in the end.

friday: jogged for 30'. "walking" was a better definition. i was really tired.

saturday: 8 miles. Average 5.55. Started slow and increased the pace. Last mile 5.30.

mileage: ~30

3) i am in the south hemisphere. I competed in the end of summer here.

but i don't change my trainings because of the seasons, but because of competitions. I am now training for a 10k on june where i plan to achieve a PB as well (road). on october there's a state competition at the track and I will probably double running the 1,500 and the 5,000.

Run medium mileage and go sub 14!

I got three High School kids. One junior and two seniors. All three been running for two years. All three run about 52 a week. All three just broke 15:00 for 5k. No big deal. They all got crushed of course and just broke the top ten in the race. The guys that crushed them..all HS guys who are all at higher mileage. Have no idea what your getting at in this

post.

Thanks for the additional info. Yes, for the previous HM & 10k, it sounds like you might have been overly fatigued. That was my guess from the way you described the races earlier (slower than expected, and falling off pace about mid-way).

You are certainly getting great results from your current training - keep up the great work.

If you would, please post back on this thread with the occasional update. It would be awesome to see you at 29:55 & 65 (and probably 14:30'ish?) in the future. It does sound like those are within your reach - which is awesome! Whether you do, or whether you don't, it could be a nice data point for the rest of us to learn from.

Take care, and best of luck!

Sounds like you maintained the quality that you had while running 35 mpw and just added in long warmups/cds, easy secondaries, and in general just junk miles.

The idea of running 100mpw is not just to jog around. It should prepare you for longer, more intense training in the future, not just be a target that's maintained while you run repetition and interval workouts year round.

I have had experiences very similar to the OP. Background: ran higher mileage in college, averaging over 90 mpw in cross country and about 85 in track. I had decent performances in cross, running consistently under 25:30 for 8k by senior year. My track performances were always awful, though, never breaking 15:30 or 32:00 (didn't even break 15:45 as a 25:20 cross guy). I think the problem was an over-emphasis on mileage over specificity of workouts.

I took a few years off/mediocre training after college, then took 3 months straight off last year for an injury, so I started fresh. Worked up to 50 mpw (6 days a week, singles only) and did my training in the inverse of a typical base: worked on speed to start and built endurance later. I've dropped 30 seconds off my 5k PR, run faster over every workout, and seem to have similar strength as I had running high mileage. The key is a focus on workouts and a de-emphasis of recovery/easy running. Instead of doing a lot of medium 10 milers and doubles, I'll jog 5-6 miles for an easy day. My long runs are fairly hard, usually something like 13 miles with the last 8-9 under 6:00 pace.

The most noticeable differences: I never get sick, haven't had any injuries, and don't recover as quickly from hard tempo efforts.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Run medium mileage and go sub 14!

I don't have enough talent for that. Nor i have age to be that fast. I believe that to run under 14 running has to be a central aspect in your life. You have to eat, sleep and balance your trainings and work much better than I can. Unless, maybe, you are a super talent. If I was able to run an under 14 I would be probably be shooting for the olympics. I believe i can reach 14:30, but there's a huge difference between 14:30 and 13:59. This improvement take years.

thanks. These are my goals. I wanna become super resistant so I can run a 14:30 for the 5k and be able to run twice 14:55 to finish a 29:50 10k. if I can do that then it's possible to run 15:25 pace for every 5k of a Half Marathon. I don't know if I ever will, but I will keep you updated. On june I will run a 10k Road Race and will let you know how it goes. Thanks for the insights and for sharing your thoughts. Good luck on your running goals as well!

Thanks for sharing. Good to see there are other runners with similar experiences here. Hope we can provide others with some insights about training that might be helpful. I totally agree with you - I never get sick and haven't had any injuries for the last year, though it gets harder for me to recover from hard sessions as well. That's one of the reasons I run very easy or even do not run after a hard workout.

Thanks for the details.