Hi,
I would like to solicit opinions on my 10k potential. I am currently 25 years old working as a software engineer in CA, not married, no kids so have plenty of time to train.
I was a pretty good runner in high school back in the day, but I never took it seriously. I wouldn't run a step outside of practice, so I would literally take 3 months of summer off without a single run before XC season, and I also wouldn't run on the weekends unless we had a race. Nonetheless, I tried very, very hard in practice, often pushing myself to the point of puking in hard workouts. I'd say I averaged 25 miles per week in XC season and 20 miles per week in track season, but our training was more about very hard intervals than high mileage.
My times were:
400m: 49.5
800m: 153.9
1600m: 4:18
5k: 16:15
I ran for one year in college but hated it. My coach was trying to get me to run 50+ miles per week which was more than double what I had ever run before. Nonetheless I slightly improved in the 1500, running a 3:56. I also drank a LOT the summer before freshman year (with no running) and during freshman year, and I had gained enough weight that I was definitely the heaviest guy on the team at 5'8" 157-160 lbs. I quit after that year.
Since then I got fat up to 175 lbs, then lost it while casually training for a half marathon 2 years ago where I ran 1:21:01 on about 50 miles/week for 4 months, starting at 175 lbs and getting down to 150 lbs by the end. Since then, I've maybe run 3 or 4 times a week usually 4 or 6 miles easy and gained back about 5-6 lbs, until the last 3 weeks where I've gotten into it again. I'm up to 40 miles a week now, running every day.
While I'm still young, I want to run as fast as possible for a 10k and 5k as a good goal and something fun to get me through the grind of working all the time. I want to do optimal training, even if that's 100 miles a week or whatever.
Thanks