I'm an older beginner who have been off the couch for 2 years now, currently building back mileage after some tiny speed bumps.
Ran ~25mpw last year (first full year of running). 10:30 3000m in January. averaged 35mpw the last 6 months (peaked at 50mpw), raced 18:30 5K in April and 38:00 10K in June. Training has been mostly easy and steady, but I've been doing some more speed work the last month and a half (strides at mile pace, 4x800m at 5k pace). My 10K time is finally in line with my 5K time, and I've decided that I probably need some more complete training schedule.
During my recent 10K it was hard to maintain a decent intensity, and my maxHR dropped below 90% several times. I think this is partly neuromuscular, and I had no soreness after the race at all (went hiking the next day and fell running 2 days after with no problems). This is very similar to how my 5K felt, I dont feel like I'm dying, but I haven't got enough speed in my legs, on the 3000m I felt like I was dying but that I forced my legs to move faster than they could efficiently.
My goals are to get as fast as I can within 2-3 years, short term goals feel pretty meaningless at the moment, but I race occasionally to benchmark and get some motivation. I might run a 10k/Half in Sep and then there's some 3K races this winter that I would like to improve my time on.
My sort of plan atm:
- start running doubles to work a few times a week and get up to 50 mpw consistently (possibly targeting 60 next year)
- do strides regularly, I've been slacking a lot on them
- do hills regularly (I have ~6-1000 feet elevation on plenty of runs now)
- do some LT workout every 2 weeks or so
- do a speed session of 400m repeats on LT weeks and 800m intervals on non-LT weeks
- Keep things simple and enjoy running
Considering my background, does anyone have any advice for adjustments? I'm not sure if I need much speedwork, but I also dont want to feel like I ignored an important component in 6-12 months from now.