I thought Letsrun might find this interesting. I was a 15 minute 5k guy in college for reference, decent but not much more than average. At 22, I started a vicious injury cycle that resulted in 7 surgeries (knee, hips, back, etc.) I was unable to run for 8 years. I am now 31 and recently started to feel healthy enough to run again.
I have been cycling and lifting weights the past 8 years so I am still in decent shape. I decided 3 months ago I wanted to try a 5k and sub 18:00 was my goal. I limited myself to 15 miles per week, all high intensity. I cycled 2-3 times per week and usually hopped on the elliptical once or twice as well.
My running was as follows:
One interval session per week (400s, 800s, mile repeats) all adding up to three miles, with a one mile warmup and cooldown.
One 3 mile tempo run with a half mile warmup and cooldown.
One 6 mile run just basically as fast as I could maintain.
I ran my 5k yesterday in 17:30. I won by about 90 seconds and was by myself pretty well the entire race so I think it could have been faster. It was a hilly course as well.
I am in no way bragging about my pedestrian time, but I am very happy to race again and appreciate having decent health. I mostly wanted to post my result from a standpoint of very low mileage training with cross training added in. This was the result of 3 months of running 3 times per week and I feel confident I could continue to improve following this plan and keeping my mileage low to avoid injuries.
Any suggestions to improve are welcome.