here is EXACTLY how many miles per week need for EVERY 5k time possible

For example, runners on say the sub 17 level tend to be able handle sessions with a lot of quality, say 8 x 1000 or 6 x mile with at most half time rest at threshold, whereas lesser runners tend not to have the basic aerobic fitness to carry out such workouts, or else do 'too much' slower running and lack tolerance for quicker paces over that kind of volume.

I first broke 17 freshmen year on 30 MPW. I broke 15 on 40 MPW. This table is stupid. Times are based on talent, not training. I almost broke 14 minutes on 55 MPW. I had guys on my team who ran 85 MPW and only ran 15 minutes.

Yes, of course it is a mixture of talent and training, but it can be interesting to consider what tends to hold on average. Most interesting of all are probably individual progressions: "I could run x off y km, it took y' km to run x'."

no way average 80mpw runner run 5k in 14.00

Most won't be able to run 14.00 whatever they do and. And among the talented ones I think 100mpw would be a better average.

a thread to end them all wrote:

Finally, a thread to answer them all.

Feel free to debate the numbers.

All numbers assuming average talent and a childhood not spent exclusively playing video games.

20:00 - 10 mpw

19:00 - 20 mpw

18:00 - 30 mpw

17:00 - 40 mpw

16:00 - 50 mpw

15:00 - 65 mpw

14:00 - 80 mpw

I see what you're going at here. I averaged ~35 MPW and ran 16:45 in HS. this chart would indicate that I should have been at 17:30 off this mileage assuming linear.

I am now hitting 50 so will be interesting what I can do when I do in a time trial in the fall. Roughly this would indicate that I should be able to run at least sub 16 off 50 if I could run sub 17 off of 35

go birds wrote:

a thread to end them all wrote:

Finally, a thread to answer them all.

Feel free to debate the numbers.

All numbers assuming average talent and a childhood not spent exclusively playing video games.

20:00 - 10 mpw

19:00 - 20 mpw

18:00 - 30 mpw

17:00 - 40 mpw

16:00 - 50 mpw

15:00 - 65 mpw

14:00 - 80 mpw

I see what you're going at here. I averaged ~35 MPW and ran 16:45 in HS. this chart would indicate that I should have been at 17:30 off this mileage assuming linear.

I am now hitting 50 so will be interesting what I can do when I do in a time trial in the fall. Roughly this would indicate that I should be able to run at least sub 16 off 50 if I could run sub 17 off of 35

Im going to add that I dont think it will be a linear scale like OP is indicating

I think youd see it more like the following. maybe not exact

21:00 - 10 mpw

19:15 - 20 mpw

18:00 - 30 mpw

17:00 - 40 mpw

16:15 - 50 mpw

15:45 - 65 mpw

15:30 - 80 mpw

in my model the runner will improve by 15 seconds less per 10 mpw bump. it also accounts that it might be tough for someone to break 20 off of only 10 MPW. but they get bigger gains for mileage increase while they are running less than 50 mpw then it is tapering off

I ran 18:33 for a 5k at age 24 in October 2008. Averaged 25 mpw from early August to early October, with a peak run of 13.3 miles in September and a 9-miler hard in late August, but everything else was between 4-6 miles, and I didn't know about EZ days EZ so they were all hard and that summer was hot in Chardon. IIRC my peak mileage week was 36. When I started in late July (the last week of the month) I ran 2 miles in 19:30 and was struggling. I started the actual block in early August.

a thread to end all threads wrote:

I beg to differ wrote:

20:00 5k can be ran by average talent etc on exactly 3.1 miles per week.

Go back to the drawing board.

MOST semi-fit people going to the gym a couple times a week will NOT run 20:00 off of no running training. Go watch your local 5k any weekend of the summer if you don't believe me.

They WILL break 20:00 with 10mpw of smart training. And all of the other times I've listed, if the training is there and they have what I'd call semi-decent talent. (If you can't make these times on those miles, you do NOT have talent for running and aren't in the conversation.)

Do you get it now?

ran 16:58 in a open meet off of 9 hard miles per week and lots of basketball

a thread to end them all wrote:

Finally, a thread to answer them all.

Feel free to debate the numbers.

All numbers assuming average talent and a childhood not spent exclusively playing video games.

20:00 - 10 mpw

19:00 - 20 mpw

18:00 - 30 mpw

17:00 - 40 mpw

16:00 - 50 mpw

15:00 - 65 mpw

14:00 - 80 mpw

Matches my PRs and training volume during my 20s fairly well. I always stopped running once I hit 50 mpw though. That volume just made me lose interest in running. Like why spend this much time doing something I’ll never be great at? Once you get to 7 hours of running per week it starts getting hard to progress and even maintain unless you have nothing else to do, assuming you’re working 40 hours per week and commuting. It just gets depressing after awhile. Gotta win some money to keep me training that much. Or at least be close to qualifying for something remarkable.

I'm at 17:50-18:00 on 40 mpw

Wow, this must be one of the top 10 of dumb training advice at LRC.

Congratulations.
5k is all about talent and not much about training miles.

the conclusions the op came to were of course ridiculous, but a table with another axis added to these two could actually be interesting

Seems about right for most to be honest.

There's a guy at my club who ran 17:20 on 80 mpw during marathon training. Way too much and not worth it. Rather do less with more intensity.

This sounds like an article straight out of Runners World.

Usually when you get to 30 or 40 miles a week you start reading more about how to improve and start doing different things which results in a jump in performance. The people running 10-25 miles each week just tend to do all easy miles.

Totally wrong. With that logic, if someone hammered all their easy runs they would become really fast, but that doesn't happen. Also doing lots of interval sessions will quickly result in a plateau.

Similar thoughts, although a 17:00 will win my local parkruns most weeks. On one hand it is nice to be first but on the other hand you don't get a prize for doing it and it does become a bit meaningless.

This is quite possibly the dumbest running related thread on this site, and that's saying a lot.