Currently on 65mpw, 18:51 5K, Need advice how to get faster.

I was like that too. I was older when I started running but I broke 17 at age 38. I was never fast so I did a lot of long slow miles and then tried to crush my workouts. I ran good solid tempos like 5miles at 5:50 or 3x2 miles at 5:45 or 8 miles at 6:00. I did the shorter stuff like 400s and miles repeats etc. As I got stronger from running more miles (100mpw) I ran the longer tempos w great success which really helped me a lot. That's what worked for me but I don't know if it'll work for you. Also, lose some weight that'll help a ton.

JAKIR wrote:

I was like that too. I was older when I started running but I broke 17 at age 38. I was never fast so I did a lot of long slow miles and then tried to crush my workouts. I ran good solid tempos like 5miles at 5:50 or 3x2 miles at 5:45 or 8 miles at 6:00. I did the shorter stuff like 400s and miles repeats etc. As I got stronger from running more miles (100mpw) I ran the longer tempos w great success which really helped me a lot. That's what worked for me but I don't know if it'll work for you. Also, lose some weight that'll help a ton.

Sounds good, how long did it take you to build up to 100mpw and how many workouts a week did you do? I'm 6'4" don't think I can lose much more. I am starting my 65 mile week this week and I dunno if I should just jump to 75 or try adding another workout day of intervals or something. Am I just being impatient as a new runner or need to admit I'm just slow?

It sounds like your goals are a little out of order. You are more concerned with running an arbitrary number of miles per week, rather than running a faster 5k.

If your goal is to break 17 in the 5k, you don't need to plan on running any set number of miles, you need to get better at running at 5:30 mile pace.

MPW is an analysis of training, not a training program in itself.

Also do you think my mileage is too conservative? I actually averaged 40, 43 and 48 due to the cut back weeks. Might try just running 65, 65, 65, 65.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

It sounds like your goals are a little out of order. You are more concerned with running an arbitrary number of miles per week, rather than running a faster 5k.

If your goal is to break 17 in the 5k, you don't need to plan on running any set number of miles, you need to get better at running at 5:30 mile pace.

MPW is an analysis of training, not a training program in itself.

But won't running high mileage make me better at running 5:30 mile pace? I thought high mileage would build my aerobic engine? Which is what holds me back when I race as my legs are not tired.

This mileage is way too high for someone training at that level for a 5km. You shouldn't need any more than 50-55 mpw in your big weeks. Also, your recovery weeks are too much of a cut back. Like said above, mpw isn't the training plan but an analysis of training, although a good building block would be 55, 55, 55, 40 mpw for a four week cycle

Are you not generally getting faster?

Because you have been able to ramp things up pretty quickly you have crowded your rapid gains into a shorter time frame.

You may bot have the genetic capability of a sub 17 but those extra 2 minutes are not going to drop off easily.

ezby wrote:

This mileage is way too high for someone training at that level for a 5km. You shouldn't need any more than 50-55 mpw in your big weeks. Also, your recovery weeks are too much of a cut back. Like said above, mpw isn't the training plan but an analysis of training, although a good building block would be 55, 55, 55, 40 mpw for a four week cycle

So what should I do?

Are you the same guy from the other thread I commented on?

I run 40-55mpw, focus on 10K, and dropped an 18:35 5K during a hungover 20 minute tempo on Saturday. I run substantially less than you but can run a faster 5K. Why?

Long intervals. It's the one thing missing from your training. You need about 5-8K of volume at 3K-5K race pace in a workout to improve your VO2max, which is your most important limiting factor for a 5K race.

Sample work-outs are:

6x1K

8x800

5x1200

Recoveries should be jogs equal to 50-90% the time it took to run the hard part of the interval. For longer intervals, do closer to the 50% end, and for shorter ones, do closer to 90%. Do a 2-3 mile warm up and 2-3 mile cool down as well.

In an interval, it takes about 1 minute before you have gone from anaerobic to aerobic. That's where the interval starts to feel hard. That's also the point where you actually start working your VO2max system. Which is why 400's aren't as good, because you spend just the tail end of each interval developing that system. Long intervals give you more time beyond that one minute mark, and provide a much stronger stimulus.

Don't do intervals year round though. Do them 1x per week, for 6-10 weeks. Don't be afraid to swap them for a tempo every few weeks. But you need to do a few of them to convince your body to adapt.

They feel like hell but they provide amazing benefits.

You need to do workouts somewhere near your 5K pace ... it doesn't look like you do any running faster than probably 6:40 /mile (unless you are doing your tempos too fast)

follow your advice wrote:

Are you not generally getting faster?

Because you have been able to ramp things up pretty quickly you have crowded your rapid gains into a shorter time frame.

You may bot have the genetic capability of a sub 17 but those extra 2 minutes are not going to drop off easily.

Yeah I am getting faster and I feel like I could run soo much faster if I was fitter. Am I just being impatient? I am still getting PBs every month and it's pretty easy to go sub20 now.

Am I just slow because I've been building my mileage and have yet to squeeze anything out of it by running proper workouts?

I ran with a sub17 guy for 800m I think sub17 is a slow pace but I'm not fit enough to hold it yet.

I just thought I should be faster at 60mpw or are people who run sub17 on 50mpw doing proper workouts like intervals with faster easy pace?

It sounds like you increased your mileage cautiously enough were 60 mpw should not be a problem to continue from here on out. It's not an apples to apples comparison, but when I coached, I took about 2 calendar years of injury free running to get a varsity high school runner to 60 mpw. Your potential advantage is that you could be stronger physically being 28 years old. So I would not necessarily say you're running too much mileage.

That said, worrying about increasing your mileage further, for the 5k could be counter-productive. I would also be cautious about increasing the paces of your daily runs as it would inhibit regeneration and adaption from harder workouts.

It seems that, based on your schedule, that you need 5k pace and sub-5k pace workouts mixed into your schedule. From a physiological perspective, your body has to train and adapt to running faster. There are various ways to incorporate them and to build up to run a faster 5k race. With newer runners, I used to like to keep it simple. Start with 400s at a reasonable 5k goal pace with a 400 jog recovery (if you are around 6:00/mile pace, start maybe with 5:45 pace). Build up to doing 12 x 400. Then start shortening the rest. Then switch to doing 800s instead of 400s.

Granted, something like that took time. I had the luxury of a 6 month cycle. So I could go every other week or every 3 weeks before doing a workout like that. In other weeks, the quality workout could be 200s at mile pace, or a mutli-pace session (granted, this depending on the age/experience of the runner) or a speed-development workout.

Hire a coach. Seriously.

It's the fool proof method to improve. Everyone thinks they can eyeball their own training. They can't.

based on my own experience 99.9999% of runners would benefit from a coach.

The only guy I can think of that doesn't need one is Meb. And he had 20 years of coached running experience before he started writing his own training plans. I'm 100% you aren't meb and never will be.

There are four primary training zones to improve running performance

1. aerobic conditioning - long distance runs

2. anaerobic conditioning - tempo runs

3. aerobic capacity - 3k to 5k pace intervals, eg. 6x1k, 4x1 mile, 3x2k

4. anaerobic capacity - mile pace and faster, eg. 8x400 @mile pace

Currently you are completely neglecting 3 and 4, and you are barely touching on 2. You will never get close to your potential unless you work all 4.

I agee with Lenny Leonard. You seem too focused on miles per week. With this +5miles a month you will be running 125mpw in a year, 185 in 2. When are you going to stop? 100mpw because it sounds cool?

Personally, I think you should stop at the mileage you're making progress on. You're a new runner, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's less than 50mpw. Do that for a couple months and add one shorter interval session (e.g., 10-15x400m, short rest). Maybe even alternate your tempo run with a longer interval workout (1000 repeats or mile repeats) every other week. No down weeks, unless you're feeling tired or have a big race you want to peak for. Consistency beats volume in my experience.

If you do that for a few months, you will make progress. Up your mileage when you're plateauing, but give your body time to adjust to the new training volume. Your current buildup plan might work for some people, but I think the target audience is more experienced runners who, after a break, are building up to the mileage they already know works for them.

rightthere wrote:

I add 5 miles a month to my weekly mileage with a 25% and 50% drop in mileage the 3rd and 4th weeks for recovery.

Unless you are really tired from the training load, there is no need to make that drastic drop in mileage. A 25% drop in the 4th week should be sufficient.

Dropping your mileage that much can minimize the aerobic gains you are getting from the 2 other high-mileage weeks.

If the single recovery week is not enough, then you need to consider how you are spacing workouts. Or adjust your weekly mileage or your daily easy runs.

There is way more to a fast 5k than just mileage. One of my training partners broke 16 minutes off 15mpw of high intensity work. As long as you neglect any sort of speed work, you aren't going to run any super quick times.

Yeah same guy, just dunno what to do.

You're right intervals are missing from my training and I think you can run faster 5K then me because you are running lower mileage but faster and I have yet to reap my mileage gains (I hope!).

I do want to try long intervals because I would love doing them (I love training hard) but I am afraid of messing up my base by doing them. Your examples look good and I would try them but it seems more like a short term gain. Wouldn't it be better to run high mileage to build a bigger base first? Also why not do intervals year round? Won't I just get slower if I stop doing them?

Are the benefits long term? So you are saying I should keep to 65mpw and start doing long intervals until my 5K time drops then add more mileage then more intervals again?

Tempos are done at 6:37 pace, using Daniels Vdot for threshold. Only time I run faster is strides and random 200m kicks or kicking at the end of races.

When you coached your high school runners to 60mpw over two years was that just base building though? I assume you had them doing proper workouts faster than 5K pace as they would have had proper races to compete in. My plan was to build an aerobic base then start the real workouts.

Thanks for the interval advice, I'm taking it all onboard. Looks like everyone is saying I'm missing faster paced work below 5K pace.

So I should just start adding intervals, keep increasing my mileage as usual and stop dropping my mileage too much during the down weeks?

Lenny Leonard wrote:

It sounds like your goals are a little out of order. You are more concerned with running an arbitrary number of miles per week, rather than running a faster 5k.

If your goal is to break 17 in the 5k, you don't need to plan on running any set number of miles, you need to get better at running at 5:30 mile pace.

MPW is an analysis of training, not a training program in itself.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Right answer.