Need advice on how to have a faster 5k.

more miles. how do you only run 20 miles in 6 days?

you don't need too many more, but try to average 35-40 mpw all summer (i know, summer is nearly over) and get in a long run of like 7-8 miles where you run the last 2-3 miles slightly faster than the rest.

here's a good guide:

M - Off

Tues - 6

Wed - 6-7 mi summer of malmo intervals or easy tempo

Thur - 5 recovery pace

Fri - 6

Sat - 5

Sun - 8

when i was your age, 8 miles seemed super long and i only did one that long in high school. You need to go somewhere cool and ideally on trails and don't use a watch. go by feel and never worry about pace

here's an anecdote for your confidence:

I was a very low mileage guy in high school (25-30mpw) and ran 49.8 split, 1:55, 4:28, 16:19

About 10 years later i made a campaign to run sub 16 again, and just did base miles for 10 weeks. the occasional 2-3 mile pickup in a run, but usually 35-40 miles per week and a 10 mile long run. 1-2 days off. I entered a 5k to see where i was at and ended up running 16:20. I was totally shocked, since i hadn't done any hard workouts. i expected 16:45 on a good day

I've learned that if I do too many hard workouts, i get injured or over tired. Just run more and focus on recovery and rest. Don't try to hit it out of the park with a tough workout. long goal, consistency is the trick

good luck

Tf? 20 Miles?

As a highschool senior I dropped about a minute off my 5k time (16:20 to 15:24) mostly from increasing my mileage and tempo efforts/length

I got up to about 65 mpw in the summer, with an average of about 50 mpw. But, since you're only at 20-35, I would recommend building very slowly into your mileage, especially if you've never gone over 40.

As for tempo runs, I did one every week in the summer. One of mine might be 30 minute @ long run pace then 25 minutes @ tempo (80% effort). They are hard and suck but I think that contributed the most to my success.

Cut the hard speed workouts, because like you said, they only get you injured. In my opinion you really don't need to do speed work until 2-3 weeks before you plan to peak.

An example of one of my weeks would look like this

Monday - Tempo run, 30 warmup + 25 tempo - 8-9 Miles

Tuesday - 40 easy - 5-6 Miles

Wednesday - 60 easy - 7-8 Miles

Thursday - Fartlek/Hill workout - 8-9 Miles

Friday - 40 Easy - 5-6 Miles

Saturday - 70 Easy - 9-10 Miles

Sunday - 15 Very Easy - 2 Miles

The weekly total on this would be 47. I generally would do more but this looks like one of my early summer weeks. Like I said, build into higher mileage or else you're going to get injured after a week.

I also recommend a lot of barefoot running. Try to get in 5-10 minutes each day. It strengthens your feet and ankles and prevents injuries. Make sure you're also elevating/rolling out every day.

The most important thing however is to stay relaxed. Put yourself in a calm state of mind, don't worry about your times or opponents.

Good luck!

Sometimes Runner's World does have good advice:

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/solving-the-5k-puzzle

Magill knows what he is talking about.