What's my ceiling?

I'm thinking you have a shot at the steeple in Tokyo or at least the trials

Get some!

16:40 5k, 34:20 10k

It helps that you still have eight years until you hit 40. It took me a while after a long, long absence to get to 40 10k (about a year) when I came back in my mid 30s, and then the drops came quickly down to 35 and eventually mid 33 in my mid 40s. 31 10k is unlikely but 35 is very doable and I wouldn't be surprised if you beat that, but it will take a good training group to push you.

You are right that no one knows what you'll be able to do until you get closer to doing it. But these kind of long term goals are awesome for motivation.

I agree with the others. Mid 30's for 10k.

And it sounds like the marathon might your biggest goal in the future? I think getting down to 2:40 might be possible.

I'm in my mid-30s and coming back to running after a decade off. I also had a crappy high school coach, but the opposite of yours, all intervals and racing all the time. My near-long term goals are the same as you, sub 40 and sub 3, but long term, I don't know. 2:40s in the marathon and 1:teens in the half would be pretty cool.

Agree on goal setting as motivation, but that is a double edged sword in that if you set to high a goal, it may start to seem unachievable and that may discourage you.

If I were in your position, I would establish a baseline of fitness by getting in a race some time soon and then focus on smaller incremental improvements and racing across different distances while getting equivalent or better results. You can then have an array of short and medium term goals to shoot for.

Also, consider some non-time based goals. Try to improve your position in your age group against your local competitors. Try to improve on your pace in a particular workout that you do at different points in your training cycle. Try to get your mileage to a particular total. Try to get x days of running in per month.

Lots of goals that you can use to motivate yourself other than specific long term time goals which, honestly, you have too short of a track record to reasonably establish.

Ya, I'm totally aware of that. My short term goal is 40 minutes in thr 10k. I'm basing that mostly on the annual 10k in my home town is mid September. The very beginning of cross country season. I ran 40 minutes after taking most of the summer off. Surely I should be able to do it again with 3 months of hard training. I'm also basing it on, I'm running my easy running my easy runs on 730 pace. I feel I should be able to knock a minute off a mile if I'm actually rested and pushing it. I'm also basing it on that I reat an article that says to do 6 x 1 mile repeats at 10k pace. Then next week a 2 mile and 4 × 1 miles. Then 2 x 2 miles+ 2 x 1 miles and then 3 x 2 miles. It said if you can do that as a workout, you can do your goal pace. Im halfway through that and each split has been faster than needed. I've been doing it pretty easily. I feel like if I miss the 40 minute mark, it won't be by much and I'll get it next time.

Whomever said that it sounds like marathons are my true goal is right. I've never run one but just based on my 10k pace, I think 3 hours is a realistic goal to work towards

My long term goals are a 36 minute 10k and a 3 hour marathon. I don't have goals beyond that, hopes and dreams maybe.

That sounds like a great plan. The progression from 40 minutes on three months of training to 36 minutes is aggressive but seems a reasonable goal. The progression of your workouts is a great intermediate tool/goal. My concern was that you were talking about running a 31 minute 10k when you really never raced the distance from what we knew. Keep on keeping on.

Similar boat here (4:25/9:38 in HS, didn't run in my 30s, now I'm 40)...

My guess is that if 7:30 is "easy" then 40:00 (6:26 pace) is pretty reasonable although I know there's a lot of wiggle room in that pace. By easy I'd take Jack Daniels' notion of 3 steps per inhale/3 steps per exhale. Can you run 8 miles like that? Another observation: your marathon goal is easier than your 10K goal.

Good luck. I second the suggestion to look at incremental improvement and work your way up through the age group ranks.

I lost you in my ramblings. 40 minutes in 3 months. (Which is in 2 weeks) 36 minutes after a year. And curious what's possible in 2 or 3 years.

If you mostly took the summer off then you are unlikely to be driven enough to push for the next 8 years.

first off, forget what you did or didn't do in HS it has absolutely zero influence on your current 'ceiling'.

second, not a soul here could possibly know what your 'ceiling' is even if you were close. everyone is different and they'd all be guessing... probably shouldn't be basing your 'ceiling' or goals on what you might read here (I suppose that includes what i am writing).

finally, your 'ceiling' is based on how important it all is to you... running fast is hard hard work and you have to love it... and it sure is a lot harder to put in all of the work needed to run fast when you are in your 30's especially since you haven't run since HS.

you need to decide how important it is yourself... why on earth would you ask someone here/anyone actually what your LIMIT is?

I didn't think I needed to. At the time, I thought running felt easy after a few weeks, so thats what it took to get in shape, so why bother running in the off season?

Tonight, I completed my goal of running 3 x 2 mile repeats at 10k pace. The article I read said that if you can do that, you can hit your goal pace. I don't know if it counts though, because I ran it on a treadmill. Either way, it was a hell of a workout.

Excellent.

I'm going to update this every once in a while to keep track of my progression.

3 months of running anf I ran the 10k i got 40:40. It was a very hilly course. Up and down the whole way. I feel on a flat course I could break 40 right now. I'm going to try for another 10k around Thanksgiving

Jimmy21 wrote:

I'm going to update this every once in a while to keep track of my progression.

3 months of running anf I ran the 10k i got 40:40. It was a very hilly course. Up and down the whole way. I feel on a flat course I could break 40 right now. I'm going to try for another 10k around Thanksgiving

How'd the Thanksgiving 10k go?

I ended up running a 5k with my 7 year old daughter. I imagine this thread got brought 83>fb from my thread about running doubles. Either way. Once I got to about 45 mpw in november, I started having having problems with itbs and patellar tendonitis. Im working on my strengthening/flexibility issues and its getting better but I can't seem to run a full week without having to take a break. I'm now experimenting with running doubles even though I'm at really low milage. I feel like doubles gives me more flexibility to add milage

I strongly believe that if I were to run a 10k right now, I'd be able to get under 38 and I still seen to be showing strong progression. My plan is to run a half marathon once my milage is up and I'm not worried about being injured

The races that i care about for next year (barring injury) are:

Around March: any half marathon

Mid august 30k

Mid September 10k

Mid October marathon

Between 8 and 10 feet depending on when your house was built.

Back to your original question, and of course it's just a guess, but I would say 16:10 5K, 33:30 10K, 2:38:00 marathon at age 35 if you stay healthy and train seriously.

2017 goals of 17:20 5K, 36:00 10K, 2:50:00 marathon would be reasonable if you can handle 60 mpw with appropriate workouts and long runs. I will be interested in following your progress.

He's already not healthy.