sub 20 5k mileage

dude just pound some intervals a few days a week and you'll be sub 20 in a month.

no need for this long ass "base building" bs for that time.

I suppose there's no harm in adding a second daily run a few times a week. But until you're running 60 or 70 miles a week, I don't think it would be worth the hassle of trying to schedule it. You'll certainly break 20 just by running 40 miles a week in singles. Kicking in the last mile or two of your training runs like you've been doing is probably all the speedwork you'll need. After you run a 19:55 in March, look at more structured training plans to progress to 18:30, 17:30, etc.

Melon wrote:

35-40 mpw seems excessive mileage for running a 3.1 mile race in 20 mins and please don't follow the advice to do two sessions a day. What you need is speed so certainly one interval session a week and one tempo run. A couple of slow 20 min recovery runs a week should be sufficient. Good luck.

How much "speed" does the OP have? How fast can he/she run 1k now with no interval sessions? If the answer is 3:50 or faster, then they already have enough speed to break 20 for 5k. Sounds to me like the problem is a simple lack of aerobic endurance. Running more mileage is the simplest way to fix this problem. 45-50 mpw consistently for a couple of months should be sufficient. Slowly build up to that and see how you go.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

Melon wrote:

35-40 mpw seems excessive mileage for running a 3.1 mile race in 20 mins and please don't follow the advice to do two sessions a day. What you need is speed so certainly one interval session a week and one tempo run. A couple of slow 20 min recovery runs a week should be sufficient. Good luck.

How much "speed" does the OP have? How fast can he/she run 1k now with no interval sessions? If the answer is 3:50 or faster, then they already have enough speed to break 20 for 5k. Sounds to me like the problem is a simple lack of aerobic endurance. Running more mileage is the simplest way to fix this problem. 45-50 mpw consistently for a couple of months should be sufficient. Slowly build up to that and see how you go.

A couple months ago I ran a 2:30 800m running something like 10-15mpw.

tuuurtleeeee wrote:

Another giver of +1 wrote:

How much "speed" does the OP have? How fast can he/she run 1k now with no interval sessions? If the answer is 3:50 or faster, then they already have enough speed to break 20 for 5k. Sounds to me like the problem is a simple lack of aerobic endurance. Running more mileage is the simplest way to fix this problem. 45-50 mpw consistently for a couple of months should be sufficient. Slowly build up to that and see how you go.

A couple months ago I ran a 2:30 800m running something like 10-15mpw.

Then "speed" isn't a problem. That's around 3:08 k pace. You might not need 45-50 mpw. A consistent 35 mpw could be enough. FWIW, when I was racing 2:30 800s I was running low 18s for 5k off 40-50 mpw. The 5k is a mostly aerobic event, so to generalise, the more mileage you can do, the faster you'll run.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

tuuurtleeeee wrote:

A couple months ago I ran a 2:30 800m running something like 10-15mpw.

Then "speed" isn't a problem. That's around 3:08 k pace. You might not need 45-50 mpw. A consistent 35 mpw could be enough. FWIW, when I was racing 2:30 800s I was running low 18s for 5k off 40-50 mpw. The 5k is a mostly aerobic event, so to generalise, the more mileage you can do, the faster you'll run.

Great. Also the 800m was run in heavy ass trainers (a bit more than 10oz), if it makes any difference

Op how long have you been on 15ish mpw previously to produce 21min 5k?

kamlevvvins wrote:

Op how long have you been on 15ish mpw previously to produce 21min 5k?

approximately a month. Although I did some intervals weekly

Bump

tuuurtleeeee wrote:

kamlevvvins wrote:

Op how long have you been on 15ish mpw previously to produce 21min 5k?

approximately a month. Although I did some intervals weekly

Did you just start running for the first time in your life one month ago? Or are you coming from a layoff? Did you run at all in high school?

My first thought was that you just I didn't have a runners build and you'd need to develop a runners body shape over time by being consistent.

Now it's sounding like you just haven't given yourself enough time. At a month in, you are barely in shape to complete a 5k at any kind of race pace, let alone a potentially good (for you) race pace. Keep slowly increasing your milage and you'll come back and laugh at this thread in 6 months. The key is going to be consistent without getting injured. Don't get cocky and try to do too much too fast. Injuries can happen quickly. One week, you feel amazing and the next something starts to hurt and won't go away.

I'm no coach and do not "coach" my kid but my I can share with you what my 13 year old daughter has been doing. Her xc 3k pr is 11:42 and her 5k road race pr is 19:53. Seems close to where you want to be. She runs abt 20 miles per week. Some weeks heavier and some lighter. She's been doing hill repeats will a middle school running group on mondays (three ish miles total with warm up and cool down) and on wednesdays they usually do 8-10 400's. The first 8 400's tend to be around 1:30 pace and the last few are all out effort where she may hit 1:15. The rest of her miles come from soccer. Which tend to be short bursts of very fast running. And then she has one other slowish run once a week that's generally about 4-5 miles in the 8 min pace range or if she goes with me slower... In the 9's

Jimmy21 wrote:

My first thought was that you just I didn't have a runners build and you'd need to develop a runners body shape over time by being consistent.

Now it's sounding like you just haven't given yourself enough time. At a month in, you are barely in shape to complete a 5k at any kind of race pace, let alone a potentially good (for you) race pace. Keep slowly increasing your milage and you'll come back and laugh at this thread in 6 months. The key is going to be consistent without getting injured. Don't get cocky and try to do too much too fast. Injuries can happen quickly. One week, you feel amazing and the next something starts to hurt and won't go away.

Im running like 50% of my mileage on grass and the rest on concrete. I have a runner's build. 5'8 and 135lbs.

thegripper wrote:

tuuurtleeeee wrote:

approximately a month. Although I did some intervals weekly

Did you just start running for the first time in your life one month ago? Or are you coming from a layoff? Did you run at all in high school?

I used to run very little mileage, very inconsistently for a year. So you could say, yes, I started running a month ago

tuuurtleeeee wrote:

Jimmy21 wrote:

My first thought was that you just I didn't have a runners build and you'd need to develop a runners body shape over time by being consistent.

Now it's sounding like you just haven't given yourself enough time. At a month in, you are barely in shape to complete a 5k at any kind of race pace, let alone a potentially good (for you) race pace. Keep slowly increasing your milage and you'll come back and laugh at this thread in 6 months. The key is going to be consistent without getting injured. Don't get cocky and try to do too much too fast. Injuries can happen quickly. One week, you feel amazing and the next something starts to hurt and won't go away.

Im running like 50% of my mileage on grass and the rest on concrete. I have a runner's build. 5'8 and 135lbs.

This is the last thing that anyone needs to see in order to determine that you can go sub-20. I'm early 30's, male, 5'5" on a good day, and 148 lbs. (naturally muscular build). I don't have a runner's build at all, but by the time I was "cracking" 2:45 in the 800 is when I could go sub-20. You're already there with speed and you do have a runner's build. Aerobic development is all you need.

Fantastic. Was planning to have a weekly 8 mile long run and increase mileage to 30-35mpw to improve aerobic development

Generally, it's not possible to break 20mins without 100mpw, all of which are run at 6:30 pace or faster while maintaining a HR of below 150.

Notallthathard wrote:

Generally, it's not possible to break 20mins without 100mpw, all of which are run at 6:30 pace or faster while maintaining a HR of below 150.

Classic letsrun response

I think you only need 3.1 miles to go sub 20 for a 5k.

Everyone has given the info you need, but it's probably not the info you want to hear or do. Since you keep asking for the quickest way. Everyone wants short cuts.

Sure you can slam some speedwork and get faster and probably break 20 min for the 5k even. But then youll want sub 1930 then sub 19 mid 18s low 18s, so on and so on. In reality you'll be back on here asking what injury you have way before you even get much further. Good luck though.