Trained for four years and my best mile is only 6:05 :(

Well there's your problem! Speed work should never be that fast and recovery is too slow. Speed form for you should be doing things like 4x400 @1:25 or 8x200 @40s all with 1 min rest. Recovery is 8:30-9:00/mile. Fixed.

2007 wrote:

somebloke wrote:

I will save everyone some time and ask this nicely: are you overweight?

I'm 5'2 and 112lbs so far from it.

It's okay guys, I'm not sensitive :)

Now that we have removed the elephant from the room, it's time to revisit your training. Are you self-coached? If so, how do you plan your workouts? Do you have seasons?

somebloke wrote:

2007 wrote:

I will save everyone some time and ask this nicely: are you overweight?

I'm 5'2 and 112lbs so far from it.

It's okay guys, I'm not sensitive :)

Now that we have removed the elephant from the room, it's time to revisit your training. Are you self-coached? If so, how do you plan your workouts? Do you have seasons?[/quote]

Have we? I think the elephant in the room is..... b @ @ b s ?

2007 wrote:

Should I just give up?

Give up on what? You will never be a professional runner or even an elite local runner, so if that was on your mind (I doubt it was), then yes, give up.

If you enjoy running for whatever reason -- the feeling it gives you, the fitness it gives you, etc., then no, don't give up.

The vast majority of the runners here who consider themselves good runners aren't making a living doing it, so they are in the same category as a super fat 45-year-old who is just slogging slow miles to try to lose some weight. You are in the same category with them -- hobby runners.

If you like it, then don't give it up.

The good news is you run sub 5:40 in the 1500

ballerish wrote:

Well there's your problem! Speed work should never be that fast and recovery is too slow. Speed form for you should be doing things like 4x400 @1:25 or 8x200 @40s all with 1 min rest. Recovery is 8:30-9:00/mile. Fixed.

2007 wrote:

I'm a 29 year old woman. I currently run 50 MPW and yes, I run at all kinds of paces. 4:xx min mile for short sprints all the way up to 10:xx min mile for long/recovery runs. I do speedwork twice a week plus strides and sprints after runs. I cross train on a bike, I jump rope and do bodyweight exercises. I occasionally lift (maybe 4-5 times a month).

My 200s and 400s are about those times. I was more referring to my absolute speed training 50-100m being at 4:xx pace.

Flagpole wrote:

2007 wrote:

Should I just give up?

Give up on what? You will never be a professional runner or even an elite local runner, so if that was on your mind (I doubt it was), then yes, give up.

If you enjoy running for whatever reason -- the feeling it gives you, the fitness it gives you, etc., then no, don't give up.

The vast majority of the runners here who consider themselves good runners aren't making a living doing it, so they are in the same category as a super fat 45-year-old who is just slogging slow miles to try to lose some weight. You are in the same category with them -- hobby runners.

If you like it, then don't give it up.

My ultimate goals are sub 5:30 mile, sub 19 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:40 half and sub 3:35 marathon.

2007 wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Give up on what? You will never be a professional runner or even an elite local runner, so if that was on your mind (I doubt it was), then yes, give up.

If you enjoy running for whatever reason -- the feeling it gives you, the fitness it gives you, etc., then no, don't give up.

The vast majority of the runners here who consider themselves good runners aren't making a living doing it, so they are in the same category as a super fat 45-year-old who is just slogging slow miles to try to lose some weight. You are in the same category with them -- hobby runners.

If you like it, then don't give it up.

My ultimate goals are sub 5:30 mile, sub 19 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:40 half and sub 3:35 marathon.

I run with some people that are like you. Good mileage they just seem to run too slow a lot of the time. I don't see any reason why you should be touching 10 minute miles unless you're just feeling horrible or are on a social run. If most of your mileage is at that pace I think you're doing yourself a disservice. Mile pace +3 minutes per mile, maybe a little faster than that. Cut out the bs miles.

somebloke wrote:

Now that we have removed the elephant from the room, it's time to revisit your training. Are you self-coached? If so, how do you plan your workouts? Do you have seasons?

I think it's time for a fresh approach. If you've spent 4 years chasing this goal, then obviously you've got the desire to go faster. But I think it might be time to change tactics. New coach, new plan, etc.

What's your goal time for the mile or other races?

2007 wrote:

My ultimate goals are sub 5:30 mile, sub 19 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:40 half and sub 3:35 marathon.

I'm going to be the first to be honest with you:

Maybe you just don't have any talent.

That shouldn't stop you from training hard and pursuing those times.

Alrightythen13 wrote:

2007 wrote:

My ultimate goals are sub 5:30 mile, sub 19 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:40 half and sub 3:35 marathon.

I run with some people that are like you. Good mileage they just seem to run too slow a lot of the time. I don't see any reason why you should be touching 10 minute miles unless you're just feeling horrible or are on a social run. If most of your mileage is at that pace I think you're doing yourself a disservice. Mile pace +3 minutes per mile, maybe a little faster than that. Cut out the bs miles.

Most of my milage is at 8:55-9:05 pace.

You are really close to my current pace, probably just a bit slower (I don't have any mile times, but I am at 20 min for a 5k).

Your long run pace of 10:xx is pretty bad. I run 8:30 for long runs as a pretty comfy pace. Even if you aren't as good at endurance and are a little slower it shouldn't be 2 minutes slower. A number of my long runs are 15+ miles right now too. Long runs shouldn't be hard, but you should be able to comfortably run at least 9:30's after years of training. Something is weird with your endurance.

Diet (check Iron level especially as a woman), and better endurance training would be the two primary questions in my mind.

In 1978, after six years of running twice most days,doing between 100 and 150 miles a week and making massive improvements until 1976, it dawned on me that I'd not had a new PB in two years. As I'd done all that running to see how fast I could get and as it seemed I'd done that, it made no sense to keep running that much. I decided to "give up." But like you, I didn't want to give up running or even cut back to being a fitness runner. I decided I'd keep training seriously but only as much as I liked. That really meant going to one run a day which dropped my miles to the 75-90 range. Surprisingly, I had one last burst of small PBs over the next year before getting back to the business of getting slow and decrepit.

I know of a few other stories of runners who "give up" when they aren't getting the results they want and then go on to run better. I think sometimes we can try too hard, especially when we're really pushing the training and over reach in races. Giving up takes some pressure off and allows us to perform better. But I think it can't be a tactic. You really need to let go of wanting particular results and just allow the times to come to you.

Of course only you can decide if you want to give up trying to race fast or not. The question still comes back to whether you enjoy doing so and will miss it if you give it up. None of us can tell you that and even you may not know. But "giving up" isn't irrevocable. You could plan on a wee break from trying to run fast and see how you like it. If you miss serious training or racing you can always resume doing it.

As others have mentioned, your mile time is not terrible for a woman your age though far from stellar. If you have non running friends who can go faster I'd say you're hanging out with people who have some running ability especially if they're women. I can see where it's frustrating to be slower than they are. But the sport is mostly about getting as much out of yourself as you can. Inevitably measuring yourself against others can get frustrating.

People have brought up many good points here in terms of ways you might improve. Getting a coach or at least finding someone who is experienced and knowledgeable about the sport and having him/her really look at your running in detail would be useful. For me to make specific suggestions here would make for much too long a post and I don't have enough specifics about your running to do it anyway. I do wonder if your training pace isn't unnecessarily slow but won't delve into that idea further.

I can only say again that if you're enjoying what you're doing and it's not destroying other important aspects of your life that there's no reason to stop doing it just because your results could be better.

My endurance runs are rarely at 10+ pace, I'm just saying that they can be, it all depends on feel. I did a 13.5 mile run at 8:55 pace a few weeks ago and felt great, on the other hand I did a 9 mile run at 10:15 pace that same month and felt awful. My endurance in comparison to my speed is quite bad. My 100m time is around 14:xx seconds which is about 70% age grade, my mile time about 68% age grade and my 5k is at about 66% age grade (22:xx). With 10k and HM my age grade continues to drop. I'm speed orientated although I train endurance,

I'm thinking that maybe training enduramce might be beating a dead horse as I find it incredibly hard to improve.

I think I'm feeling a bit hopeless right now because my last two mile time trails have been in the 6:30 range even though I've been doing a tonne of 200-400m repeats at many different paces ranging from 5:00-6:00 min paces.

I would pick- up a copy of Daniels' Running Formula. You need to add some science to your training.

Igy

2007,

I would be running more 800s and 1,000s if I was pointing toward racing a 2 mile. It appears you will be fine with some tweaking of your hard days.

Igy

2007 wrote:

Should I just give up?

No..... You haven`t tried "all things" as you think..... I bet I make you run faster . No problems .......but maybe this is a trolling thread?

COACH J.S

I was doing 800s at 3:30 pace easily a couple of months ago and now I can barely hit 3:40 during workouts. I honestly think I might be a bit burnt out right now. My ferritin is fine by the way because I was tested at 47.

As for theposter who mentioned training using Jack Daniels formula, I have used it since day one. I took a break from running from Christmas last year until late feb this year due to injury and then I did a few easy/moderate runs a week (with no speedwork lther than a weekly tempo run) and had a HUGE sudden surge in fitness in april/may and set a whole bunch of PRs at every distance from 100m all the way up to HM so I decided to add speed workputs to my regime thinking I'd improve loads because I had a new VDOT level to train at but I haven't been able to keep up with those paces lately. In fact, I've had to lower my VDOT training number. I just feel stick in sinking mud right now.

2007 wrote:

My ultimate goals are sub 5:30 mile, sub 19 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:40 half and sub 3:35 marathon.

Your half and marathon goals are far less ambitious than your mile/5k/10k goals. Any reason for this? Are you a fast twitch type?