Need to drop 48 seconds off 5k

Cocaine and/or pharmaceuticals. Not sure what your timeline is, but I think it's time to visit dr. Feelgood

Stick with a sub 17 runner in training group.

Your literally 8000 is at a slightly faster pace than your 5000, so you can do a much better 5000 if you have a great race. I'm similar. I could do a disappointing 5k and then a 10k not long afterwards, at almost the same pace. My best race was a 5000 though, where I gave it everything. Maybe you need to start the 5k faster(if you're not doing that already). I'm guilty of going too slow very often, and I might have a period where I run a 5 or a 10k at the same average pace, because I pick it up later in the race.

Without knowing what your training looks like, it's difficult to know where to fill in the gaps.

However with a 17:41 5K you should be able to comfortably hold a pace of 6:30/mile for 6-7 miles. Comfortably. So go see how that goes. If you can't then start building that up.

Also given how fast your PRs are at shorter distances, I'd be inclined to question how well you paced your 5K? Best 5K are all run with even splits and a fast finish. For a 16:48 5K, you're looking at around 3:20/km. You don't want to run any faster than 3:15 or you'll be unnecessarily digging into your anaerobic system. Most runners go out way too fast in the first minute of a 5K. To put it another way, your first 200m should take around 40-secs and 400m is 81secs. Do some practice at starts to see how easy that needs to feel. You won't improve your 5K by much with better pacing but it might be the difference between 16:48 and not even breaking 17.

Daniels gives equivalents to your 1600 as 17:05 and your 8k as 17:11, so your 5000 time does seem like a bit of an anomaly.

Like someone else said, we don't know enough about your situation to diagnose the problem, but if your 1600 and 8k were the only data points (without the 5000), my advice would be latch on to a 16:50/17:00 guy and just go for it. In fact, do this.

Not going to happen, but agree that a sub-17:15 should be possible for you.

Oh it’ll happen I promise

Come to my team and you can run 16 low within a year or so.

Doing like 45-55 miles a week. Long runs around 11-13 miles at 7:20 pace. Easy runs 5-8 miles at 7:10 pace. Workouts are normally 6x800s and 5x1000s. I average my 800s around 2:45 and thousands around 3:31. My 800s give me trouble. Can’t seem to break the 2:40 barrier during practice consistently.

Don´t worry about the paces of your easy runs (or any of your runs, per se). Allow them to feel comfortable (esp. the easy runs).

Also, make sure you´re touching on the top end speed work too. 100ś, 150´s, Canova Hill Sprints, Flying 30´s. You could be doing these multiple times a week after your runs.

I´m a big fan of combo workouts. (Tinman talks about these a lot.) But, you can do some high-end aerobic work, such as Mile Repeats. Go do some hills (say, 4 X 400 hills). Then, finish with some quick 200´s. In my example, you´re getting pace work, strength work, & speed work (all in one session).

Finally, as a junior in college, your mileage could be much higher.

At a glance - consider running some of your easy miles slower.

Shitcan the 800s. 1000s or 12000s are more useful imo. You might find tuning into the pace you want easier if you follow paragraph one.

Tempo run? Plug your 8k/1600 prs into Daniels/macmillan/tinman calculators to get a baseline base then adjust based on feel.

How long until the 5000s?

Next weekend I’m competing in the 10k. I am going into that race expecting to qualify for nationals. 37:30 is the qualifying time. Then after the 10k I have 2 more 5ks for the following weekends. Nationals is may 11th.

Jdaddy2 wrote:

Long runs around 11-13 miles at 7:20 pace. Easy runs 5-8 miles at 7:10 pace. Workouts are normally 6x800s and 5x1000s. I average my 800s around 2:45 and thousands around 3:31. My 800s give me trouble. Can’t seem to break the 2:40 barrier during practice consistently.

1. your long runs are too fast. this means that you go into your workouts stale and under-recovered, which is why you can't break 2:40 for your 800m repeats.

2. your track workouts are at the wrong pace for you to see any improvement over 5km. virtually all of your track work is at your 3200m pace. you need: a. under-distance pace work at speed with long recoveries; b. race pace work with same time recoveries; c. over-distance pace work with short recoveries.

3. therefore:

a. do your long run and your easy miles at 8:00 - 8:30 per mile. seriously.

b. 8 - 10 x 400m 78s (4:00 rec)

c. 5 - 8 x 600m 2:05 (1:50 rec)

c. 4 - 6 x 800m 2:40 (2:30 rec)

d. 3 - 6 x 1000m 3:45 (2:30 rec) work on reducing the interval here. when you are under 2:00 progress to 3 - 4 x 1200m 4:30 (3:00 rec).

cheers.

Jdaddy2 wrote:

Doing like 45-55 miles a week. Long runs around 11-13 miles at 7:20 pace. Easy runs 5-8 miles at 7:10 pace. Workouts are normally 6x800s and 5x1000s. I average my 800s around 2:45 and thousands around 3:31. My 800s give me trouble. Can’t seem to break the 2:40 barrier during practice consistently.

To run that 16:48 5K, you need to be running 5:24/mile and you're struggling to do that with your 800s. You need to build your endurance.

You're not doing anything to train the muscles between 7:10-5:40 pace? That's a huge gap.

As I said before you should be able to go run 6:30/mile comfortably for 6-7 miles - not even begin to get out of breath. In fact for that 16:48 5K you'll need to be able to do this at 6:15.

But I think you'll find your threshold is somewhere around 6:40/mile and you will begin to puff to keep the pace up. If I'm right, no amount of speedwork will get you faster over 5K until you address this issue.

+1

Hard workouts need to be purposeful and hard. Easy days need to be truly easy to benefit from the hard workouts.

I generally agree with this too.

Don't think the OP knows what an easy run genuinely feels like. My 2hr37 marathon buddy who runs 16:10 for 5K does his easy days at around 7:15/mile. But I see him drift down towards 8min/mile the morning after a track session.

Please post your training.

But from what I've seen, you're doing too many HARD intervals. I don't see a nice steady state run (ie tempo, LT, etc)

I was in your shoes as well and burned out hard. I was running 18:30s when my interval workout shows that I could run low 17s. A month later I was down to 17:05 once I backed off a lot of the interval work and added a tempo run (whatever definition you want, mix up the paces, from Marathon to 10K etc.)

15ish seconds per mile. 4ish seconds per quarter. Tall task. Blast a lot of fast 4s, 6s and 8s. Maybe some 1000s on short rest.

Well, if 1lb of extra flab = 2 sec/per mile, then you stand to lose 8 lbs of lard before you can think about those 48 seconds