5:00 Mile

Hmmmm... I asked my coach about this, and he says by his calculations, you should be at the very least a sub 4:50 miler, and at this rate, you should be breaking 4:15 by the end of spring track next season.

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If you have natural talent then I would say on that mileage it is definitely possible however you need to be doing more specific workouts.

A 10 mile long run IMO is unnecessary for the the mile. A 7/8 mile long run is plenty.

You need more speed sessions so 200/400/800m reps and some hill sprints/fartleks in there for turnover and strength.

To summarise more mile specific workouts are needed.

If he is not talking about a metric mile then breaking 4.15 is ridiculous and unless you know him personally may never be achievable if he isn't somewhat naturally gifted.

If those PRs are consistent with current fitness you are not going to be able to break 5:00.

What is your current mile/1600/1500?

the standard rule is take your 800 time, multiply by 2, and add 20 more seconds. your 2:26 puts you around 5:12 at best. so you'll need to get your 800 down to at least 2:20 but probably more like 2:15 to account for your lack of endurance. do lots of 400s and keep adding more reps, shortening the rest period, and increasing the pace.

Nah chief. Your 800 is nowhere near fast enough. If you wanna break 5 you need to break 2:20 in the 800 first. You milage is aight but you just aint fast enough yet. Keep working and your get there. My Pos freshman year were comparable and I only ran 5:38. You prolly have 5:20ish speed rn

Ok so (kind of obviously) I am not where I can run a sub 5 minute mile. So If I increase my mileage to 40 mpw, and keep consistent with my coaches workouts, is it possible to break 5 minutes by the end of track season this year?

Usually we have one track workout a week (on Wednesday) consisting of either 12x400 repeats on a 2:30 interval (we start a watch and go every 2:30 ) and usually come through around 90 seconds for each. Or we do 5x800 repeats on a 5:30 interval usually coming through at 2:55-3:00 on those. Then we have a day of circuits where we have stations around the track with things like pull/push ups, planks, flutter kicks, step ups etc. (around 12 activities) and we do them all twice. Then we have 1/2 days of sprints where we do 80m sprints over these little hurdles used to improve our stride for the first 20m of them. Last we have a day of just strides (usually before race day) of about 10 100m strides, and we do weight training 1/2 days a week on the sprints (I usually do 5x10 squats of 95lbs, then 15lbs medicine ball exercises along with 24" jump ups). At the end of every day we have a "hip mobility" circuit of core workouts and things like leg lifts. All of this is on top of my daily mileage of usually 6 miles on sprint days, and 4 on workout/circuit days with a 10 mile long run and rest day.

Yes, just keep up the work.

Most people who run sub-5 can turn out times of low-18s or better in the 5k, and your 800m time doesn't indicate great speed so it'll take a little time.

You're still in XC, doing XC workouts. By the time track meets start in 6 months, you'll be a much different athlete than you are now. Maybe you can't break 5:00 right now, but you can set yourself up to do it in 6 months by putting in the work right now.

Your current workouts will get you there, just keep putting in the work. What year in school are you?

Your 5k should be 19: something and your 800 should be under 2:20 and THEN a 5 minute mile is more possible. Balance your progress, build your base but also maintain a speed reserve. A session like 300 at 5 minute mile pace times 8-10 reps. Two sets of that even if your legs still feel fresh. This provides maximum improvement in running economy by combining volume with specific speed endurance work. If you do this your 800 and also mile will improve. It may require extra warm up and stretching this is a hard workout only once per week and only if it does not lead to pain an injury, for intermediate level runners. A beginner could run 200s at mile.pace.

You can also improve your 5k and your mile by running 800s at 5k pace. Since youre running 6:30 mile pace this gives you just enough time to get a rep and recovery in 5 minutes. Jog very slowly to recover when the watch hits 5 run another rep. This workout is hard on the lactic system so walk laps around the track and sip water. Then stretch and do a cooldown jog on a soft surface such as the track dirt or grass ideally.

If you do workouts that help your speed and also cardio. And also add mileage to further improve your running economy you won't hit a wall AFTER you break 5 minutes in the mile because your speed endurance will improve allowing for a faster kick saving seconds and leading to and better placing.

I ran a 21 minute 5k, and my best 800m was around 2:27. I was able to barley break 5 in the 1600, so don’t believe you can’t do it based off speed.