very very low mileage

You defined what you consider to be "low weekly mileage" but didn't do the same for "race adequately."

adequate? OK how about sub-32 for 5 miles or 8K?

Probably, but it depends

8k - sub 32

you will be walking

It sounds doable to me. There's only one way to find out.

Last year at 39 years old, I ran 28:09 5 mile and 1:19 half on 32 miles a week. I ran either 3 or 4 days a week doing one day of intervals, one tempo, and one race. Daily mileage was always about 10. I stairmastered another 5-6 hours a week though and felt I was doing the same work as running about 75 miles a week. My legs felt much better the whole year and I ran about 40 races in 8 months. The downside is that after about 12-16 weeks, I peaked and didn't improve any the next 4 months. The upside was that I raced 20-30 seconds per mile than the previous year.

I ran a 22:18 at a 4 mile race and a 52 year old finished right behind me. He told me he ran about 25 miles a week and did a lot of crosstraining.

Of course, to improve, I have to build a bigger base which requires more miles in the offseason.

joke?

sub 32?

are you kidding?

are you a women?

when i was in 10th grade, i averaged 18 miles per week (from feb to may), no weight lifting, no cross training, and it led me from 10:40 my freshman year, to 9:50s for 3200, and from 4:45 ish to lower 4:30s.

I’ve been running 30-45 miles a week for the last five months and have turned out times of 16:27 5K, 21:28 4mile. Two weeks ago I did 11.25miles by myself in 69:58. I figure that if I were to do a 8k I could run under 27. Most of my runs are under 7:00 per mile.

everyone ran like 15-30 miles/week in HS, and lots of us ran fast.

["Are you a women". Good phrasing. Your family must be very pleased with your progress.]

Nope, just turned fifty, had leg surgery and am fighting off achilles tendonitis. I will not go to competitions anymore if I cannot match the time I wrote. I'll switch to non competitive health running or maybe take up biking or alternatives. Time can take its' toll.

Got through reading an article by Rich Stiller on low mileage and am researching different places. A friend suggested this site.

Thank you to you serious respondees.

jnbdf wrote:

a women

"woman"

I run about 35MPW for a variety of reasons that I won't bore you with. I'm 43. I'm in 16:25 5k shape and 4:35 Mile shape.

I'm 40 and have been running for about 9 months after a 20 year layoff. I run 30-35 mpw right now and am in 18:00 shape for 5K.

how does a typical week break down for you?

how does a typical week break down for yourself as well?

seems to me a few guys may have read Rich Stiller's article

Right now a typical week consists of 3 hard workouts, 3 recovery runs of 20-30 minutes, and one day off.

hard workouts are:

longish run of 9-10 miles

a fartlek workout; my favorite is 5 x 3 minutes at perceived 5K pace with 2 minutes rest. Once in awhile I'll hit the track to do some 800s or 1200s.

tempo run of 20-30 minutes.

I own my business and also work a part-time corporate job so I don't have a lot of free time but this schedule seems to work for me.

Actually, I think it's closer to 30MPW for me. 50km per week, anyway.

Generally, I run daily. Every day = warmup jog, strides, something short and brisk if I feel like it, cooldown jog.

The warmup jog often gets near 5km. This is my "distance runing" hahahaha!!!

I'm actually very serious about my running. But I have limitations, with respect to volume. And, I think that "volume" is not to be the focus of training. If my warmup jog is 5km, then surely I'm not going to suffer in anything up to 5km. I don't care about 10km, but I might try it once a year.

Next year I hope to run 4:14 for 1500m, and 2:07 for 800m.