What prevents you from going faster in a 5k? Legs, or Breathing?

At my peak shape, it was always my legs that held me up, not my breathing.

Breathing - mainly due to asthma due to smoking for 10 years and living in a polluted city.

My legs are very strong.

Usually, it's a third thing, your mind. The legs and the lungs could do more but the mind has a limiter. Break the limiter and you can rev to the moon.

My lungs are much stronger than my hips. My hips like to b1tch, so I have to slow down and/or run less than I would like to.

For me it was always breathing. I'm more 800/1500 so the running speed never felt and I never felt the lactic burn like I'd get in the middle distances. But I'd hit a point where I'd be breathing so hard you could hear me across the track.

It made for a good final 200 because my legs were sort of fresh and anyone can suck it up for 30-40 seconds. But poor final mile because you can only push so hard for so long without enough air.

mcguck wrote:

Usually, it's a third thing, your mind. The legs and the lungs could do more but the mind has a limiter. Break the limiter and you can rev to the moon.

Break the limiter and people would start dying on the track. I can run the tachometer on my car to 7000, then it cuts off to save me from blowing up the engine. I think the brain works that way with the heart.

LightningQueen wrote:

mcguck wrote:

Usually, it's a third thing, your mind. The legs and the lungs could do more but the mind has a limiter. Break the limiter and you can rev to the moon.

Break the limiter and people would start dying on the track. I can run the tachometer on my car to 7000, then it cuts off to save me from blowing up the engine. I think the brain works that way with the heart.

Some of hypothesized and call it the central govenor.