distracted teens wrote:
If you are in junior high or high school and can't break 20 while running 5:30 it means you are unable to focus for an entire 5k.
Sorry, but i ran 20 minutes as an 8th grader while being under 5ft tall as a male. By the time i could run 5:29, i could run low 19 minutes.
The posters commenting on how an old person can run 20 minutes with a slower mile time are spot on, but the 24 yo female is dead right, at young age running sub 20 usually means a a 5:45 mile but at age 50 might only mean a 6:06 mile. Speed dies, but endurance lasts a bit later in life.
This was one of the more insightful and level headed threads I've come across in a bit, and it got me thinking..
Football summer conditioning, our coaches had us do A LOT of running, especially in June and July, we hit hit the track hard after lifting. M-W-F consisted of all kinds of different intervals, 1/2 mile repeats followed by 200s, sets of 400s-100s, and our summer test before camp before my jr and senior year were 16 sets of 100s, with minimal rest. We did lots of various agility and route running obviously, but our coaches wanted us to be able to run. 15 years later, I thank them for that.
My 200 PR my senior track season was 24 flat. I ran the 110 hurdles in 15.7, but really blew off track in favor of football, smh. Thinking back to some of those times I ran, I can def see translation to being more fast twitch orientated when I throw down in intervals or in a 5k vs HM ish distance. Marathon training didn't really do it for me, and I favor the HM distance and below much more, I am guessing because of how many years I spent developing other systems.
Haven't raced a mile all out since I was 17, and I ran a 5:50 off zero aerobic training. My current 5k PR is 19:12. I definitely have to work more when it comes to aerobic training vs the shorter interval training, as that feels more natural, still to this day.
I am curious to see though next year what I can clip off in the mile.