How hard is it to beat your high school PRs as a 33 year old?

I am inspired by some of these efforts. I would like to get back into it some, but feel little confidence I can beat my high school PR's:

400 (48.8)

800 (1:55.3 open/1:52.48 relay)

XC (15:57 for 5K)

I ran D.1 in college, but life and career intervened afterwards and I am now more of a jogger (god forbid) who is still a big fan of the sport. I think you sometimes have to re-calibrate your goals for where you are at. It's tough, but I think age commensurate goals are good. For example, at age 39, if I could break 2 in the 800 again that would be incredible. Possible, yes, but one would simply have to find consistent time to train which is tough in professional life.

My middle distance PRs took the biggest hit. I was faster in my early 30s than in my late teens in the 3200 and the 5K, and my open 400 time equaled my best 4x4 relay split back then. But I never broke my HS 800 and 1600 PRs despite numerous attempts.

spartacus39@mail.com

wrote:

I am inspired by some of these efforts. I would like to get back into it some, but feel little confidence I can beat my high school PR's:

400 (48.8)

XC (15:57 for 5K)

That's a really impressive range for a HS kid. The guys I know who were running sub 49 were nowhere near a sub 16 5K, and the guys I know who were running a sub 16 5K were nowhere near a sub 49 400.

If you weren't doing a ton of sprint training for the 400 at the time, do that for a few months and see where you're at. Worst case scenario, you'll get new 100 and 200 PRs and a wind reading for them.

Alternatively, focus on the 5K/10K and see how that turns out. Unless that 15:57 5K was on a short course with a massive net downhill, you have a good chance of running faster than that in spikes on a flat track.

If you train smart you will not feel it`s hard to reach your HS results. With a very good coach your improvement

will come quite fast. Age 33/34 is not a very high age......still young ))

Ran a 51 400 and 15:51 5k in hs. I am 26 and I can't now because I play so much basketball. A few months ago I did go out and run a 55 though a few days after doing one 200m workout.

I can break all of my PRs from high school...because I wasn't a nerd who ran.

I spent my time playing basketball, baseball, and soccer, banging cheerleaders, being prom king, and making fun of the little, skinny nerds who wore shorty shorts and pretending like people cared about running.

Thank you, sir! Testament to great coaching. I was Top 5 in XC my senior year, won state in the 800, and finished a close 4th in the 400 state final - super close to bronze and silver. I wish I had that one back!

We did speed work, but more like middle distance speed work (8 x 300) or (10 x 400) or (5 x 300 + 5 x 200). It wasn't a typical 400 meter training regimen. I like your suggestion. I always wondered what I could have run for 400 if I had trained like a pure sprinter, but I was a strength guy for the 400 and could finish. I will try more sprint training and see where that leaves me.

The 15:57 was at the Chili Pepper in Arkansas, so likely not short but definitely a fast course. I do think I have it in my to run sub 17 in a 5K again if not sub 16. Thank you for the advice!

There's really no way to tell, but as a 34-year-old who's run really inconsistently for the past 10 years, it's not at all unrealistic for a somewhat athletic but otherwise untrained male to hit a 5-minute mile with a year or so of consistent effort.

But it depends tremendously on (a) what kind of shape you're in now, (b) how your body responds to training, (c) how much you can realistically commit to training, (d) how long it takes you to recover from workouts, (e) your propensity for injury, and so on.

Do not try to wing this. FWIW I think running all-out 400s without any base work beforehand is a risky proposition at our age. Run all easy miles for a couple months. Get yourself on a structured program. I like Daniels stuff, adapted to account for the fact that I'm old and somewhat injury-prone. A huge thing for me (and a lot of 30-somethings) is that recovery time goes way up, as does propensity for injury. So take recovery seriously, and don't push your workouts too much. Remember the law of diminishing returns, and that you need to be able to get up again run again the next day.

Side note for people over about 30: As Outside itself has noted, protein requirements for athletes in their 30s are actually kind of massive: anywhere from 1.2-1.7 g per kilogram of body weight is the best estimate right now, from what I've seen. That's 80-115g of protein per day for a 150 lb athlete, which actually requires a lot of effort to get. But once I took that into account, I really do notice that I recover faster from hard workouts. Just a little tip for ya if you wanna get serious about training at such an "advanced age."

34-year-old-dude-who-runs-again wrote:

There's really no way to tell, but as a 34-year-old who's run really inconsistently for the past 10 years, it's not at all unrealistic for a somewhat athletic but otherwise untrained male to hit a 5-minute mile with a year or so of consistent effort.

But it depends tremendously on (a) what kind of shape you're in now, (b) how your body responds to training, (c) how much you can realistically commit to training, (d) how long it takes you to recover from workouts, (e) your propensity for injury, and so on.

The key is:

(f) how fast you were in your prime

I could see a 4:20-4:30 guy running a sub 5 after doing a few weeks of casual but consistent training. But for a guy like the OP, it's probably going to take at least a year of focused training, and that's if he doesn't get injured.

It appears that taking a long break from HS has preserved the natural abilities of many of you. Unlike you I have kept to a long history of running and now much older seem to have worn out the wheels. I never kept track of times since HS, but there is no way I could ever hope to get close to those again even though I still run often and my height and weight are identical to those in HS.

Wonder this one all the time. In high school, I ran 2:00/4:27 (mile). I've gotten back into running and dipped under 2:57 in the marathon at age 31. My mileage before the Marathon was about as high as I ever did in high school (high 40s-low 50s), but I did way more speed/workouts then and ran faster on most runs I think. I could bang out 29-30 second 200s and 66-68 second 400s for workouts. And I raced more with low-key dual meets where I ran 2:03-2:09 to win dual meets or 4:40 miles.

In retrospect, wish I had raced a hard mile while in training in August just to see where I was at. I ran a 4:47 on the road in 2017 doing sporadic training (probably 20 mpw with some speed). I was 2+ years younger though. Wish I lived anywhere near a track, but road running and longer distances is the easier thing to train for at this point.

I absolutely killed my mediocre high school PRs; my marathon when 30 was not that much slower per mile than my 2-mile. So, it helped to be mediocre, although it was not because I did not try but maybe because I grew a foot in high school, where my last two races (one at 600yds in gym) were by far my best of high school.

Wish I ran in college wrote:

... The question is, [1] how hard is it to break your HS PR as a 33-34 year old?

[2] Approximately how many months or years will this realistically take?

[3] Do I have to train as much as I did back then, or can I get away with doing less?

[4] Or is it completely out of reach?

[5] I ran a 5:59 mile last night (solo time trial, no spikes), so I know that I have a loooong way to go.

[1] Real Hard.

[2] If you can't do it in the next 4 years, it may never happen

[3] You need to train more, maybe not quite like a pro athlete, but at least 10 hours per week.

[4] If you trained 30 hours per week for the next 4 years, it would be hard NOT to do it

[5] Yup, but this guy beat his high school 1500 m time by 23 seconds, but he probably was training about 30 hours per week:

Meant to say: "Yup, but this guy beat his high school 1500 m time by 13 seconds ..."

I haven't ran consistently after graduating from high school, where I was a sub-2 800m and 4:3x 1600m runner. Now that I'm a senior in college with some free time on my hands, I'm thinking of training for some longer distance races (10K and up). I'm still in decent shape, although nowhere near the level of fitness I had 4 years ago. However, I have matured physically quite a bit since graduating. I'm curious to see what of my previous speed I can recover and how quickly. Any thoughts?

fromtheheart wrote:

It appears that taking a long break from HS has preserved the natural abilities of many of you. Unlike you I have kept to a long history of running and now much older seem to have worn out the wheels. I never kept track of times since HS, but there is no way I could ever hope to get close to those again even though I still run often and my height and weight are identical to those in HS.

The sober voice of realism.

I hit my high school PRs in training almost weekly. Not sure why. Lifetime mileage and a bit of toughness goes a long way. High schoolers rarely understand pace/their own limits, so for me, I've gotten much stronger.

I ran 4:46 at state at age 18, HS PR was 4:38

I ran 4:45 last spring at age 38, post-30th b-day PR is 4:31

spartacus39@mail.com

wrote:

I am inspired by some of these efforts. I would like to get back into it some, but feel little confidence I can beat my high school PR's:

400 (48.8)

800 (1:55.3 open/1:52.48 relay)

XC (15:57 for 5K)

I ran D.1 in college, but life and career intervened afterwards and I am now more of a jogger (god forbid) who is still a big fan of the sport. I think you sometimes have to re-calibrate your goals for where you are at. It's tough, but I think age commensurate goals are good. For example, at age 39, if I could break 2 in the 800 again that would be incredible. Possible, yes, but one would simply have to find consistent time to train which is tough in professional life.

How much were you actually training in high school though? If you're like everyone else it probably was only about 70 miles per week or less. If you can find time to run 6 or 7 days a week and can find somewhere to run workouts in the dark you'd probably get there in 2-3 years.