5k progression (all races on road):
2003-2011 completely sedentary
2011 - unable to run 5k at start, extremely slow, but improvements. developed chronic shin splints, that lasted 6-7 years. started cycling/swimming after injury, ~1-5h/week average
2012 - 26:22 (sprint triathlon) & 22:29 (sprint triathlon), off cycling/swim training
2013 - 20:42 & 20:31 off cycling/swim training. Injured again after running a bit in Austin during student exchange
2014-2017 no races, limited training. After mid 2017, 1-3 very easy jogs a week, ~5-10 mpw
01/18 - 20:05 - 10 mpw + cross-training
04/18 - 18:52 - 17 mpw + cross-training
05/18 - 18:25 - 20 mpw + cross-training
09/18 - 17:37 - 40 mpw + cross-training
03/19 - 17:18 - 50 mpw
04/19 - 16:55 (adjusted 4.2k race time) - 50 mpw
09/19 - 16:15 (adjusted 4.88k race time) - 60 mpw
09/20 - Goal 15:30-15:45
Some of you will remember me from my first training thread here. Like I wrote there in the conclusion, I ended up doing Tinman training without doing Tinman training in my first 2 years as training runner. I thought I figured it all out, kept running my paces but after reviewing my race and performance times realized, what I was doing had nothing to do with Tinman training.
People in the thread repeatedly told me that I was training too fast/hard and should adjust my paces to my race performances or do a TT. But I thought that since it's LRC they are just trolls and want me to train slower than my level so I don't improve enough and miss my targets. Boy was I wrong. People actually just wanted to help me, they have seen it before in themselves or with other runners they know and wanted to prevent me from doing the same mistakes. Instead of doing CV workouts (5-6x1k w 200m rest), I was doing Daniels VO2MAX workouts, just with even shorter rest than ideal, week after week after week after week. My recovery portions were often 10 min mile, and often I had to take a break after 2-3 reps because I was struggling. I just managed to barely complete the last rep, and was breathing heavily throughout the whole workout. This had nothing to do with CV pace, it was around 5k pace and that's how I've always done these workouts (except in the beginning where I did 3k pace).
I conditioned my body to use anaerobic energy (which as FT athlete I'm strong with) to complete my workouts, and as a result never improved my 10k or HM ability. The absolute maximum pace I could hold in my peak 5k was 5:20/mile (3:20/k), and my splits (3:10-3:20-3:20-3:20-3:05 with last 400 in 60) show that. Not just did I miss my goal of sub 16, but I also never conditioned my body to get strong aerobically and hold a fast pace, my 10k time was substantially worse than my 5k PR of 16:15, around 35:30. The anaerobic system influences the 5k, but the 10k shows how inefficient my training was.
My "Tinman Tempos" were Daniel's lactate threshold runs at 1 hour pace (but longer than 20 min), and my 6k "threshold run" was a 6k @10k pace run, similar to my 2000m reps which were done at 10k pace. My VO2MAX sessions where I got a very dry throat and burning quads were also too fast. I used my dream/goal 5k time and my mile PR to set my training paces, and not my current performance level over 5k or 10k.
After my peak 5k race, I got worse in every 5k afterwards (3:18/k, 3:21/k, 3:25/k, although none all-out but close to it since all-out makes me sick) and as a last resort, thought I'd have to train even harder to reverse that trend. I did mountain runs on fatigued legs where I broke down on the downhill and added new sessions I've never done before like 20x400 and 20x200 as fast as I could pushing through any and all pain and at the end it resulted in a stress fracture (my 3rd in just two years of running) in my lower back where I couldn't even walk for 3 weeks and had to take 6 full weeks off in December.
I finally started to realize all my mistakes and that the people here on LRC who posted in my thread were right. My progression would have happened anyway as a new runner with decent basic speed and the increases in mileage, no matter what type of training/workouts I would do. I got better because I was able to train and run more, not because of "Tinman Training" or smart training. But my training was too hard, I trained exactly how Tinman does not want his athletes to train - VO2MAX/5k-paced intervals week after week. Sure, I improved a lot in the short term and in short events, but it was not sustainable, my race performances melted like chocolate in the sun and I had to deal with multiple stress fractures, performance losses, irregular race performances, and a big drop of performance whenever I took any time off (no runner could ever explain why I would immediately get so much slower after just 5 days or 10 days off). CONTINUED.