coldRunning, my view is that you do your 'workouts' hard and take the next day easy if it helps. now, as sair said, the faster you get, the harder 10k pace becomes in workouts, because you can sustain your pace for much longer. I find that 3k-5k GOAL pace is nearly always quite manageable for me on track work, but there is a gap from the intervals to the actual 3k-5k races, and even more of a gap to 10k. but as you get in better shape, and figure out the workouts that will allow you to sustain that pace for longer (longer intervals, tempos, long runs, fairly hard 12-14 milers), there should be a closer relation between the intervals and the races.
very nice job, ron. you are progressing well, and sub-5 mile is very much within range ten days from the time of that tempo (my guess is that the tempo benefit, which takes ten days or so, will allow you to sustain 74's). 19:55 solo tempo 5k is worth sub-19 in a track race, I would think.
boingo, good to see that you're getting in some aerobic work and giving yourself a chance to heal. the hip stuff can be aided by the stretch where you sit down, one leg out, the other knee pulled across the leg and up near the opposite hip, foot down, and you turn the opposite way. No doubt you do that one already. Also, standing, bend to the left over the hip and hold, and then to the right over the hip and hold--seems to help me. Then maybe the weight machines where you push your knees apart or in, would help.
sair, I wouldn't worry about running grass 1k's barefoot in a 'slow' time. you're doing great and we expect a lot from you when you race. as for the speed, I wouldn't shift to middle distance training, but incorporate more of the pure speed stuff (plyos, drills, strides, accelerations, 200 repeats) into your current training. It seems to me that you would go sub-4.
to the poster who thought I was overtraining for a 1500m, I agree. My 'focus' is just to run pr's at every distance this year. I think that I can get a 1500/mile pr next time out, if healthy, as the speed has improved. But to maximize my 1500m would clearly take a mileage drop. On the other hand, I seem to thrive off of high mileage, and every one of my pr's since sophomore year of college have been on close to my highest lifetime mileage to that point. Just recently, I was stagnating, pushed the mileage back up to 100 for a week, combined this with my fastest workouts, and ran a 58 second 5M pr.