Mileage counts more than I realised

Training Advice/Discussion 5k/10k

9 months ago 09/27/2023 10:43am EDT

Last year I ran 17:52 parkrun, 36:40 10K and a 1:21 half (on 50 mpw and lots of workouts)

After 6-8 months of injury I started up again and capped my mileage at 30 mpw, but I tried to race myself into fitness by doing parkrun every week and I also did a run of 30-45 minutes every week at 6:40-6:50. So in total I was running 60 minutes of more of "quality".

First result was 19:22 with a terrible last mile of 6:40. Next week I did 18:46 - a 30 second improvement. From there I thought I was going to keep improving until I got back to 17:50 but instead I plateaued and kept running around 18:40, with a best of 18:35.

I wish I was one of those runners who could go fast on not many miles but I guess not. I wasn't doing any intervals but I don't think it would have made any difference to my times.

9 months ago 09/27/2023 11:09am EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

6-8 months is a long time to be injured. Should be zero.

9 months ago 09/27/2023 11:42am EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

stuck on 18 5K wrote:
I wasn't doing any intervals but I don't think it would have made any difference to my times.

Intervals would have made a massive difference. Without that you're basically not even training.

9 months ago 09/27/2023 1:13pm EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

Gradually increase your miles. Add some speedwork.

9 months ago 09/27/2023 2:03pm EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

Miles gives you endurance, speedwork gives you speed.

Once a week go to a track and do 8 x 800m, all you need, don't hurt yourself.

But also:

imgur.com

Link:imgur.com/a/wlimjtK

9 months ago 09/27/2023 8:20pm EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

You mean, you previously didn't realise that doing something more would make you better at it?

9 months ago 09/27/2023 8:23pm EDT

re: Adoi

Having come from mainly anaerobic sports it took me awhile to accept this, but distance running is mainly about grinding out as many miles as you can without getting hurt or sick.

9 months ago 09/28/2023 1:32am EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

Mileage works. I was doing half marathons on 40 mpw. Then I ramped up to 60 mpw to try the marathon.
So I did a half as a warmup race and dropped 3:30 off my PR just like that. Also did the fastest 10k is several years.

9 months ago 09/28/2023 2:02am EDT

re: found your problem

found your problem wrote:
stuck on 18 5K wrote:
I wasn't doing any intervals but I don't think it would have made any difference to my times.
Intervals would have made a massive difference. Without that you're basically not even training.

The 5k is almost purely Vo2max. The fastest i’ve ever gotten off of pure easy to moderate running mileage was 16:50ish, and i’ve broken 15:00. It isn’t fun but if you wanna run your best at 5k, especially as you start getting faster you gotta do 800s till ya puke at one point, mile repeats until ya puke at one point, and 400m repeats until ya puke at one point in your training block or you aren’t training for 5k. When you are out of shape running a 5k, your problem is usually that your muscles are too weak to carry your body over the distance, and your lactate threshold is so low that your legs burn by the time you’re done walking up the stairs. When you are in shape, your limiting factor in the 5k is how much oxygen your body can take in and utilize, and how efficient your body can be at running fast. You get some but not much of that from running 6:30-8:30 miles, you get a lot more of that from pushing your body up to its maximum heart rate and breathing as hard as you can over the span of 2-6 minutes a few times over while running as fast as or faster than you’d want to run in a 5k.

This post was edited 45 seconds after it was posted.

9 months ago 09/28/2023 6:17am EDT

re: Badcompany

"distance running is mainly about grinding out as many miles as you can without getting hurt or sick."

sounds like fun

9 months ago 09/28/2023 6:27am EDT

re: stuck on 18 5K

You just do your low mileage the wrong way. Simple as that. 🇸🇪🧙‍♂️🇸🇪

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