Going from 23:30 to 20 5k in 6months?

If it's any help, I ran 19:45 at 65-years-old a couple of years ago, running about 25-30 miles a week, with training based on the Easy Interval Method.

Due to age limitations, I only did an Easy Interval session every other day, with 3-4 mile recovery runs on the alternate days.

The basic sessions are 6x1000m (around 10000m to half marathon pace) with 800m jog; 10x400m at 000m pace with 400m jog; 16x200m at 3000m/1500m pace with 200m jog. You can add some strides at the end of the session. You can also add a long run that has some surges.

There is also an option of 3x2000m, but that is probably more than you would want at the moment.

If you get the book "Easy Interval Method" by Klaas Lok (himself an international athlete) there are schedules for 5k, 10k, etc., and also for the number days per week you want to train. There are also tables suggesting training paces based on current race time.

You can also do these intervals based on time rather than distance - so I would do 6x4 minutes with 4 minutes easy.

A 5km world class runner of your height has a weight of around 63 KG.

The easiest method to run sub 20 would be to drop your weight from 85 KG to less than 75 KG and do the same training you do right now ...

Just consistently drop 2 KG of weight every month and you will get there ...

Thanks for the candid response. Yes, I have indeed lost quite a bit of weight, and will continue on that journey. Will try to prioritise some weight loss for this goal

I'm in the same boat.
Getting close to 50 and want to get from my 23-ish 5k to sub 20.
I run 40-60k weekly but I just go out the door and run.
So I guess I need to be more structured and do some intervals.

Norwegian approach on lower mileage thread. Absolutely that thread was made for you. Follow that and almost guaranteed to improve. It's been going a year and from sirpoc to everyone else who has stuck to it within the rough guide, usually remarkable improvement.

You say you’ve been doing 45-50k per week “for the last few weeks.” Is that close to your standard mileage? And what is your long run distance or time? Do you do any strides or hills? Any strength/band work?

I’d definitely bump mileage (kilometrage?) from that unless you were really, really low for a long time before hitting your current distance. Probably spend a few weeks getting to around 60k then spend a few weeks at that. Have the long run at 90 minutes if you don’t already. If you’re not doing strides.

Something like the Norwegian method might work. You also might be fine just doing alternating workout weeks of threshold intervals as your workout one week and CV or vO2 max the other. Or just follow a plan that incorporates both types of workouts.

And yes: For a runner who is somewhat overweight, weight loss does help improve time. But be very careful how you go about that, and make sure it’s gradual and with sufficient nutrition to support your training (so going with a bit of a mileage bump while easing up on the workouts would enable you to work from a small calorie deficit without incurring as much risk).

If you’re not paying attention to good sleep habits, look at that. I’ve found that to be very important for overall health (including ease of losing/maintaining weight) and running health/recovery.

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Usually mileage about 40k (10weeks), cycle peaking at 45k-50k for 3-4 weeks before tapers. I can't go any further as my hips/arch start feeling sore and I begin to worry about injury risk. I've been doing 12k-14k long runs for a 10k race end june and will be prioritising 5k over the next 6 months. I do some strides after my easy runs, literally no hills though as I run at a flat oval. I usually do Lower+Upper gym alternate, 2-3X a week until about 4-6 weeks into a training cycle before cutting to zero as gym becomes too intense and mileage picks up.

Thanks for the input! I'll try to get to 60k slowly - super worried my hips give way before that... Will also push up long runs more.

31M, 176cm and 61kg. I went from 25:00 (june 2024) to 20:30 (may 2024) in about a year running an average of 20-25 mpw. I started running in 2021, was injured for most of it and never did more than 20mpw for 3-4weeks at a time

I was training for a 10k race in April 2024 (I ran 44:30) mostly did 10k/threshold pace work + some short reps of up to 200m faster than 5k pace (<4:00/k)

You can almost get there with mileage and some threshold work. I did two 5k time trials as 5k specific work during that entire span and a shorter race (2400m), but no "hard vo2max type intervals".