http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1896484 Dr. Jack, himself answering training questions!

Yeah, I like Cash, too... Jeff, I translated your sig in Babelfish and here's what I got: Traveller, is no way. The way when walking becomes. Ey?

I like this thread: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1907071&page=1

I'm hungry.... http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1904772

Yes, good thread...incredible that these are guys nearing 50 and are talking about running sub 16 5K

There's a guy around these parts that's fast as whaleshit. He's not quite as old as whleshit, but getting there. Turned 40 this year, and just ran 15:36. He puts out whaleshit miles week after week and whaleshit hours lifting and cross training. Not sure how he does it with his whaleshit job. He's on the road for the entire work week almost every week. I think he sells whaleshit.

Well whale shit, Jeff, I think it depends a lot on what your natural strengths are and it changes with age. THe reason I find that thread and that guy Pete (who is 42 by the way) so interesting is it mirrors what I've found as I've gotten older and give me great hope that I will indeed run my lifetime bests in my early 40's, which gives me several years of improvement still...one of the benefits of never having done any competitive running in college or in my 20's. When I started my quixotic quest last June I could not run a 6:30 on the roads in the last mile of an easy 5 mile jog. I gave it everything I had on a measured mile (the same measured mile where I used to routinely drop sub-6's with no effort just for fun) and came up at 6:45. I was shocked when I looked at my watch. Seriously it was everything I had. I was so discouraged at how far I'd fallen. Five and a half months of base later and without EVER running ANYTHING in training under about 6:10 pace--except for occasional 20 second strides--I ran a 5K in 18:14, 5:53 pace. Not only that but it was an incredibly even-paced 5K, no "out fast and fade". I was pretty sure at that point that I wouldn't need to do much if any training at 5K pace or faster to run my 5K PR. Recently, I was starting to doubt whether that would hold if I decided to focus more on 5Ks and try to get down to 16:30 or lower but I think this was just another crises of faith. That thread has reassured me.

Mikeymike, maybe your feeling able to approach your 5k PR without much work at 5k pace indicates how soft that PR might be.

I agree that's part of it. THat and the fact that I'm not a very serious runner and my main goal is to be able to reace well (for me) at a variety of distances for the fun of it. But I'm also 37 and could never handle the proportion of reps at VO2Max and Interval paces that he prescribes without breaking down. I think to really aproach my potential at 5K I'd need to do more 5K pace stuff and faster than I do now, but not a ton more. That's a great preso, I saved it off to look at later!