So what are my chances at sub 17 5k by February? (Read 1478 times)

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I know there's a sub 17 thread that's miles long, and I've contributed there before. I've since picked up a kid (she's now 1 yr old) and another is on the way (due in March), so my training has changed. Apparently it was too easy last time to break 17 minutes, so I'm doing it the hard way. I'm a teacher, coach, assistant athletic director and an equipment manager so I'm busy. I've run competitively in the past at sub 16 off of 80-90 mile weeks and good workouts. I know how to train right, BUT I'm not going to do it. I'm thinking of doing a winter series with different race distances (a total of 8 races) starting in November.

 

Background: I've been running somewhat regularly over the last several months putting in between 3-6 miles a day usually around 7 min pace. I've done as high as 60 miles in a week, but most weeks are near 25-30. I raced a 5k about 3 months ago and ran 18:13 in what I would consider a mediocre race. The first 1.5 miles were down hill and it was an out and back... a tough way to finish when I really hadn't trained much. I really haven't done many workouts at all, maybe 3-5 in the past 6 months.

 

The Plan: I plan to train some, but barely. In that I mean I may get up as high as 40-50 mpw. I won't do more than one faster day a week. I won't take many days off, but I will not run many longer runs either. Some runs will be with the kids I coach or with my wife, so the pace will be slow. Some days I will be on my own and feel good, so I will be a bit fast. I'm not planning to structure this much at all. I'll lift some, but not consistently. Basically, I will work my way up racing in some races and training as I make time for it. I'll be sure to get some work in, but not what I should do. 

 

The Question: Can I break 17 min by the last 5k in February?

You've been there once and you are still quite regularly doing "something" so my short answer is that I don't see why not.  However, the way to do is probably not "running easily 3~5 miles a couple of times a week. 

My mentor, Ray Puckett, retired from competition rather prematurely to start a family.  He started his own business and he was quite busy with 3 children.  He used to just go for a long run with the club (in New Zealand) every weekend and that was pretty much all he did for a while and he competed in Cross Country races fairly well. 

If you can only train 20MPW, do a 12-miler on weekend and 2~3 miles easy jog 2 or 3 times a week with one day with some strides or 2-mile tempo.

That said, I don't know what kind of "career decision" you had made that made you "choose" not to train.  I remember when our daughter was born.  I was in the early 30s, living in MN.  She was born in October and my goal then was to crack 15-minutes.  My wife also wanted to run so we picked the time of the day to run.  She said she's not a morning person so she picked the evening.  I had a "regular" job from 8 to 5, 45-minutes drive away.  The only time I could run, once a day, was in the morning.  The only way I could get my run in, the volume that I wanted to run, was to get up at 4 and out by 4:30.  I remember those near-2-hour runs in the pitch dark, on frozen roads, and all I could see was my own breath...  The point is; I still got my workouts done.  Not the best way to train, but I was still getting about 70~80 a week.  I also happened to know a guy who had 4 children, 2 jobs, and still managed over 100 a week.  He used to go to bed at 6PM, got up at midnight and did "morning shift" and ran 20 miles before "breakfast". 

Again, I'm just curious.

 

 

I get it, it's a vanity thread. That's okay. Like when a kid says "hey, think I can peg that beer can with this crab apple?", he's not asking a question, he's saying "look at me!" You've started a thread about yourself to elicit chuckles and appreciations, but not for advice apparently. Again, that's okay.

Vanity is a huge element of this hobby, and manifests itself frequently on these pages. If my first post sounded harsh, maybe I wasn't in the best of moods yesterday.

For what it's worth, (here's my vanity entry) I do understand what it's like to be at a relatively high level of a sport only to have life march on. I'd be far more interested in discussing that element than whether or not you can peg a beer can.

Nice bubbly guy. You seem to have a happy life. Maybe you should spend more time there and less commenting negatively on posts that you claim you don't really care about. Your logic falls apart with the mention of vanity in a sub 17 thread. ...

His posts made sense to me. He seemed to be inferring that you're not asking for advice, and you're just saying "Hey, look at me, I'm going to try to do this".

I can see why he inferred that. That's the impression I got as well.

Is that impression somehow inaccurate?

I don't think that characterization is really insulting -- I think that runners like to talk about their own times and training.

There are plenty of threads about breaking particular milestone times on particular distances. You said that you didn't want to join an existing one, you wanted a personal thread just about your goal. You're not the first to do that, and you won't be the last, I'm pretty sure.

What's wrong with that? It expresses something that I think is very common to our nature as runners -- our introspective interest in our own running, and our desire to get feedback from others sharing the same passion.

They rollin...

I didn't do it.

You didn't train, or you didn't break 17?

I didn't cause a disruption in the force.  In this thread.  (and breaking 17?  You stand on 17. Don't hit.)

Even if it is a soft 17 and dealer has an two?  (MTA: Fix typo)

Haha, wow this got interesting fast. I'm sorry I never intended it to go this way.

FWIW, I didn't really read it as a vanity thread so much. If you had been asking whether you could break 20 minutes on 40 mpw and a busy schedule, then you probably would have gotten a lot of helpful responses.

But then again, if you are a coach, then you probably know that general running forums are not really the best place to go looking for running advice. So, maybe that's why folks are skeptical.