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Time before noticeable change
last year I PB'd a 10k at 41.12 off 25ish miles a week having been seriously running for a year . Following a few months off I'm now back in the game with an attempt at a sub 40 before I am 40 (37yrs at the mo). I am 6 weeks into 40/45 miles of running a week including all of the advice I read from the likes of Moraghan, Stevie G, Barnsley Runner et al. How long do people think it could take?
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Can I kick this off...
certainly less than a year.
al
On the face of it if you could do 41.12 off 25miles a week, then sub 40 should be guaranteed off 40-45miles a week, as that's a fair step up in training.
It depends how many months off training you took, and whether you built to the 6 weeks of 40-45 progressively or just lept in at that mileage, to see how long it will take to see gains.
However, let us know what your current week training looks like.
If your target is to run a sub-40 before the age of 40 you are going exceptionally easy on yourself. It would be like aspiring to land a job that paid £5.94 an hour if you were currently on the minimum wage.
4 months is my guess, but only that long because you took a few months off.
Chuffed to have received a response. Having been reading your threads and responses and have a lot of respect for your comments. Thank you!
Spent the last 6 weeks just base running at 75% MHR (based on 220 - age) and yes, I am afraid to admit it, I did just jump straight into the mileage. Thought it worth the gamble, being an ex-squaddie, I was banking on my body holding out. So far so good although taking glucosamine chondroitin as an insurance policy. I do shift work so my week is never the same but
-13 mile long run at 9 m/m
-6 mile tempo run at 7 m/m
the rest being easy running at 8.15 m/m
I'm amazed to see that you believe it will come that quick. I guess that 20/25 miles a week was just not enough before?
If you're up to 40-45 with well thought out sessions I think you'll be there in no time.
Cheers DomF but that 41.19 (I checked my stats and gave myself and extra 7 secs by accident) came at the end of nearly a years training where i went from a hilly 10k (salisbury) in 45.xx at the start of training to 41.19 on an average course (west Tytherley) to a 42.xx at Castle Coombe (flat) which is where I lost the will to live. So I can reasonably form the opinion that I cannot do sub 40 off my previous mileage.
I'm six weeks into 40/45 miles a week and have done only base training until this last week where I have introduced training as per RW advice.
am i missing something here? that seems like marathon weekly mileage to me
I agree with you Cop out...looks like you'd reached a bit of a plateau on your 25mile weeks.
With such a relatively low mileage you haven't developed enough of a base to ensure future progression.
40-45 for a few months should see you cracking under 40 pretty easily as Moraghan said.
After that you'd probably need to add an interval session on top of your current tempo run, whilst making sure all the other runs were done strictly to easy pace.
2 quality sessions, carefully planned so you know exactly what rep times, distances and recoveries you're doing, 1 long slow run, and as much easy running as you can fit in without risk of injury.
Simples
ps the bourne...not sure what you'd make of my 70mile weeking then
So I'm cooking on gas....
Will keep on the forums and post updates on how its all going (if anyone's really that interested). I feel a fresh sense of purpose given the positive feedback. It actually seems fairly simple> Bang in the miles, put in asmidgeon of hard work and stay injury free. Can't think why I didn't do it sooner!
Oh... One question. Stevie G. How long have you been knocking out 70mpw and why improvement have you seen?
to some extent as a runner you live with running on 'niggles', illness/fevers, losing muscle mass and constant fatigue. i cut my training a lot because of problems but i still have this drive to run that is always there. my only advice would be do not get so obsessed that you are training hard when your body clearly is not handling it. make yourself flexible, also do not to commit yourself to something stupid. if you can cannot maintain for many months cut down to something you actually maintain. some weeks you may need to take four days in a row off, i suggest you cut the mileage one week every month and make any changes slowly to see if you can cope with this training for months/years. if you get fed up try track in the spring/summer, best move i made, turns out i'm better at middle distance, so there's hope yet. good luck mate. hope it works out for you.
The beauty of a forum Cop Out, is that it throws together a lot of varying views.
From what I've seen from > before, he's very anti high mileage indeed. That's fair enough as it's from his experience. It all depends on what distances you're targetting.
From memory > was very strong at 5k and under, and his 10k upwards snakes off dramatically. That's where the mileage is essential unless you're very talented. Just as it's sometimes hard for runners who are used to 10ks and halfs to go back down the distances and get faster at the sub 5k work, it's sometimes hard for younger runners to progress from shorter races to the longer ones. I know an 18 year old county record holder at 800m and 1500m who I can beat over 10k!
I'd been doing 50miles a week since the summer of about 08, but in an unstructured way. Since April I've done more, say 60+ in peak weeks, and 50-55 in cut back weeks but in a structured way.
I've seen my 10k go down from 37s to 35.52, and this is before 10k paced work has been the priority. I hope to peak around Feb/March. The mentality I had before was that 37s was me flat out. Now I know that 35.52 has time to come off it.
I can honestly say I feel better and less knackered on 70mile weeks than I remember feeling on 25mile weeks about 4-5years ago. When the majority of the running is at easy pace, it's not too taxing. However, it builds your strength and aerobic capacity for the harder work of intervals and longer runs.
Gradual build up is the key I'd say. That and doing the majority at easy pace.
Yes, there are certainly lots of opinions but I'm fairly confident with the advice you have given.
Upped my weekly long run to 14 this week and decided to take a rest day today as only had one off this Month so far. Hoping to acheive more like 50 mpw now.
Slightly concerned that its been 2 yrs for you to knock 1 1/2 mins off your PB yet you consider I can knock a similar chunk off mine in 4 months. Am i missing something?
Cop Out, ever heard of the law of diminshing returns? The faster you get the harder you have to get for smaller returns
Therefore, 1 1/2mins off a 41.xx 10k will be easier than 1 1/2mins off a 37min 10k, and so on. Also you're still quite a newbie, and doing pretty low mileage.
Bang out 3-4months of 40-45mile weeks and I guarantee you will smash past 40mins.
Consistent and progressive training over years are what you need. I see you had a few months out, can you put in the 3-4months needed? If so you'll do pretty well I guarantee.
I'd say build to 45, develop some quality and you'll piss all over 40 min!!
What assesment do you have of this Tempo run then? Am I getting close? (max HR 183)
Mile 1 - 06:50 - Av HR 146
Mile 2 - 06:51 - Av HR 158
Mile 3 - 07:07 - Av HR 164 ( long hill)
Mile 4 - 06:46 - Av HR 168
Mile 5 (only .21 Mile) - 05:55 Av HR 169
CO, to be fair I'm with > in that you need to get the base work sorted first.
I'm pretty sure that if 20-25miles with no quality got you to 41something, than 40-45 with no quality will easily beat 40mins.
Slowly slowly catchy monkey. Make sure you can handle a few months of the higher mileage before you add the work that might break you down.
You will stop getting faster per mile after a certain point, and you can only extend the distance that you can keep this speed up, but I'm not one for waiting until I'm much older until starting distance work.
As for long distance runs, it seems fine to run largely over distance on your long slow run of the week. This builds your stamina. The best 10k runners would run 100miles a week. I guarantee that they would run way over 10k in training at least once a week. if it's good enough for them....
Ok , if you ran 41 something of 25mpw sub 40 is a 6 month aim which you could do any number of way, adding mileage being one of them.
Doubling your mileage from one week to the next isn't the safest way of doing it, even if you don't get injured your body is going to take a while to adapt to the additional mileage. The more additional mileage the longer your body will take to adapt , add too much in one go and you'll break.
As we are a similar age and relative fitness I though you might find this useful. Everyone is different but as a frame of reference this is how I have progressed in less than two years and after upping my mileage.
At the age of 39 I started running in February 2009 and by May running about 20-25 miles a week ran a 43.50 10k. I had rowed 4-5 times a week for years before starting running so was starting with some existing fitness. I upped the mileage to about 30 mpw and ran a 1:37 half marathon and a wall hitting 3:48 marathon in October 2009.
I then started to take running a bit more seriously and upped my mileage to about 50 mpw over last winter. By July I had run a 1:32 half-marathon a 40:30 10k and 3:26 marathon. I wasn’t targeting a fast 10k and only ran them as part of marathon training. In September 2010 I surprised myself with a 38:21 10k before a 3:13 marathon in October.
I run 5 times a week usually including 1 tempo session, 1 interval session, 2 easy runs and a LSR.
I get the theme of 'miles' and promise will spend the majority of my traiing plodding them out to build the base.
Badbark's times are very similar to mine over the time I have been running but that final 10k is a really corker! I'd be more than happy with that.
Today I ran 8 miles, containing my HR at 136, and ran it 7 secs per mile quicker than when I did the same route and HR 17 days ago. So I'm fairly happy its all coming together. Again, its great to hear the views and experiences from you all.
Am I right in thinking that in the base phase all you do is long runs or easy runs staying in your aerobic range?? You don't do any tempo's or intervals???
Is there a kind of "average pace" the whole run should come back at, including warm up warm down miles? Finding the lack of structure enjoyable, but also want to make sure I'm getting the most out of the sessions.
What kind of hill sessions would you suggest doing during this base phase?
Would you expect to see a drop in your heart rate after a couple of months of the base phase?
I am concerned that if I stop doing LT runs and intervals then I will lose some of my speed and 10k pace
Thought I would post an update as respect for the time you have spent giving me support and advice.
I ran the Somerley 10k today some 14 weeks after stepping my mileage up to 40/50 mpw. Only glitch in the training has been two weks ago when I only ran 16 miles due to weather and illness.
Today I completed the 6.32 miles (according to garmin 305) in 40:58 avergaing 6:28 per mile. With the extra distance I've been a tad robbed of a better time but that's life!
It's pretty hard if not impossible to run the exact 6.2miles Cop Out, as they measure the minimum route possible. It's not the over distance runs that are generally the worry it's when your GPS has you at UNDER the mileage. Then you know you can't take your time as an official one.
Anyway, that's a pb right? So onwards and upwards..ever closer to that sub 40!
I have increased my miles as well but have had to cut all sorts of quality training. I do not do slow running, just lots of steady fast 5 miles, and this I remember is how I used to train when I started. I am happy to go back to the training of my past and it has not been as bad as I thought. I trained much like this for a couple of years before forums, clubs and such training ideas. In fact I think most of my problems was because my coach got me running silly sessions in the winter as the club runners used to do them. Guess this what happens when you have clubs training mainly marathon runners, not sure it helped me as much as it could have, more the much faster track stuff in the spring/summer I think what really helped !
For the future cop-out I suggest you look into some form of periodisation as a mixture works best. You cannot go on reactionary injured runners on internet forums
. If you introduce quantity with very little quanlity and after several months you you need to look into doing easy quality - hill and fartlek - and then some decent sessions. Lots of quality needs to be on the back of some background of quantity. Still learning. Good luck mate.