As is evident here...everybody has different goals and respond to different approaches. My goal right now is to make my body bulletproof for a 100 mile race with 24k feet of vert in the heat of SoCal summer. My approach to that is to do lots of mileage on trails with as much very as possible with very little recovery. Speed, tempo, etc has little to do with it.

Of course, if I was training specifically for a road race, my plan would be much different.
(Well, not much since I was able to pull off a 3:07 while training for the trails.

A month ago, I couldnt run a mile non stop.. Today I did two with a time of 19:07. Gotta knock off another two mins with 4-5 weeks to go.

Just here to make you guys feel better about yourself

thats crazy progress imo? fuck I take years apparently to drop similar ET. Here i sit with cold upgraded to bronchitis+sore throat so I know I'm getting slower heh. Oh well my achilles [L+R now, not just L] are getting a chance to recover I guess. I figure those were needing a break anyways

I tried running and debated doing an Olympic tri this summer but I can't get into running. I tried with 5k here and there but for the life of me it was pure misery. Need get over that

Another productive week for me. 6 runs (took Saturday off) for 70 miles and 12k feet of vert. Did 17 yesterday and followed it tonight with a fairly fast 13. Feeling good.

good stuff everybody:
did a hard 5k yesterday just trying to get back into running again after a nasty cold [still suffering a bit, it progressed to bronchitis but I turned the corner]. Since I was sorta effectively tapered although I had run a hard/sub-half marathon pace 7 miler the day before on hills I was a little burnt but I dont get too many opportunities to run on my local HS track during the day. Oh final excuse: it was 79*F out. But I ran w/o a shirt so that balances it out. Heeeeey ladies...



happy with that, since I was sick I just wanted to see if I could hold 7:30 avg [PR from a race 3 months ago is just about 1 minute quicker and that was in ~50*F weather and I was on a hella taper lol]

and I know it says 3.0 miles but I absolutely ran 12 laps in the #3 lane and kept going about another 60m until my watch said 3.1, so I probably actually went quicker than this/GPS oddities. 12 laps in the #3 lane by itself is a 5k [4800 meters and the offset by being outside lane 1]

my goal with these is
a) get more used to the 5k so I can actually race it better
b) get some of that speedwork bang-for-the-buck in workouts

Sounds like a tall order in a short amount of time. Couple speed sessions a week could get you close (maybe 3/wk if your body can handle it).

Durability fades with age btw.

unless that 28:xx effort was quite "soft" it's hard to make much in terms of gains in anything short of like 3-4 months I think? 6 weeks is *almost* about the time to start your taper for the race. hahaha.

good way to know if the effort was soft? Did you ...around mile 1.5.... know definitively that there was absolutely no way you could maintain the current pace for another 1.5? , then you know the pace was good

You look like you are a sub 20:00 5k waiting to happen tho /homo [1.5 yrs? haha]

Durability fades with age btw.

I was suprised that I was still feeling good at the halfway point.. Normally I lose like 2-3 minutes on the back half .. There I was able to keep pace the whole time.. guessing I was at about 85-90% effort.

Week to go.. 17:56 today. Started running consecutive days as you guys mentioned.. Really helped me step it up. Test is next saturday so ill take a day or two off this weekend and probably run til wednesday...