| | Dean,
If you want to improve your 5K time over the short-term, you need to pick up the pace. Eleven minutes a mile is too slow, given your 7 minute per mile racing speed. My best 5K time was 18 minutes and 41 seconds -- about 6 minutes per mile, and I would often run four 6 1/2 minute miles in practice. But over the long term -- looking down the road a few years -- you would want to do a lot of what we used to call LSD (long slow distance) in order to build a base of endurance conditioning; otherwise, you won't make as much progress. I was never able to sustain that kind of training, because I was not biomechanically suited for it; I over-pronated and would tend to get injured when I increased my mileage. But over the long-run, it's the best approach. If you can, you should put in at least 50 miles a week.
Half a century ago, an interesting study was done with high-school milers, starting in 9th grade and lasting until their senior year. The runners were divided into four groups. The first group (Group A) did nothing but speed and interval work; the second (Group B), mostly speed work with some distance training; the third (Group C), mostly distance with some speed work; and the fourth (Group D), nothing but distance (LSD).
The results were fascinating. After the first year, Group A turned in the best mile times; the second year, Group B did; the third year, Group C; and the fourth year (when they were seniors), Group D (the LSD group) performed the best. The speed work gave quicker results, but they soon faded, because the runners hadn't built a sufficient base of endurance conditioning.
This gave rise to the LSD school of training. If you've ever watched the early sub-four-minute milers -- Roger Bannister and John Landy -- you can see them collapse as they cross the finish line. Today, the best milers finish standing up and recover fairly quickly, because they've developed a strong base of endurance conditioning. They do a substantial amount of distance training to augment whatever speed work they do.
But if you want to improve your times quickly, focus on nothing but speed and interval training. Of course, you pay a price for that. You can only do this for so long, because eventually you burn out. It's too hard on the body, but it yields quick and early results -- probably because it trains more of the fast twitch muscle fibers
Dean, I'm surprised your resting pulse is so low, especially for someone at your young age. I would have expected your times to be better given such a low heart rate, which is usually the result of extensive endurance training. But, obviously, you haven't been doing much training. Sounds like you're a natural! :-)
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