Improvements in your first year

Quoted message said:

Hi,
Im a mid 30s male and I've been running on and off for about 5 years.
Decided in November last year that Im going to try for a sub 40 10k by
October, previous best was 44.12.
So, since November, I've been putting in around 30 to 35 miles a week
with lots of speed work and hills and ran a 42.10 this morning.

Just wondered what sort of improvements you guys saw in your first
year, once you started to put the weekly milage in.

Keep at it. Sub 40 is realistic.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

If you want your 10K time to drop from 42s to 39s, I'd suggest the
following: 1) Maintain current weekly distance. If it happens to go up
all the better, but you need to focus on speed. 2) Quality speed work.
Need to push VO2max up. Many different ways to acheive this. If you can
handle running circles on a track, you can get an accurate view of your
progress. Use a variety of workouts (distances and speeds), but work up
to 3 one mile runs around 6:10 should do it (educated guess). At most
1/week. 5k races could also help. 3) Drive a differentiation between
running and racing. Taper, sleep, hydrate, etc. When you get to the
start line you should have a _reasonable_ race plan (pace, hills,
alone/group, ...) based on your training and past experiences. Run the
plan. Listen to your body. Unless it is "bad" pain, keep going. ("Bad"
pain is that which is doing real damage.)

Good luck. I'm no star, but as a on again off again runner, I did set a
10K PR at age 43 in the mid 37s.

Quoted message said:

Hi,
Im a mid 30s male and I've been running on and off for about 5 years.
Decided in November last year that Im going to try for a sub 40 10k by
October, previous best was 44.12.
So, since November, I've been putting in around 30 to 35 miles a week
with lots of speed work and hills and ran a 42.10 this morning.

Just wondered what sort of improvements you guys saw in your first
year, once you started to put the weekly milage in.

Thanks
JT

Quoted message said:

Hi,
Im a mid 30s male and I've been running on and off for about 5 years.
Decided in November last year that Im going to try for a sub 40 10k by
October, previous best was 44.12.
So, since November, I've been putting in around 30 to 35 miles a week
with lots of speed work and hills and ran a 42.10 this morning.

Just wondered what sort of improvements you guys saw in your first
year, once you started to put the weekly milage in.

You may be too fast already for this to apply, but I've heard 10 to 20%
improvement a year can be possible for the first couple of years. I'm
hoping for 20% improvement from my first triathlon to the same race a
year later, but I'm 50 and very slow. I've also heard that people who
begin at midlife can improve their speed for 7 years before age trumps
training.

Pam