Congratulations, 18:40 is truly incredible considering you ain't even focused.
thanks alot man!!! and yea it's legit freaky.. something odd going on.
fastest i've ever gotten fast.. ??!?!?
By the way, is mileage the ultimate key to progress?
nah, duration!
I mean, suppose you have a perfectly balanced training plan with long slow runs, easy runs and speed work in the right quantities. Do you need to up mileage to improve after a point? I'm asking for myself of course, my current weekly mileage is around 35K ( about 22 miles ) , i was wondering if just progressing the workouts is not enough. Should i actively try to up mileage if i want to get closer to 20:00 5K?
it's tough to say but, what i found out was.. it wasn't about 100 miles a week when i hit my ultimate peak, it was instead about 15 hours a week. So for me, 15 hours a week put me on that next level. I remember putting in like 1.5 hour run in the morning, 1-1.5 hour run at night etc. Everything was slow. Throwing in some strides/slight progressions occasionally when i felt great.
So if your 22 miles is 4 hours etc .. getting to 5 hours (27 miles who knows etc), will give you more fitness.
These last few weeks i've done mostly slow mileage .. only a few sessions had some speed. The vast majority of it was very ez runs, just trying to get in 35-45 min etc.
So yea i'd say try to add on a little bit more "ez" duration before tweaking speed/workout variables etc. It's incredible how effective just trotting around slow is, for the heart.
hope that helps!!
pc man !!!