My first question. Thanks Amy!

Finished up a great week of running with an 80 minute run (about 10.5 miles). The goal of today was just to run easy and just enjoy it. I have the on-call phone for the campus so I'm limited on how far I can go (15-20 minutes). So...I had to be quite creative about where to run. Downtown Indianapolis actually has some trails (if you know where to find them) and some random paths. Today I ran on concrete, asphalt, grass, dirt, and gravel. Not bad for a run in a downtown metro area. Was able to hit 42 miles this week after a slow start at the beginning of the week. That's now 12 strait weeks with 40+ miles. All of that base will pay off this summer and fall.

My friend Amy asked a great question about my last post. To paraphrase, she asked what I meant by "running fast a couple times a week." In order to answer the question, I'll have to start from the beginning. I'm long winded---just ask my student staff. (here's a picture of them):

Becoming a faster runner (for me) is really built in two phases: Base Building & Race Specific Work. Before you can even think about trying to improve your times, it's so very important to build up a solid running base. Building a base takes time but once you have it built, then it's built for as long as you run consistently (if you take time off--month or so--then you have to rebuild). Here's my suggestion for building a running base. I would spend 5-6 weeks doing this:
Week One: Run 3-4 days at an easy pace (easy defined as being able to hold light conversation). I would try to hit 2-3 miles per day for a total of 8-12 miles.
Week Two: Same as week one.
Week Three: Run 4-5 days at an easy pace. Try to run 3 miles a day for 12-15 miles/week.
Week Four: Run 3 days at an easy pace for 3 miles. Run one day for about 5 miles. You can run a fifth day, but I would only do that if you are not sore. Hit about 12-17 miles for the week.
Week Five: Run 3-4 days at 3-4 miles. Run one day at 5 miles. All easy pace. Hit about 13-18 miles.
Week Six: Same as week five. If you can round out at 20 miles/week then that's great and probably where you want to stay unless you are going after a race of 10 miles or more.
I talk a lot about my base weekly mileage being around 40-45 miles/week. That works for me because it gets me in shape and keeps me healthy. I know from experience once I go over 45 miles/week, then I end up injured. So...you really have to listen to your body because it will tell you. I'd say for most people 20 miles a week is a great level for running 5K's and 10K's. Once you go after 10 milers and Half-Marathon's, then you should go up to 25-30 miles. So you have your base...now what?
In all honesty, the only thing you really have to change is taking one of your easy runs and turning it into a hard run with race specific work. And....during your log run (5-6 miles) run about 2 miles of it at your desired 5K pace. Here's what I would encourage you to do in order to run a fast 5K. You should see a big difference in about 3-4 weeks:
Monday: Easy Run of 3-4 miles
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Hard workout at a local track or a place where you know the distance markers. The workout (4.5 miles total):
1 mile easy warm up
10 200 meter repeats at your desired 5K pace with a 200 meter recovery jog (2.5 miles total)
(key with workout is to keep going the whole time and run the hard 200s hard--you can go slow on the recovery jogs. What's hard? Well....if you run a 12 minute mile normally, then you would want to try to hit the 200s in about 70-80 seconds or better--basically, you should be running at an almost all out level but not at a full sprint. If you feel so winded you cannot recover in between hard 200s, then you should back down a bit. If you feel like it's too easy, then pick it up.).
1 mile cool down after 200s are complete
Thursday: Off or a light 3-4 mile run (depends on if you are running 4 or 5 days/week)
Friday: Off or if you were off on Thursday then a 3-4 mile easy run
Saturday/Sunday: One day off; One day long run of 5-6 miles (if training for a 5K). When you run the 5-6 miles, then you want to run 2 miles easy, the middle 2-3 miles at a comfortably hard pace---hard enough to be challenged but not all out (if you normally run 12 minute miles, then try to run at a 11 minute pace or better), and then 1-2 miles easy to finish.
As a 5K runner if you follow this plan then you should expect week one to be a baseline week, week two to run slower than week one, week three to run faster than week 1 and 2, and week four to really see some drastic improvement. I think after four weeks of this plan (plus the base), then you should really see a difference with the 5K. In addition, if you start with this and then want me to help with the Half-Marathon, then the adaptions will be easy because it will closely follow this plan.
Thanks for reading. I definitely have more thoughts so please message me if there are any questions. Important note: this is what works for me. There are all kinds of suggestions other people may have. And Amy...Thanks for the great question! Last week I had no blog. This week I have a blog and my first question...