Yeah, I don’t recall running anything near that fast in training when I ran close to 17.
Nor was I running that much, either.
Certainly not more than four times per week.
“this is a generic plan and it is not tailored to you, your current fitness level, or your personal schedule”
When I was run training, I got down to the same 10K time off middle distance track training - 2 or 3 fast sessions a week, a few easy runs, not much distance, and then later ran lots more miles, less quality and landed at the same point.
For reference, Jack Daniels VDOT rates a 17min 5K as VDOT of 60, and expects Threshold reps (long 1200/1600 off 60/90sec recovery) to be 3:40 pace and intervals (600/800/1000 of 3/4mins) to be more like 3:20 pace.
Certainly if you want to run 17:00 for 5K, you need to do some running faster than 3:24 pace, but probably not 5-6K worth in one session. 3-4K would be enough, with the 5-6K set at threshold pace.
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So, go tell ChatGPT that.
And it will learn and then spit out a more appropriate six week plan 
So I have to tell it the plan so it can tell me what I need to do to achieve the plan. It’s sounding more like a politician all the time.
Next it will start explaining why I failed to achieve my target, all the time telling me how it could have done it, if only it had legs.
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I ran 17:43 off 10miles a week for a couple of months, and no intervals or any shit like that.
Now I do 70miles a week and I’m slower, maybe I need to do some intervals?
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Ah the joys of burying yourself on the track doing 200,400 and 800 sets. It does work and my PB last year for 5KM was 16:03 and the track work was the key to the success.
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Less killing us on Zwift and more running, simple 
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So I’ve just looked through my training when I was able to do 16.45ish on a slightly undulating course (Hereford 5K). To do that I during the summer (I am definitely quicker when it is warmer) I was doing 6x800 in 2:30 with a 2min recovery and 5x 1mile (on the track) in 5:30 with a 3min recovery. In addition we used to race X/C over the winter which is fantastic for speed endurance. Looking at say 1k efforts, I would imagine if you could do say 6x1K (personally I think 8 is too many) in say 3.12 to 3.15 with a 2min recovery I would have thought that that would put you in 17min 5K territory, especially if you can find a flat fast 5k .
I have the book run less run faster which is very interesting. In that book if you are doing 1k efforts he is suggesting 4x1k with a 400m jog recovery in between. For 17m 5K these need to be at 3.07. Good luck 
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There is more than one way, when I ran 16:45/16:30 18 months ago I was knee deep in marathon fatigue, I had run a 100k race, re-laps, 6 hour track race and consistently been up over 140-160k a week. No proper speed work to speak of other than a weekly 5k smash and some tempo/threshold work. But I was very very fit.
Obviously leahnp & others have a different approach
I am hoping with consistency I can get there again, but at the moment, despite feeling ‘fitness’ coming back, I feel like my top end is completely missing and when I try and run ‘hard’ my HR struggles to get get up to what I can run a 1/2Marathon at.
So I am considering some proper speed work to try and find that top end, does that make sense?
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I just saw this again. Why am I the single focus of wrath on this thread?! 
@leahnp is way quicker than me. As are a good number of others on this forum, including the big swim unit @Chriswim, @itom150 is miles quicker and the old boy (
) @YKK. Plus a whole bunch more. I bet @Tupperware would smash out a sub 17 like it’s nothing.
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Hey don’t be paging me into places I don’t belong, my pb is 17:0x 
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my 5k is a very painfully hard to swallow 16:00 
need to fix that this year
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Wrong thread. You need to set up a sub-16 thread on your own…
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Watch it Mr 33.40 min 10km!!! You’re not off the hook either!
Same goes for you @Doonhamer 33.16 10km!!
Yeah i’ve been doing a little bit of digging!!! 
No good calling me out as the sandbagger extraordinaire!!!
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Just to make you youngsters feel even better, my PBs all pre-date the power-of-10 website…
Apparently there were still running events in the 20th century, who knew?
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Haha, it’s more an acknowledgment of your awesome natural ability to do no focussed training then just rock up and do a sub 17 after a couple of trail runs
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Oh crikes, so it gets worse?!
So I’m going to have to go down the library on one of those weird, massive machines they use to read newspaper clippings from the olden days?! It’ll take ages!
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Or you could just ask him 
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If you can check the archives of your running club, my grandad was pretty fast for his day.
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Where’s the mystery in that?!
I have a feeling though that the fact he’s kept so quietly humble to this point, he make keep us guessing…
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