Going from 29:30 to 20m in a year for 5km?

Training Progress

Hey guys, I’m 21 and I started running in May, so about 2 months ago. I went from dying trying to run 10K at 9:00/km pace to now doing it regularly at around 7–7:15/km. I’m averaging about 35 km per week now. I have approximately 300km ran in total.

My current training looks like this:

  • Monday: intervals/fartlek, 4×2 min with 2 min walking recovery (week A), and a 25–30 min threshold run at a pace that i feel i can sustain maybe like 6-6:15/km (week B)
  • Wednesday: 10K easy run, with 160-165 bpm as my HR ceiling
  • Thursday: 7K easy/recovery run
  • Saturday: 11K long run, also easy 160-165 bpm as my HR ceiling

I did an LTHR test and got 181 bpm as my average HR for the last 20 minutes. My current 5K PB is 29:30. My max HR is around 207 and my average resting HR is 46.

I have an athletic background in swimming and kickboxing, but nothing extraordinary that I think would give me much of an endurance advantage.

My goal is to run a sub-20 5K within a year. Do you guys think that’s possible?

If anyone has any advice, I’m all ears!

Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

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