[Hollywood]

How do you find your runtimes improve?

Do you generally find that you can chip away at PBs? Or do you generally find that you have big watershed moments where suddenly you run a big chunk faster than before?

Me? I'm still quite newbie really (which could be why my times are still improving ) and I think I've kind of found that "big chunks" works for me so far - and I'm not really sure how much of the improvement is physical and how much mental...

 

[steepler]

I took huge junks off my pb's whem I started.
Went from 95 to 76 for a half in 12 months.
Lot more difficult these days! Looking at new events to get pbs these days!

 

[Trinity]

When I came back to running after 15 years of thinking that I had hung up my trainers for good, it was relatively easy to keep improving my times as I got stronger again.

Then came 2003... a year I'd rather forget!

No matter what I did I couldn't get anywhere near my PB's. I was training right, resting right, eating right, sleeping right... nothing worked, and I vowed at the end of that year that if 2004 turned out the same then I'd give it all up again coz it was just too damned frustrating!

Then in 2004 it all turned around again, PB's were flowing thick and fast... what had I changed? Nothing!

I now think I reached a plateau in 2003, my body was just readjusting for a year and then became ready for improvement again.

I'm continuing to get faster now, despite a drop off in training due to night work playing havoc with my routine. I suspect I'm going to have to start working a bit harder soon though...I can't wing it for too much longer

 

[Boab]

I read somewhere that there is generally a ten year period where you will improve times, thereafter you will be struggling to gain PB's.

 

[No.8]

I have always chipped away at PB's until now where I have taken huge chunks off, thats down to two things: Introducing speedwork to my training particularly intervals and some fast tempo runs and secondly actually pushing myself to the limit in races and setting off at a pace that I would have previously thought too fast and actually being able to hold it over 10 or 13.1 miles.

...... oh just thought of a third, weight loss, been gradually losing weight and the more I have lost the faster I have run.

 

[everest2005]

Big chunks for me as well. The last few PB's I've ran have been 20-30 seconds faster than my previous best times.

 

[No.8]

and I took 1m 30s off my 10 mile PB (from January) today.

 

[Fulmar]

I have been very close to my 10K PB, but never got there... I have been sooo close to my 800m and 1500m PBs and still nothing...
But I have improved my times in races that I have done before with different distances, like 12.2K, 9.8K...
I guess I am not choosing the right time/race to go for a PB...