I'm 54 and have never stopped running. However I stopped racing for several years mainly due to recurring injury/illness. I have staid healthy for most of a year now and have gotten back into racing. I picked up WAVA tables ostensibly to encourage myself. However, I've found that by any measure I am running much slower than I should after adjusting for age. I'm now running ~ 40 miles/wk with a track workout every week. I'm pretty fit overall at this point. My non-speed work training times keep improving but my extremely poor leg speed does not seem to change. My PRs were 2:49 mara; 1:20 1/2 mara; 35:35 10k; 16:50 5k. I recently ran a 23 min 5k!

My track speed work is terribly slow, but worst has not been improving despite weekly sessions. I do 8 x 400 w/200 jog and am doing 1:40! Half-mile repeats are slower than 3:30. Worst, these times seem absolutely fixed over 6 mos. of track work. It seems these times should have improved more dramatically than distance times because speed was something I had not worked on at all. Has anyone else experienced similar? Based on the data I've seen, my times should be ~ 20% slower than my prime, but they seem stuck at ~35% slower.

Any thoughts/suggestions?