5K Race Improvements

Question
I'm 62 and weigh 163 lbs. I enjoy running 5k races for the competitive motivation. I usually finish about middle of the pack at about 28 minutes. I run 3 times a week at 3 to 3.5 miles with a few hills. How do I get faster times.
Thanks,
Bill

Answer
I would suggest adding 2 more workouts a week to your schedule, with one of them being a 'speed day' of trying to run at your race-paces or faster, such as on a track, or a short stretch that is 500m to 1000m long, or in miles-sense, 1/4 to 1/2 mile long.  I like 500m & 1000m distances because they are easier to figure out times for based on your race times.  (a 28 minute time would be 5.6 minutes for every 1000m in the race, or 5:36 in time.  Just take the '.6' and multiply it by 6 (6x6) to get 36 seconds as an estimated time.  a 500m time would be 2:48, or 2.8 minutes)  I would start out with 1/2 of a race distance in total speed-training volume, such as 2, 1000m trials and a 500m trial, or 5, 500m trials, with equal rest in-between.  In your example, a 500m run could be run at race pace, doing so every 6 minutes (2.8 to cover it, 3.2 minutes of rest time in-between).  If you discover that its too much to handle at 1/2 a race distance volume for your workout, then simply take a 1:2 work to rest ratio.  With your age, I don't know how your body would handle these workouts, as my experience has been with HS & JH kids with this type of training.
Anyways, the speed workouts will enable you to handle higher speeds over the course of your training.  Running slowly & for longer distances does not make anyone faster, its the rule of specificity which clearly explains how that works.  

I hope this helps you well,
Rick Karboviak