New Mile Training Plan

I posted plans for training to race 1 mile on this blog before, but it was poorly done and has been found in searches by a ton of people, so I want to do it again. The "Murderous Mile" plan by Fishpool and Smythe from 2000 (http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/the-murderous-mile/63.html)
 is brilliant - the more I look at it, the more I like - but it assumes that one's in top 5K shape and wants to move down to the mile for once race, in four weeks, not that one's starting from scratch.


Starting

Monday 0
Tuesday 55 minutes, with 8x400m @ 1 Mile pace - 400m recovery.
Wednesday 55 min.
Thursday 55
Friday 0
Saturday (same as Tuesday)
Sunday 55

The plan is to continue that every week until improvement plateaus. Then the Tuesday repeats get longer and slower (5x800 @ 2Mile -400, later 4x1200 @5K -400) and the Saturday repeats get faster, with longer recovery (800m time trial, 800, 4x400-800; and eventually 1600m time trial, 1200m, 3x400m - 1200m) A moderate workout of 8x400m hills is added Thursday (starting at 4% incline, progressing to 8%)

Final plan

Monday         0
Tuesday       30min AM with sprints
                    55 min. PM w/ 4x1200m@5K -400m.
Wednesday  55 min. w/ 16x100m@1Mile-100m
Thursday     55 min. w/ 8x400m hill (8% incline) at 1 Mile pace equivalent effort.
Friday            0
Saturday      30 min AM with strides and form drills
                    55 min. PM w/ 1 mile time trial, 2-3x400m @800m pace - 5-10 minutes recovery.
Sunday        80 minutes, with last 3 miles at "threshold" pace (15K to 1/2 marathon pace).

This gives two hard workouts on Tuesday and Saturday and two moderate workouts on Thursday and Sunday.

For the record - three years and 5 minutes

Age-grading my best mile (age 23), the best I could hope for this year is 5:16 and at age 55 only 5:24. Using my best races at any distance, I get 5:09 this year and 5:17 at 55. The Minnesota records on the road are 4:48 (aided) and 5:16 at age 52 and 4:52 (aided) and 5:51 at age 55 and the track records are 4:45.42 (age 50-54) and 4:55.3 (age 55-59). That last one was once the WORLD age-class record! If I could get under 6 this year, that'd be okay and 5:30 would be great. Five minutes is looking close to impossible.