Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. There are some fast people on these boards so I was wondering if anybody could offer me some advice on how to get faster. I have questions. How long would it take to drop five minutes in the 5k? What should my training week look like and what workouts should I be doing? I’ve been running 40km per week for five years now and would like to get faster. My fastest 5k ever was 21:45 but I was younger then and I would like to beat my lifetime PR.
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I would definitely try and find an athletics club, many clubs do tuesday and thursday evening speed/threshold sessions - a month or two of these and you'll get faster without doubt
park run is another option of course - do it regularly and attack it
what is your weight like? dropping a bit of weight will affect your time, its often difficult but has a massive effect
otherwise build in a speed session or two to your weekly running, some form of interval high intensity and try and do this regularly
good luck
Richard
Also, I am 5’2 and 125 lbs so I’m not sure how much weight comes into play at this point..
6 x 800
1:35
1:41
1:39
1:41
1:42
1:43
1:43
1:44
1:41
1:38
So looking at a week being something like Longer run, hill work, speed session + something else to mix things up (e.g. a social run).
Not sure if that helps, but thats what I'm doing
The regular route which I run has a lot of hills so on my milage runs I sometimes sprint up them if I’m not feeling too tired, hill sprints would be a good idea
For 5k, shorter, faster sets with shorter recoveries tend to lead to greater improvement.
Such as 3 blocks of 5x200 off 45s (3 minutes between each block), or 10x400s off 60s
Throw in some 800s, these should be at (or slightly quicker) than race pace.
This is where it gets tricky as 26 minute 5k is ~8 m/m 22 minutes is ~7m/m.
So start off doing consistent ones sub 4 minutes - which you are doing. I'd drop the number (maybe do just 4 to start) and aim for say 3:45s which is ~24 minute pace. Build these up to 6 over time.
More reps isn't necessarily better.
Also try some 1k or 1200 reps - just 3 or 4 again which help more with the speed endurance.
300s are also horrible: build up to 10 off 90s recovery. They are a cross between a full hard sprint effort and the more steady/hard 400
Realistically to go from 26 to 22 needs your pace to drop 80s/mile. That will probably take a couple of years.
I'd break it down to incremental gains: a minute at a time. When you are consistently running sub 25s it is easier to push on towards 24.
Also when you do some 3-4 mile runs, incorporate a mile (building to 2-2.5) at the target pace.
As an aside for Glen I don't think you can improve over 5k if you are marathon training - I tend to concentrate on either marathon, 10m-halfM or 5k-10k and train specifically for it: they all have different core components.
I'm currently marathon training so 5k and or 10k times are on hold until late spring/summer.
Hill sprints or short intervals.
Long run between 6 to 10 miles.
You can improve over any distance by running more miles and consistency.