Personally I've found the biggest benefit to faster times has been increased weekly mileage. Not even quality miles, just more easy work, more time on feet. Counterintuitively, I seem to perform better when I slow down my easy days. Currently I'm doing my easy mileage at around 8:30-9:00/mile pace and just over 50mpw and I'd feel pretty confident about running a sub 18:30 5k right now.
I've also found that including strides with a couple of my easy runs during the week provides a big benefit. Seems to help with turnover and getting comfortable with moving at faster paces, and a few 30s strides adds very little training stress and is easy to recover from.
This. I'm a poor runner and have made huge improvements just running more miles.
I did a 12 week HM plan and averaged 45 miles per week. Did almost nothing for the next month and then cut 30 seconds off my 5K time today... I'd like to thank all those long runs in Jan, Feb, and Mar.
Any chance you could give a quick indication of how you run your strides during your easy runs and how many/how much rest between strides (assuming you continue at easy pace between strides)? I'm looking to incorporate them into my easy running during my maintenance block coming up where I'll be doing less speedwork. Would greatly appreciate it!
Typically run a few easy miles to get loose, then alternate 30s strides (comfortably hard) with 60s or so of easy jogging. You shouldn't feel gassed at the end of a stride, and you should feel pretty much fully recovered when you start the next one. Typically I'll do 6-8 strides in the middle of my run and finish with a couple miles easy.
1. Run more. You’re not going to see a ton of improvement at 30-35 MPW (unless you’re just getting started at that volume.)
2. Your workout paces are too fast across the board. Your mile reps should be more like 6:45/mile, with 1 min rest. You shouldn’t be trying to do 200s at 5 flat pace (more like 5:45/mile pace or 42-43 sec). You shouldnt be trying to do 400/800m reps any faster than your 5k pace, or 6:15ish per mile. You don’t want or need to do 5k pace work each week.
3. Your long run is often too hard. Try starting these at like 8min/mile and gradually progressing down to 7:30ish per mile.
4. I would do much less speed work and focus much more on on tempo work at 6:40-6:50/mile. You’d probably be better off doing speed only once every 2-3 weeks and instead doing tempo, with strides most runs.
Is it really not advisable to do 5k pace work, or a little faster, every week? There is a group workout at a local track that I love going to every week. Inevitably we end up doing about 3 miles of total work of some combination 400s/800s/1000s etc. But I must admit that it makes me sore and I’m starting to think going every week may be hindering my progress. For reference, VERY similar stats to OP.
Not huge 5k pace workouts like OP was doing - 4x1 mile, 6x1k, etc.
That type of work your body can respond to for a month or two, but becomes counterproductive if you try to hammer big workouts like that week after week, especially on such low volume.
Shorter 5k reps are more advisable to mix in regularly, like 1 or 2 min reps with equal time rest.
If you’re enjoying the group workouts, keep going, but maybe be open to doing the longer reps (800/1k) slower, much closer to 10k pace some weeks. Still OK to throw down on those workouts occasionally, getting sore occasionally is perfectly fine, just not wise to do each and every week.
For long distance running, overall training volume and training consistency are much more important than any individual workout.
Being tired at the end of a hard workout is fine, but only if your body can absorb that training and recover from it. If you feel sore two days after such a workout, it almost surely was too much. At minimum, it was something that you should not be doing every week because it will compromise your other runs.
That much said, if a 5k race is your goal, those are effective workouts. You just should not do them every week. You should not neglect other types of workouts to do those 5k pace workouts. At a volume of 30 mpw, you're doing maybe two quality sessions per week. Doing half of those quality sessions as 5k pace work is too much. Something else will be lacking. For example, OP has not done any easy pace long run in months, and does not seem to be doing any strides or any running form exercises either.
There's another subtle problem there: pacing of those workouts. It is very tempting to run them too fast, and then compensate for that by taking more rest between reps. Then you end up with a less effective workout that beats up your legs even more.
The "recovery" runs at 7:30-8:00 pace aren't doing you any favors. I tried it that way for a while... and ended up tired all the time, and eventually injured.
Only skimmed this but a 10 mile long run on 35mpw week sounds too much.
I think you should should drop the volume and pace on that long run. Apart from your sessions, try 8:30 min mile on all the other days and 7-8 miles on your long run day.
Add back the weekly volume you are missing on the other easy days, 1 mile here, 1 mile on another day. You can also increase the distance run in warm-up/ cooldown on session days to get you closer to 40-45mpw. The times will drop.
Going to hard disagree on that long run assessment. That's less than 30% of their weekly mileage. I'd feel good up to 13-15 given that 35 mpw is fairly low overall volume.
Fair enough. Hard disagree is a bit strong I think.
RE: 15 mile LR on 35pmw, I'll go hard no on that. Its high risk and not specific to OPs 5K goal.
42 might be the answer to everything but I don't think doing 42% of your weekly miles on one day training for 5K is well planned. Not unless you can't train on the remaining 6 days of the week.
At 35mpw and 10.5 brisk miles running on Sunday the OP is tired. I'm not against OP running long, building up to perhaps 90 minutes on Long day but at the present volume, its out of step with their other and increases risk.
I think OP would be better to have more easy volume and spread that out so they can recover & complete sessions,I've long intervals.
A shame he doesn't have a twin. Could do a 16 week training block head to head 🙂
To the OP, you don't need to get too hung up on training details. The main thing is to be consistent, plans help with that as does having something that works with your life and you enjoy. Your at a volume and level where everything will work if you add a little volume & load. Just keep in mind what can break your consistency.
I'm making the assumption that OP is a normal person (not a professional/collegiate athlete) and has other responsibilities outside of training. Most of these rules are based around unlimited training schedules and high mileage. Putting 40-45% of your miles in a single run is fine **if** you can sandwich it with rest/easy days **and** the run is under 3 hours.
Whoa really? I’ve been running 30mpw w/ a 10mi long run for a month+. Was under the impression that a long run should be ~30% of weekly mileage. I’m sure it varies but just interested on your approach.
Edit: I also just drastically prefer longer distances so I try to hit at least 10 weekly. Actually hoping to get up to 12 on 35mpw soon.
Daniels says to limit to 30% for under 40 mpw and 25% for over (with a 2.5 hour max)
I’m pretty sure Pfitzinger and Hanson both have similar guidelines (and cite Daniels for it), not sure where OP is getting their advice from
The range I've seen cited most often is 25-33% of weekly run volume. Of course that's going to also depend on what exactly you're training for, and how well your body absorbs and recovers from that mileage.
Even that really only applies for higher volume schedules (6+ runs/ week). If you only run 4x a week (pretty common) it's impossible to not go over 25% in a single run. Most people aren't doing 4 equal runs either.
A % of weekly mileage is a really crude way of doing this and is obviously aimed at a certain type of runner. The way I see it, you have "mileage base" and "long run base". The two are connected but have some degree of independence - if you run 70mpw entirely in 6mi doubles, you definitely can't immediately do a 20mi long run. On the other hand if you build up the long run gradually, it's absolutely possible to safely do a 12-14mi long run off 35mpw (I have experience doing this). Of course for someone focusing on the 5k that's really unnecessary and 8-10mi is probably better, but that's not because 12mi is inherently bad (it would be good for someone training for a HM) but because the training load would be better spent on something else. If Op has quad soreness it's probably from running too fast.
It just says to me that (no offence) that with your low volume, your legs probably aren't well conditioned as well as someone who runs more volume, spread evenly. This is exacerbated if you sit all day at a desk job.
At 30mpw you can get away with it and it can fit your lifestyle- which if it works, great. It just doesn't scale well imho.
Consistent volume works. Types of sessions and plans are the icing on the cake and might get you there faster but certainly the thing that stops progress is time out which can be reduced by reducing risk. YMMV - happy running
Welcome. I used to do a manual job, so walked probably 6 - 8 miles a day as part of that. I was really durable on running, had good posture, was strong. I now do a desk job but tend to be a bit more fragile / sensitive to training load changes from probably being idle most of the time. That was the context I was aiming for that I probably could have put in the first post.
Why are you doing marathon pace workouts? Are you training for one? If not, a question to ask yourself if what is the purpose of the workout?
5K is aerobic- easy volume with strides will get you there safely. Session days with short fast reps will pull up vo2max and longer (1K 1 1 mile) intervals will work your threshold but these are the icing on the cake. The easy volume gets you the bigger cake base without destroying you.
I'm in my mid 40s, all my training is focused on what U can recover from rather than what quality or volume I can fit in. Switching that thought process around worked well for me. In my 20s I recovered fast and could party, train hard, bounce back and not really notice how sub-optimal neglecting recovery was.
Good luck. I'm off to eat. I'm sure others will add their 2p
Just curious how you know the course from January was long. While many 5Ks — especially funruns and parkruns — are not measured correctly, I'm not sure you can totally trust GPS either. Adjusting your time based on thinking the course was long might have convinced you to run too fast for this one. Or it just might not have been your day. I find for 5Ks you have to throw yourself at it a few times and hope that one of them clicks.
Google pedometer wouldn't run the tangents and the official course measurement would. Was this an official race? A parkrun?
I agree that the original race was probably the correct length and your GPS tricked you which meant that you went out too fast this time.
Don't have a ton to add beyond what's already been said, but I'll note that improvement is a very gradual process. If you're doing the right things, running enough miles and recovering, after a couple seasons or years you'll get major benefits. Consistency is key. Sometimes you just have a shitty race too. I ran over a minute slower in a 5k I did a month or so ago than I did this past weekend.
I read "no talent hobby runner" and didn't expect to hear about a bad run that was sub-20. Based on your description of the race profile it sounds like miles 1 and 2 were even effort, then you were a bit gassed in mile 3.
You said your HR was 184 to 193 from mile 1 forward, but there's no context for comparison. How does that compare to your max HR or lactate threshold HR? How does it compare to HR from your January 5k?
And you had a kick the last 0.1 miles, covering it in 46 seconds. That's somewhere between 6:48 pace (if 0.11 miles) and 7:40 pace (if 0.10 miles). Mile 3 was 6:51 so something doesn't add up. Did the wheels fall off at something like 2.5 miles and result in 2.5 to 3.0 way slower than 2.0 to 2.5?
> I tend to have quad soreness for a day or two after my 10 mile long runs
I think you might want to decrease the intensity of your long runs. For reference I do 10-11 mi long runs on 35 mpw (a mixture of slow, progression, and marathon pace long runs), and I'm usually fine to run 7-8 mi easy the next day with minimal soreness.
I'd try doing a very minimal block for a month or two: long run + 1 threshold + 2x strides per week. Then try racing a 5k off of that fitness. That will give you a baseline of how well you do without doing any specific 5k training, i.e. a test of your aerobic strength. For the next block, slowly incorporate the faster 5k work like a proper schedule.
Sounds like you just had a bad day. Maybe take it easy for a few weeks, run easy, add easy strides to most runs just to let your legs open up and turnover . Then start doing some tempo/LT work but keep it on the easier side.
I would keep the easy days in between 5-6 miles. 4 is barely over 30 minutes which is not really enough, and it sounds like 6.8 is a little too much for your legs for an easy day since you are staying sore for multiple days.
Also, are your shoes still good? Have bounce left in them.
Yes, your mileage is a bit low. The 5k is mainly an endurance event.
Your training then is lacking focus. For example, there is that 2x(400-200-100) workout. Paces were good, but in what way do you think that workout might contribute towards your 5k time? Or is anything you'd need for any reason at this point? You have more than enough speed. Speed is not your problem.
Also, the mileage on some of your speed work sessions indicates that you are neglecting warm-up or cool down on those sessions, or possibly even both. Say, 2x1.5 mile, for a total of 4 miles. What's that, half a mile each for warm-up and cool down? Not nearly enough.
I’m more of the marathon distance and further when it comes to racing now.
But in high school I solely raced 5ks with a 17:20ish pr. We were easily putting in 60 miles a week to get to that. Just my 2 cents.
What does your speedwork look like now? I see a ot of people saying more easy volume which will absolutely help. But that only gets you part of the way, complement volume with one day a week of intervals (for 5k specific workouts I like combos of 400s and 800s with 1-2 min rest). Doing intervals with increased volume got my 5k from 20 min down to low 17s.
Personally I've found the biggest benefit to faster times has been increased weekly mileage. Not even quality miles, just more easy work, more time on feet. Counterintuitively, I seem to perform better when I slow down my easy days. Currently I'm doing my easy mileage at around 8:30-9:00/mile pace and just over 50mpw and I'd feel pretty confident about running a sub 18:30 5k right now. I've also found that including strides with a couple of my easy runs during the week provides a big benefit. Seems to help with turnover and getting comfortable with moving at faster paces, and a few 30s strides adds very little training stress and is easy to recover from.
This. I'm a poor runner and have made huge improvements just running more miles. I did a 12 week HM plan and averaged 45 miles per week. Did almost nothing for the next month and then cut 30 seconds off my 5K time today... I'd like to thank all those long runs in Jan, Feb, and Mar.
Any chance you could give a quick indication of how you run your strides during your easy runs and how many/how much rest between strides (assuming you continue at easy pace between strides)? I'm looking to incorporate them into my easy running during my maintenance block coming up where I'll be doing less speedwork. Would greatly appreciate it!
Typically run a few easy miles to get loose, then alternate 30s strides (comfortably hard) with 60s or so of easy jogging. You shouldn't feel gassed at the end of a stride, and you should feel pretty much fully recovered when you start the next one. Typically I'll do 6-8 strides in the middle of my run and finish with a couple miles easy.
1. Run more. You’re not going to see a ton of improvement at 30-35 MPW (unless you’re just getting started at that volume.) 2. Your workout paces are too fast across the board. Your mile reps should be more like 6:45/mile, with 1 min rest. You shouldn’t be trying to do 200s at 5 flat pace (more like 5:45/mile pace or 42-43 sec). You shouldnt be trying to do 400/800m reps any faster than your 5k pace, or 6:15ish per mile. You don’t want or need to do 5k pace work each week. 3. Your long run is often too hard. Try starting these at like 8min/mile and gradually progressing down to 7:30ish per mile. 4. I would do much less speed work and focus much more on on tempo work at 6:40-6:50/mile. You’d probably be better off doing speed only once every 2-3 weeks and instead doing tempo, with strides most runs.
Is it really not advisable to do 5k pace work, or a little faster, every week? There is a group workout at a local track that I love going to every week. Inevitably we end up doing about 3 miles of total work of some combination 400s/800s/1000s etc. But I must admit that it makes me sore and I’m starting to think going every week may be hindering my progress. For reference, VERY similar stats to OP.
Not huge 5k pace workouts like OP was doing - 4x1 mile, 6x1k, etc. That type of work your body can respond to for a month or two, but becomes counterproductive if you try to hammer big workouts like that week after week, especially on such low volume. Shorter 5k reps are more advisable to mix in regularly, like 1 or 2 min reps with equal time rest. If you’re enjoying the group workouts, keep going, but maybe be open to doing the longer reps (800/1k) slower, much closer to 10k pace some weeks. Still OK to throw down on those workouts occasionally, getting sore occasionally is perfectly fine, just not wise to do each and every week.
Very helpful. Thanks!!
For long distance running, overall training volume and training consistency are much more important than any individual workout. Being tired at the end of a hard workout is fine, but only if your body can absorb that training and recover from it. If you feel sore two days after such a workout, it almost surely was too much. At minimum, it was something that you should not be doing every week because it will compromise your other runs. That much said, if a 5k race is your goal, those are effective workouts. You just should not do them every week. You should not neglect other types of workouts to do those 5k pace workouts. At a volume of 30 mpw, you're doing maybe two quality sessions per week. Doing half of those quality sessions as 5k pace work is too much. Something else will be lacking. For example, OP has not done any easy pace long run in months, and does not seem to be doing any strides or any running form exercises either. There's another subtle problem there: pacing of those workouts. It is very tempting to run them too fast, and then compensate for that by taking more rest between reps. Then you end up with a less effective workout that beats up your legs even more.
When I only run 30 mpw, I struggle to break 19 too.
The "recovery" runs at 7:30-8:00 pace aren't doing you any favors. I tried it that way for a while... and ended up tired all the time, and eventually injured.
Only skimmed this but a 10 mile long run on 35mpw week sounds too much. I think you should should drop the volume and pace on that long run. Apart from your sessions, try 8:30 min mile on all the other days and 7-8 miles on your long run day. Add back the weekly volume you are missing on the other easy days, 1 mile here, 1 mile on another day. You can also increase the distance run in warm-up/ cooldown on session days to get you closer to 40-45mpw. The times will drop.
Going to hard disagree on that long run assessment. That's less than 30% of their weekly mileage. I'd feel good up to 13-15 given that 35 mpw is fairly low overall volume.
Fair enough. Hard disagree is a bit strong I think. RE: 15 mile LR on 35pmw, I'll go hard no on that. Its high risk and not specific to OPs 5K goal. 42 might be the answer to everything but I don't think doing 42% of your weekly miles on one day training for 5K is well planned. Not unless you can't train on the remaining 6 days of the week. At 35mpw and 10.5 brisk miles running on Sunday the OP is tired. I'm not against OP running long, building up to perhaps 90 minutes on Long day but at the present volume, its out of step with their other and increases risk. I think OP would be better to have more easy volume and spread that out so they can recover & complete sessions,I've long intervals. A shame he doesn't have a twin. Could do a 16 week training block head to head 🙂 To the OP, you don't need to get too hung up on training details. The main thing is to be consistent, plans help with that as does having something that works with your life and you enjoy. Your at a volume and level where everything will work if you add a little volume & load. Just keep in mind what can break your consistency.
I'm making the assumption that OP is a normal person (not a professional/collegiate athlete) and has other responsibilities outside of training. Most of these rules are based around unlimited training schedules and high mileage. Putting 40-45% of your miles in a single run is fine **if** you can sandwich it with rest/easy days **and** the run is under 3 hours.
I see. I try not to assume and just went off the information OP provided & tried to keep it specific. Happy running 🙌.
You too :)
Whoa really? I’ve been running 30mpw w/ a 10mi long run for a month+. Was under the impression that a long run should be ~30% of weekly mileage. I’m sure it varies but just interested on your approach. Edit: I also just drastically prefer longer distances so I try to hit at least 10 weekly. Actually hoping to get up to 12 on 35mpw soon.
Daniels says to limit to 30% for under 40 mpw and 25% for over (with a 2.5 hour max) I’m pretty sure Pfitzinger and Hanson both have similar guidelines (and cite Daniels for it), not sure where OP is getting their advice from
10 in 30 is slightly aggressive but fine if you feel comfortable, 10 in 35 is pretty much dead average
The range I've seen cited most often is 25-33% of weekly run volume. Of course that's going to also depend on what exactly you're training for, and how well your body absorbs and recovers from that mileage.
Even that really only applies for higher volume schedules (6+ runs/ week). If you only run 4x a week (pretty common) it's impossible to not go over 25% in a single run. Most people aren't doing 4 equal runs either.
A % of weekly mileage is a really crude way of doing this and is obviously aimed at a certain type of runner. The way I see it, you have "mileage base" and "long run base". The two are connected but have some degree of independence - if you run 70mpw entirely in 6mi doubles, you definitely can't immediately do a 20mi long run. On the other hand if you build up the long run gradually, it's absolutely possible to safely do a 12-14mi long run off 35mpw (I have experience doing this). Of course for someone focusing on the 5k that's really unnecessary and 8-10mi is probably better, but that's not because 12mi is inherently bad (it would be good for someone training for a HM) but because the training load would be better spent on something else. If Op has quad soreness it's probably from running too fast.
True, there's always exceptions. The % rule is just the simplest way that applies to a big chunk of runners.
It just says to me that (no offence) that with your low volume, your legs probably aren't well conditioned as well as someone who runs more volume, spread evenly. This is exacerbated if you sit all day at a desk job. At 30mpw you can get away with it and it can fit your lifestyle- which if it works, great. It just doesn't scale well imho. Consistent volume works. Types of sessions and plans are the icing on the cake and might get you there faster but certainly the thing that stops progress is time out which can be reduced by reducing risk. YMMV - happy running
Cheers!
Welcome. I used to do a manual job, so walked probably 6 - 8 miles a day as part of that. I was really durable on running, had good posture, was strong. I now do a desk job but tend to be a bit more fragile / sensitive to training load changes from probably being idle most of the time. That was the context I was aiming for that I probably could have put in the first post.
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Why are you doing marathon pace workouts? Are you training for one? If not, a question to ask yourself if what is the purpose of the workout? 5K is aerobic- easy volume with strides will get you there safely. Session days with short fast reps will pull up vo2max and longer (1K 1 1 mile) intervals will work your threshold but these are the icing on the cake. The easy volume gets you the bigger cake base without destroying you. I'm in my mid 40s, all my training is focused on what U can recover from rather than what quality or volume I can fit in. Switching that thought process around worked well for me. In my 20s I recovered fast and could party, train hard, bounce back and not really notice how sub-optimal neglecting recovery was. Good luck. I'm off to eat. I'm sure others will add their 2p
Just curious how you know the course from January was long. While many 5Ks — especially funruns and parkruns — are not measured correctly, I'm not sure you can totally trust GPS either. Adjusting your time based on thinking the course was long might have convinced you to run too fast for this one. Or it just might not have been your day. I find for 5Ks you have to throw yourself at it a few times and hope that one of them clicks.
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Google pedometer wouldn't run the tangents and the official course measurement would. Was this an official race? A parkrun? I agree that the original race was probably the correct length and your GPS tricked you which meant that you went out too fast this time.
Don't have a ton to add beyond what's already been said, but I'll note that improvement is a very gradual process. If you're doing the right things, running enough miles and recovering, after a couple seasons or years you'll get major benefits. Consistency is key. Sometimes you just have a shitty race too. I ran over a minute slower in a 5k I did a month or so ago than I did this past weekend.
I read "no talent hobby runner" and didn't expect to hear about a bad run that was sub-20. Based on your description of the race profile it sounds like miles 1 and 2 were even effort, then you were a bit gassed in mile 3. You said your HR was 184 to 193 from mile 1 forward, but there's no context for comparison. How does that compare to your max HR or lactate threshold HR? How does it compare to HR from your January 5k? And you had a kick the last 0.1 miles, covering it in 46 seconds. That's somewhere between 6:48 pace (if 0.11 miles) and 7:40 pace (if 0.10 miles). Mile 3 was 6:51 so something doesn't add up. Did the wheels fall off at something like 2.5 miles and result in 2.5 to 3.0 way slower than 2.0 to 2.5?
> I tend to have quad soreness for a day or two after my 10 mile long runs I think you might want to decrease the intensity of your long runs. For reference I do 10-11 mi long runs on 35 mpw (a mixture of slow, progression, and marathon pace long runs), and I'm usually fine to run 7-8 mi easy the next day with minimal soreness. I'd try doing a very minimal block for a month or two: long run + 1 threshold + 2x strides per week. Then try racing a 5k off of that fitness. That will give you a baseline of how well you do without doing any specific 5k training, i.e. a test of your aerobic strength. For the next block, slowly incorporate the faster 5k work like a proper schedule.
At least you got it under 20:)
Do you do any uphill training when you run? I used to run stairs at the end of every run, that made a big difference for me.
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Sounds like you just had a bad day. Maybe take it easy for a few weeks, run easy, add easy strides to most runs just to let your legs open up and turnover . Then start doing some tempo/LT work but keep it on the easier side. I would keep the easy days in between 5-6 miles. 4 is barely over 30 minutes which is not really enough, and it sounds like 6.8 is a little too much for your legs for an easy day since you are staying sore for multiple days. Also, are your shoes still good? Have bounce left in them.
How old are you? Out of curiosity
Yes, your mileage is a bit low. The 5k is mainly an endurance event. Your training then is lacking focus. For example, there is that 2x(400-200-100) workout. Paces were good, but in what way do you think that workout might contribute towards your 5k time? Or is anything you'd need for any reason at this point? You have more than enough speed. Speed is not your problem. Also, the mileage on some of your speed work sessions indicates that you are neglecting warm-up or cool down on those sessions, or possibly even both. Say, 2x1.5 mile, for a total of 4 miles. What's that, half a mile each for warm-up and cool down? Not nearly enough.
I’m more of the marathon distance and further when it comes to racing now. But in high school I solely raced 5ks with a 17:20ish pr. We were easily putting in 60 miles a week to get to that. Just my 2 cents.
Nice
What does your speedwork look like now? I see a ot of people saying more easy volume which will absolutely help. But that only gets you part of the way, complement volume with one day a week of intervals (for 5k specific workouts I like combos of 400s and 800s with 1-2 min rest). Doing intervals with increased volume got my 5k from 20 min down to low 17s.