Workouts for the 5K

Audio Transcript

Coach Sinead: Hi everyone, I am here with you for today’s episode of Extra Kick brought to you by Runners Connect.

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you have a question you’d like one of our expert coaches to answer in an upcoming podcast, you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We would love to hear any of your training or nutrition questions. If you got some please do send them our way.

Today we have a great question from Andrea.

Andrea: I’ve been training specifically for the Half Marathon for a while now and I’ve done six Half Marathons at this point. However, I want to try something different and I’m going to move down to the 5K for a while.

I imagine my training will see a big transition but I’m not exactly sure what 5K training entails. What are some key workouts to the 5K?

Sinead: Andrea, this is a fantastic question and like you said, I think it is a little bit different to the marathon.

In the 5k you are really trying to hit about 90-95% of your VO2 Max. Whereas in the marathon, the average runner hits about 60-65% of their VO2 Max.

If you’re not familiar with VO2 Max, this is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption measured during exercise.

It makes complete sense that the percent of your VO2 Max you can use, decreases with the increase of distance.

In the 5K, you are getting about 90-95% of your VO2 Max and that’s why you need to do your VO2 Max specific workouts.

The first thing I’m going to talk about is speed endurance.

This is so important to the 5K for the very reason that you are trying to hit about 90-95% of your VO2 Max. Speed endurance is essentially your ability to hold a specific pace for an increasingly longer period.

This is obviously key to a fast 5K and even a 10K.

Speed endurance is not the same thing as peer speed. For example, just demonstrate how this would work in a 5K.

The average pace you need to run your 5K goal pace is a lot different than the pace you would be able to run in a flat-out mile.

Obviously in a mile you’re going to be able to run significantly faster. The problem isn’t really that you don’t have enough peers speed for the 5K; it’s more that you lack the endurance to run three miles at the pace you are trying to run without stopping.

In preparation for the 5K, you’re not ever really going to be doing any sort of sprint workouts where you are just kind of running flat out.

Instead, you will want to just practice running as close to your VO2 Max as possible.

The more you practice that, the better able you are to run close to your VO2 Max in the 5K itself. Speed in endurance is a big part of an effective 5K training plan.

The other side of your training plan should be devoted to your aerobic capabilities.

While getting faster and improving your VO2 Max is obviously a large component to improving speed endurance, what might be more important to a 5K success is your aerobic strength.

Even though the 5K is a good but shorter race than the Marathon, this incentives like the 5K and the 10K are still very aerobically dominated events.

You really can’t ignore the aerobic system and your training as well.

Now I’ll talk about the four key training sessions you want to implement in a 5K training plan.

Some of these are going to overlap with a Half Marathon or marathon training plan.

That’s just because these distances while shorter, they still do require a lot of aerobic capacity.

You’re still going to want to do a weekly long run. These will obviously be a good bit of your weekly mileage and they also just work to boost your maximum aerobic capacity.

It also improves your VO2 Max and it works to increase your fat metabolism, strengthen your leg muscles, and also increase your endurance.

This is your ability to run for long periods of time without stopping.

You still need to keep weekly long run in place.

Obviously, it’s going to be a good bit shorter than your marathon and Half Marathon specific long runs.

For the average runner, you can typically do about 70-75% maybe even 80% of what you would do, in terms of mileage for a marathon long run.

Say you typically do maybe an 18 miler for your marathon long run, you’d want to do more like 12 or 13 miles for your long run in preparation for a 5K. That might sound like a lot but this depends on where you are in terms of fitness and experience.

This is more for advanced runners whereas intermediate runners, you would maybe want to err more on the side of 8-9 miles depending on your current fitness.

Long runs are one big component of a successful 5K training plan.

I’ll move on to your next workout which is Hill runs. Hill workouts are designed to build muscular and cardiovascular strength.

They’re a sneaky way of increasing your speed and your turnover. You want to choose hills that have better forward – 10% grade and nothing too steep.

You want to Hill that is anywhere from 200-400 meters long.

It depends on how many intervals you want to do. If it’s a 200-meter hill, you can do more intervals.

If it’s 400, it’s going to be a shorter workout but obviously you are going to be spending more time on the Hill.

Hills are designed to develop the elastic muscle fibers which are the most significant source of power.

Nearly 90% percent of all distance runners are deficient in muscular strength and this is so important to the 5k.

You really need to work on your explosiveness and your general strength.

Hills are a great way at both building your strength and building your speed endurance. This is probably because hill running requires both steady state and oxygen depleting efforts.

It provides a good transition from aerobics to your anaerobic capacity.

It is a good workout to help you sustain a higher tolerance for the buildup of lactate acid in your muscles, and it helps you to work on your speed endurance.

Next thing I want to talk about is getting back to your aerobics system. We’re going to talk about tempo runs.

These are the third key workout for developing strength, stamina, and your overall aerobic capacity.

An example of a tempo run would be first off, maybe a 10-15-minute warmup and then a 20-25-minute tempo run.

If you’re not familiar with tempo pace, this would be about 10-15 seconds per mile slower than your 10K pace.

The physiological science behind tempo runs is that they help to raise your lactate threshold.

This ties back into your speed endurance. As your lactate threshold velocity increases, you will run at faster speeds without getting tired, which I don’t think any runner would say no to.

These rounds are really a good way to practice your ability to run hard for a longer period. You’re really going to do these about once a week or the three months leading up to your competitive season.

So far, I’ve talked about long runs, the workouts in tempo runs, and now I’m going to talk about track workouts. Track workouts are very specific, obviously, to the 5k and 10K.

You don’t typically do these when you’re training for the Half in the full marathon but these really work to improve your leg turnover and kind of help you develop some muscle memory for the pace you’re going to want to hit on race day.

Early in the season, you’ll want to do longer repeats maybe say 1,000 meters and even up to mile repeats.

As it gets closer to your peak race, you want to start doing a shorter interval like 800 and 400.

One example of a solid 5K workout early in the season would be maybe 5-6 by 1,000 meters on the track.

Then towards the end of your season, you’re going to want to do more like a 6 by 800-meter repeats or a 10-12 by 400-meter repeats.

Towards the end of the season, you will increase the recovery interval between your heart intervals.

Your heart intervals are shorter and will be a little bit faster. This is just to help you practice the speed you’re going to try and run on race day, but also give you some rest intervals so you’re able to get through the workout and do a little bit more distance than you would do on race day.

Again, just to practice that pace, build some muscle memory, and build your speed endurance.

Andrea, those are the four key workouts to a successful 5K training plan.

I know there are probably some similarities to the training you’ve already done for your Half Marathons but the 5K and 10K are surer than the half marathon.

They recruit a lot of the same aerobic system that you would recruit for a half marathon and marathon training.

I hope that helps you out and makes sense. I wish you the best of luck with your upcoming season as you prepare for a new event. It’s really exciting to spice it up some time. I wish you the best of luck with the 5K.

Again, if you have a question you’d like one of our coaches to answer in an upcoming episode you can submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily. We would love to hear any questions you have on training, racing, nutrition, whatever the case may be.

Please do submit those and we would love to help you out. Thank you so much again for joining me today and I hope you do so next time. Until then,6 have a fantastic day.