Run Your Fastest 5K
Expert tips and key workouts to get you up to speed – and keep you there
I’VE COACHED HUNDREDS OF 5K runners over the past 25 years and those who met their 5K race goal arrived at the start line trained properly in every aspect. But most runners don’t practise this simple concept. Volume enthusiasts assume that big numbers in training logs ensure success in a race that is only 3.1 miles long. Others pound out 5K-race-pace repetitions, convinced that all they’ll have to do is connect the dots come race day. Both groups line up with their task unfinished. In a jigsaw puzzle, you start with lots of little pieces, then match those pieces to build small islands, which you then bring together to complete the puzzle. For the 5K puzzle, you assemble pieces to create the following five areas and bring them all together on race day.
STRIDE EFFICIENCY
It all begins with the stride. An efficient stride allows you to meet the demands of training without falling prey to injury, and a smoother, longer stride is an essential ingredient of a fast 5K. When you focus on mechanics at the outset of your training, you set the stage for better overall training in the weeks and months to come. So how do you improve your stride? Using these two methods:
• Form drills Technique drills will involve variations of movements such as skipping, bounding and marching. These drills are designed to promote muscle-fibre recruitment, improve nervous-system function, increase strength, and correct muscle and form imbalances.
• Short hill reps Short hill repeats are 40-60-metre sprints up hills that are reasonably steep. Your effort level should be slightly less than an ‘all-out’ sprint – but just slightly. Also, remember that this workout is designed to challenge your legs, not your lungs. Your legs should feel momentary fatigue as you recruit their full range of muscle fibres, but you should recover quickly. Don’t make the mistake of turning this stride-efficiency workout into a fitness session. After each repetition, walk back down the hill, recover for two to three minutes, and then sprint up the hill again. Eight to 10 reps will do the trick.
Of the two workouts, technique drills are better for improving stride. But short hill repetitions will do in a pinch. A half-dozen sessions of either during the first 8-12 weeks of your 5K training (no more than one session per week) should provide 100 per cent benefit. Naturally, each session should include a proper warm-up and a decent cool-down.
WHATEVER PACE YOU RUN, YOU SHOULD FINISH YOUR LAST REP FEELING YOU COULD RUN ONE OR TWO MORE
AEROBIC ENDURANCE
Going long is about duration, not distance. Whatever your ability, you’ll gain similar benefits from 60 minutes of lower-intensity running (65-75 per cent VO2 max). Or from 90 minutes. Or from 30. Long also refers to an accumulation of volume. ‘Volume’ is not a single long run or a single week of high mileage. It is a long-term, consistent amassing of lower-intensity aerobic conditioning. For your purposes, there are three types of aerobic distance runs:
• Short Up to 40 minutes. Short runs aid recovery from hard workouts and add to your overall volume.
• Medium 1.5-2 times the duration of your short run. Medium runs are ‘normal’ distance runs and provide the bulk of your volume.
• Long Up to (approximately) twice the duration of a medium run. Long runs build capillary density, increase mitochondria (your cellular power plants), improve stride efficiency, burn fat and expand glycogen stores.
For the beginner, there might not be much difference between short, medium and long runs. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure to increase the duration of aerobic runs gradually, focusing first on the medium and long runs.
5K-SPECIFIC ENDURANCE
The 5K race demands both aerobically and anaerobically generated energy. The only way to prepare your body for this demand is to train at 5K effort. You do this by running repetitions. This is where most runners make a mistake: they base the pace for their repetitions on the fitness they’d like to have rather than on the fitness they possess.
Remember, you don’t run repetitions to practise running faster. You run reps to improve the physiological systems that will allow you to run faster in the future. To accomplish this goal, you train at 5K ‘effort’ rather than 5K ‘pace’. As your fitness improves, your pace will improve. But your perceived effort will remain the same, allowing you to become well versed in the effort level you’ll use in the race. These 5K-specific workouts should be run once a week. This is a typical progression of sessions. All reps are followed by three minutes of recovery unless otherwise indicated:
5-10 x 1 minute (2-minute recovery)
5 x 2 minutes
5 x 3 minutes
4 x 4 minutes
5 x 4 minutes
4 x 5 minutes
5 x 5 minutes
It makes no difference whether you’re 15:00 5K runners or 45:00 5K runners. Your reps last the same amount of time. You’re targeting specific physiological processes, not mimicking race distance. If you’re unsure whether you are running 5K effort, try this simple test: as you’re running, ask yourself, ‘Is this an effort I can maintain for an entire 5K?’ Be honest. If the answer is yes, keep up the effort. If it’s no, slow down.
Still unsure about proper repetition effort? Here’s another guideline to keep you within the proper range: whatever pace you run, you should finish your last rep feeling you could run one or two more. If you’re exhausted at the end of your session, you ran too hard. Adjust the next week by decreasing your effort. If you’re barely winded, increase your effort the next week.
INTERMEDIATE FAST-TWITCH
Your best 5K effort results from a combination of stamina and speed. And it just so happens that you have a type of muscle fibre ideally suited to this task. Intermediate fast-twitch muscle fibres provide much of the ‘speed’, but also have the capacity to function aerobically. This combination allows you to run faster, longer – the definition of 5K racing.
The best way to train intermediate fast-twitch fibres is to run long hill repeats. This has nothing to do with whether you’ll be racing on hills, flats, roads or the track. Long hill repeats make you faster – period.
The first step is to find a hill that’s not too steep and not too flat. The incline should be challenging, but it shouldn’t chop your stride. A six per cent gradient is deal. This increases the workload for each stride while allowing you to maintain your full range of motion.
Use your watch to time the first hill repeat of each week’s session. Let’s say your rep for that week is supposed to last 60 seconds. Stop running as soon as a minute is up – and that’s the finish line for the remaining reps. Recovery between reps is four to five minutes, including your jog back down the hill and some walking at the bottom. •
Less recovery time won’t give a better workout, but it will increase your risk of injury and burnout. Remember that you’re targeting a specific musclefibre type that is recruited during a specific range of effort. Too little recovery forces you to recruit the other type of fast-twitch fibres and/or to burn through your muscle-glycogen stores.
The correct effort level for each repetition will vary depending on its length. As with your 5K-specific workout, the guiding principle is to finish your long hill-repeat session with enough energy remaining to run one or two more reps.
This is typical progression for long hill-repeat sessions: 8 x 30 seconds 6 x 60 seconds 8 x 60 seconds 4 x 90 seconds 6 x 90 seconds
Long hill repeats should be run two to three times a month until you’ve accumulated six to eight sessions. A good option is to alternate hill repeats with technique drills on a weekly basis. If you’re already in fairly good shape, you can begin incorporating these reps at the outset of your 5K programme. If you’re a beginner, wait three to four weeks. Never do long hill repeats the week of a race. Also, on weeks that don’t include hill reps or a race, it’s beneficial to incorporate a few hills into your long runs. This reinforces the gains you’ve made.
VERSATILE RACE-PACE EFFICIENCY
Training faster than goal pace serves two purposes. Physiologically, it makes you efficient at paces that might be required in the race (at the start, during surges and for your finishing kick). Psychologically, it makes your actual 5K pace feel ‘slow’ – your race pace feels relaxed because it’s less than 100 per cent of the effort you have trained to run. Two faster workouts are: 16 x 200m at 3K effort, with 200m jog recovery
Park or trail fartlek: 8-10 x 3090-second surges at faster than 3K effort, with jogging recovery equal in time to each surge
The 3K effort isn’t meant to imply an exact pace; rather, the point is to run harder than 5K effort but not quite as hard as you’d run during a mile race.
Training slower than goal pace allows you to increase the duration of higher-intensity endurance sessions without overstressing your body. Two examples of this type of workout are:
• Tempo runs In his seminal book, Daniels’ Running Formula, coach
Jack Daniels writes that ‘the intensity of effort associated with [tempo] running is comfortably hard. [Y]our effort should be one that you could maintain for about an hour in a race.’ When preparing for the 5K you should tempo train at an effort approximately equal to half-marathon race pace. Because the 5K doesn’t require the sustained endurance effort of longer races, it’s OK to break tempo runs into two sections. This gives you most of the benefit while reducing the chance of overtraining. For example:
2 x 10 minutes, with 2-minute jog recovery
2 x 15 minutes, with 3-minute jog recovery
• Progression runs Progression runs begin at your normal distance pace, then drop 10-15 seconds per mile until you can’t go any faster (or until you reach 5K race pace). This usually occurs at between six and nine miles. A GPS is great for this workout, but it’s OK to guesstimate pace while using a watch to trigger each increase in effort. Varied pace work should be added four to six weeks before the 5K race. Faster work can take the place of the weekly drills or hills session. Slower than goal pace work can substitute for the 5K-effort reps. Always make sure to subtract one hard workout from your weekly schedule before adding one of these.
COMPLETING THE PUZZLE
Finally, race day arrives. The gun goes off, and you fall into a pace that matches the 5K effort you’ve been practising for weeks. Your stride is effortless as you blend aerobic endurance with speed and strength gained from the hills. You make adjustments to your effort level based upon feedback from your body, a method you rehearsed during all those repetitions on roads and trails. There’s no part of the race for which you are not well prepared. You have assembled all the pieces of our puzzle.
As a bonus, the same training that’s prepared you for the 5K has also set you up for races such as the 10K and the half marathon– even the marathon. Because you’ve focused on improving the essential aspects of training – from stride efficiency to muscle-fibre recruitment to aerobic endurance – you’ve become a better overall runner: fitter, faster and more efficient.