How to break 17:00 for 5k

Run more.

Are you a girl? If you're a guy, those times above would be workout times.

Towson exile wrote:

Are you a girl? If you're a guy, those times above would be workout times.

When I break 17' in 5K, my mile time was 4'52" and 800 was 2'2". So, you either need to run more to improve endurance or you need to develop enough speed to match my time. BTW, I ran 50 mi/wk at the time.

I think I need to develop more speed, because I run 5 miles in 30:00 flat. How do I develop it?

My advice is to run more 3K and 5K races. What can you run for 5K right now? You need to AVERAGE about 5:28/mi to run a 17:00 5K.

FYI, an "equivalent" performance to your 30:00 for 5 miles is only about an 18:06 5K. You need more speed and more endurance before you want to think about a 17 minute 5K.

jsdjfjskf wrote:

I think I need to develop more speed, because I run 5 miles in 30:00 flat. How do I develop it?

You need more endurance, not more speed. Well, more specifically, you need speed endurance. Right now, you're probably doing tempos at around 6:15-6:20/km. If your 5-mile pace becomes a comfortable cruising pace, the times will drop.

More experience, more races and more training cycles will help. Keep at it.

So will consistent running eventually build that? This is only my 2nd year of cross country ever

Your mpw means little. What pace do you typically run? Are you doing any workouts? What about long runs?

17 flat is roughly 5:25 a mile, so you have a lot of work to do.

Do you do strides? A couple days a week you need to include 4-8 strides of ~100-150 meters. This works on your basic speed.

At least one day a week you need to do a hard run. IE say a 4 mile tempo, 5x4min fartlek, or even something on the track(or marked greenway).

Then you need to be doing a long run once a week. Build up to 80-90 mins of easy running.

Give it 2-3 months of hard honest work, then you should pick up some good fitness.

Seppo Kaitainen wrote:

17 flat is roughly 5:25 a mile, so you have a lot of work to do.

Exactly. If your mile time is the same as the average time for 5K, you are not going to achieve it. You need at least a 5 flat mile speed to get down to 17 (unless you run 80+ mile/wk to develop crazy endurance).

Run 20x200 with 90 sec recovery once every 2 weeks and do some stride and acceleration after your easy run. As soon as you developed the speed, other things will follow.

A 30 min 5 mile is not very good speed endurance, that was my H/M pace when I broke 17' - but again, it might just be your speed. I get better when the distance get shorter (54" 400, 11.4" 100) though.

mon: 5 miles + 6 x strides

tue: 6 mile progression run (like 7:20 --> 6:20), 1 mile cool down

wed: 5 miles

thur: 2 mile warm up, 6 x strides, 6 x 800m @ 100-105% race pace w/ 2-3:00 jog recovery, 1-2 mile cool down

fri: 5 miles

sat: 8-10 miles + 10 x hill

sun: rest

total mileage: ~ 40 miles

do some sets of situps and pushups 2-3 times a week, drink water, eat right, get enough sleep, and go easy on mon, wed, and fri. if you feel like running every day, do maybe 3-4 miles on sunday. i always liked making sunday my long run because it was as close as i got to getting religious. the road was my cathedral.

mon: 5 miles + 6 x strides

tue: 2 mile warm up, 4 x mile @ 95% race pace w/ 3-4:00 rest, 1-2 mile cool down

wed: 5 miles

thur: 2 mile warm up, 6 x strides, 4 x 200m w/ 200m recovery, 2 x 400m w/ 400m reovery, 1 x 800m w/ 800m recovery, 2 x 400m w/ 400m recovery, 4 x 200m w/ 200m recovery, all done at race pace, 1-2 mile cool down

fri: 4 miles

sat: 8-10 miles + 10 x hill

sun: rest

total mileage: ~ 40 miles

mon: 3 miles + 6 x 400m @ race pace w/ 75 second rest

tue: 4 miles + 6 x strides

wed: run sub 17:00

LHS wrote:

Seppo Kaitainen wrote:

17 flat is roughly 5:25 a mile, so you have a lot of work to do.

A 30 min 5 mile is not very good speed endurance, that was my H/M pace when I broke 17' - but again, it might just be your speed.

Just keep training and improving the pace of your workouts. You will get there soon enough. When I was in 17 minute shape a couple years ago, I was running 5 mile tempos in a little under 30 minutes, 400 repeats in about 73-75, and 800 repeats in 2:40-2:45. Fifty to sixty miles a week is plenty. In high school, I ran around that amount and ran in the high 15's.

jsdjfjskf wrote:

So will consistent running eventually build that? This is only my 2nd year of cross country ever

Breaking 17 is a good goal - it would be running 3.1 miles at your current mile PR. You should work consistently - it may take you a couple of years to break 17 but you've only been running for a very short time. Have patience, with consistent training your times will come down. If you're running cross, discuss your short and long term goals with your coach.

I'll provide the voice of reason here:

While you're not doomed (you haven't been running all that long after all), do know that inherent talent could either keep you back or allow you to run 13:00. You won't know until you try.

I don't mind the advice given to you to run more, etc. but what the advice doesn't tell you is that just because you do it doesn't mean you'll be successful. There is no formula that can guarantee that.

5:26 for the mile means you've got a long way to go. What is your 5,000 PR? can you even break 18 minutes yet? You may want to set some intermediate steps before thinking of sub 17:00.

It's doubtful you can break 19 mins right now for 5k. Concentrate on getting down to sub-5:00 for the one mile before worrying about the 5k. All the mileage training in the world will not get you to 17:00 unless you can duck under 5:00 at the same time. So aim for the mile time and the 5k will follow soon after.

patience wrote:

It's doubtful you can break 19 mins right now for 5k.

Since he can run five miles in 30 flat, I don't think he'd have any trouble getting comfortably under 19 minutes for 5K.

To the original poster, if you've only been running two years, you're probably a long way from maxing out your ability, either for endurance or speed. Almost any steady training you do at this point will get benefits, and you can tinker to find the right balance of weekly volume, speed workouts, and tempo runs.

Like was said before, your ultimate potential is largely a matter of genetics, but there's still plenty of work to do before you get there.

with your times, you could had broken 16.

no, im your mom.

Actually it is above 18:30

When I broke 17 I had prs of 448 1500m and 220 800m. I'm more of an endurance guy. I did 55-60 mpw. And we did lots of race pace 400s at 80 seconds and threshold 800s at 2:56.