My Journey to Sub 16 5K, Including My Training Logs. Need all the help I can get

Alright George, so here's how this week went so far:

Mon: 42:37 stopped at 6.00 miles 7:06/mi pace (strengthening)

Tue: had to take day off, moved everything by one day

Wed. 50 minutes; 6.8 miles, 7:23 pace. Legs felt quite heavy and my body was tired. I just didn't feel like running. Felt better halfway through to the end though.

Thu. 55 minutes, 7.5 miles, 7:17 pace, felt great! Much better! (Strengthening)

Fri. 50 minutes, 6.9 miles, 7:15/mi, my god my legs felt amazing. Honestly, my legs haven't felt this good in a long time. Opposite of how I felt Wednesday.

All runs were in the afternoon/evening. Unfortunately, because of an early family trip, I could do the 5k. I had a sinus infection all week although last week Saturday was when I had my fevers. I've felt better since. I want to make sure I'm really ready to race also, and I'm not exactly very confident after last race. I want to do some speed first to make sure I have an idea of what I can run.

I really feel the sprints help me, that's for sure. Like yesterday, my legs felt "fast." Walking around it felt like someone set me on "forward drive" if that's the best way to describe it. What is the purpose of the 20 second sprints every 10 minutes? Was that what they're for?

Since I didn't do the race, should I do a long run tomorrow? Also, I'll see if I can run today, depends if I don't get back home too late.

George? What's next week's plan?

Sub16_5k wrote:

George? What's next week's plan?

Mo: 45 min, max 6 miles, strength

Tu: 50 min, max 7 miles

We: 55 min, max 7.5 miles, strength

Th: 50 min, max 7 miles

Fr: 45 min, max 6 miles, strength

Sa: 65 min, max 8.5 miles

Su: 35 min, max 4.5 miles

Basically you repeat previous week.

It takes between 7-14 days until you can take advantage of the training you did last week.

What you did last week is needed next week.

The 20 seconds sprints are meant to keep a permanent tone. Just wait to see how it feels after next 2-3 weeks.

George Ilie wrote:

Sub16_5k wrote:

George? What's next week's plan?

Mo: 45 min, max 6 miles, strength

Tu: 50 min, max 7 miles

We: 55 min, max 7.5 miles, strength

Th: 50 min, max 7 miles

Fr: 45 min, max 6 miles, strength

Sa: 65 min, max 8.5 miles

Su: 35 min, max 4.5 miles

Basically you repeat previous week.

It takes between 7-14 days until you can take advantage of the training you did last week.

What you did last week is needed next week.

The 20 seconds sprints are meant to keep a permanent tone. Just wait to see how it feels after next 2-3 weeks.

Thank you and will do! Also, what is permanent tone?

Sub16_5k wrote:

Also, what is permanent tone?

Ahhh.. sorry, I meant to say permanent muscle tone.

One more thing, if you remember, I mentioned a "weekly theme".

Here is a theme for this week, which should be fun:

Pace play

The purpose of "pace play" is to learn about your energy resources, based on how you feel.

The better you know what energy you have left, the better you will be able to manage it during races and training.

These are a few exercises:

- after you finish a mile, try to finish the next one in the same amount of time.

- while running, try to estimate the duration of the current mile.

- set an exact duration for a segment/mile.

A few examples:

a) You just ran a mile in 7:23. Try to run the next mile in exactly 7:23.

b) When you are about to finish another mile, guess its duration.

c) You just ran a mile in 7:23. Try to run the next mile in exactly 7:12.

This is a real skill.

Good luck OP. Will be interested to see how you progress.

My last week was a mix. Had a good shorter workout, a crappy attempt at a longer workout, and basically b*tched out of my long run because of travel for work. So my legs are feeling good today from the extra rest and I'll race this weekend (10k).

Workout 1: 12 x 400m w/ average of 1:45 rest, on a track. 70, 70, 70, 69, 69, 69, 68, 68, 68, 69, 68, 61. Probably too much rest but oh well.

Workout 2: 3m/2m/1m with 2-3 min rest between. Only got 2.5 @ 5:38 and 1.5 @ 5:45 before packing it in.

Great workouts!

Those 400's are fast and I think they are way too fast unless you are aiming for sub 15 min. Don't get hurt.

Yesterday I did 6x1000m w/1 min rest. We were 50 people and I always ran > 1000m. The pace was 3:20.

Today I ran slow (45 min E @8:50 pace). I hope to run at least 60 km this week. Last week was 53 km.

Sweden in autumn wrote:

Great workouts!

Those 400's are fast and I think they are way too fast unless you are aiming for sub 15 min. Don't get hurt.

Yesterday I did 6x1000m w/1 min rest. We were 50 people and I always ran > 1000m. The pace was 3:20.

Today I ran slow (45 min E @8:50 pace). I hope to run at least 60 km this week. Last week was 53 km.

I appreciate the advice from overseas.

That's an impressive K repeats workout on such short rest. Well done! Glad to hear you have a stout group to workout with. I have one or two guys that are faster than me to pull me along on hard days.

This week on my hour of 3 hard/2 easy I averaged 6:08 pace (flat gravel trail) and did a shakeout run last night with 3 miles of 200m hard/200m easy just to loosen up and hopefully have a decent 10k this weekend. Goal is sub 35.

Sub16_5K

Give us your weekly report.

Sweden in autumn wrote:

Sub16_5K

Give us your weekly report.

I'm also waiting, I hope he gets back.

Would be fun to see someone else taking over his goal and thread.

I hope we don't lose him. I'm interested in working toward the same goal but I want to do it well with enough base preparation. I'm still in base build up. Last week I ran 58 km and the week before that 53 km. The plan for this week is as follows

Tue- Easy 50 min (~9 km)

Wed - 6x200m + 3x1000m (~ 8 km)

This is my only chance to run with other people so I'll join a local club when they run their intervals.

Thu- Easy 45 min (~8.5 km)

Fri- Easy 50 min (~9 km)

Sat- Easy 35 min (~6 km)

Sun- L 90-100 min (~16-18 km)

Weekly volume: ~58-60 km

I don't want to increase mileage too early. My goal is to peak at 70-75 km the last week in the next 6 weeks.

Does this sound reasonable? Also I want to maintain fitness so that's why I run the intervals once a week.

It looks like you're following the 10% increment rule.

Over the years I found that I can increase the mileage much more on short periods of time. I don't recommend it, however.

Here are a few examples:

In 95 my weekly mileage was around 100-110 km/week.

In November that year I jumped to 140-150 km/week, with no side effects. First 10-15 days have been tough, but mostly the boredom was difficult.

I feel like even if you increase the mileage suddenly, if you have patience and don't put intensive work as well, it takes 3-5 weeks to adapt fully to the new mileage.

I got sick and bombed my 10k. Went through 5k in 17:36 and started throwing up the 2nd half. So I'm throwing myself a pity party.

That's how I feel. Even if I'd increase to 100 km right away it would take several months to gain benefits from that mileage.

Times too

I'm sure you'll come back stronger. I canceled my 10K because of the wind and 30 degrees Fahrenheit. No need to rush things. Let's be in good shape 6-8 months from now :)

Sweden in autumn wrote:

I canceled my 10K because of the wind and 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

Way to tough it out.

As I mentioned I'm not in a hurry. The winner had 35:48. That guy's PR for 10K is 32:XX on a normal day. The conditions for running are horrible right now. Here is the weather forecast for tomorrow http://www.svtstatic.se/image-cms/svtse/1478548880/svts/article10989261.svt/alternates/medium/1m-extra-jpg

George Ilie wrote:

Sweden in autumn wrote:

Sub16_5K

Give us your weekly report.

I'm also waiting, I hope he gets back.

Would be fun to see someone else taking over his goal and thread.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been really caught up in things lately. Things went pretty well this week, similar to the week before, my runs were in the 7:10-7:20 range as usual, usually ending with a 6:40-ish mile. I did the 65 min run last night (stopped at 8.5 miles at 62 minutes, 7:16 pace. I've ran in the afternoons the last 2 weeks, no morning runs.

What's this week's plan? I'm about to head out to run, I'm doing the 45 minutes/6.5 mile run today, is this week the same as last 2 weeks?

Also, regarding pace play, I love to do that a lot, like I'll go a mile or two without looking down once on my watch and I try to get my splits close. The two closest splits ever was 7:39.95 and 7:39.99. (My Garmin splits auto laps each mile).

Once a few months back, I ended a 60 min easy run with 6:47.74. The next day, I did a steady slow tempo (a work day), and I ended it with...5:47.74. No joke. That's exactly how it said it on the Garmin. It was lucky though.

sub16_5k wrote:

...

What's this week's plan?

...

I wait to hear news from you first, so this week we start a bit late.

This week is focused on mileage. It is just a bit more than previous weeks and instead of strength work, there are some drills.

Mo: 50 min, max 7 miles, drills

Tu: 55 min, max 7.5 miles

We: 65 min, max 8.5 miles, drills

Th: 55 min, max 7.5 miles

Fr: 50 min, max 7 miles, drills

Sa: 75 min, max 10 miles

Su: 40 min recovery, max 5 miles

The drills:

10x stairs sprints (around 50 meters long)

10x hill sprints (also ~50 meters long)

These drills should be done after warm up, at 75-90% speed.

If you still want to go to gym, perhaps you could work the abs and the upper body, but leave the legs alone.

Regarding the strength work, try to do more series, with fewer exercises in a series. For example, instead of 3 series of 25 crunches, you could do 5x 15 crunches.

For the weekly theme, watch your breathing habit.

You know that they many people say to have a specific breathing pattern.

The root of the breathing problem is taking enough fresh air with every breath.

Sometimes, for various reasons, we inhale the air, but we don't exhale it entirely. Is like we inhale 10% and exhale 7%. At some point the lungs will be 75-85% filled with air and we use just the remaining 15-25% capacity.

We can breath fine with 15-25% capacity, but the real issue is that we need to expel dirty air.

The second issue with breathing is that sometimes we feel comfortable and begin to breath rarely, less than is enough.

These being said, you need to breath consciously, even before the body will force you and check sporadically if your lungs are empty or filled with air.

Some people are doing these things naturally, that's why they are called "talented". Either way, it is a subject to ponder over.

Just for fun, compare your lungs with the exhaust pipe of a car. What happens if is jammed? See

Sweden in autumn wrote:

As I mentioned I'm not in a hurry. The winner had 35:48. That guy's PR for 10K is 32:XX on a normal day. The conditions for running are horrible right now. Here is the weather forecast for tomorrow

http://www.svtstatic.se/image-cms/svtse/1478548880/svts/article10989261.svt/alternates/medium/1m-extra-jpg

Why did he do the race?