Getting ready for a turkey trot

Gobble gobble, mother f*kcer

The 5K plan on Strava is good.

What does the rest of your training look like? What is your goal time?

How long is the TT race? Mine is five miles, but maybe yours is only 5K?

I am only doing 20 - 30 mpw due to a busy schedule. One 40 min tempo a week at hm pace, one lr at easy pace around 10m, one interval workout. Sometimes I substitute the interval with hill work. My goal time will be slow compared to many of the times mentioned on this site. I did find this article which looks excellent: http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/solving-the-5k-puzzle

veganlarry wrote:

How long is the TT race? Mine is five miles, but maybe yours is only 5K?

5k

The principles in that article are super solid, and when I've been in your situation, I always prefer to do my interval workouts by time. 3 mins on/2 off or 4-5 on/2 off. It is great for learning race effort and not getting hung up on pace.

I also find the workouts to be more refreshing physically and mentally than trying to hit X time for a bunch of 1000s or miles on the track. Those workouts can be great, but too many of them will really take it out of you.

5 x 1k w/2:30 rest leaves you exhausted, but you wonder if you should run longer intervals or more intervals with shorter rest than that? Multiple times a week.

If resting (and not sure if you are jogging your rests or what), that long at 5k pace leaves you exhausted, it's probably not your actual 5k pace. It's probably a lot faster. And you're probably not going to get a lot faster in 4 weeks. I mean, I guess it's possible. But unlikely.

If it were me, and I really cared about this Turkey Trot for whatever reason, I'd hop into a low key race this weekend, figure out what true 5k pace/effort is for me, and then next couple weeks focus on timed intervals (3 mins on, one off maybe) running at that 5k effort, probably twice a week.

After reading your opening paragraph i think it's safe to say you're probably trying for a unrealistic goal or you're going too fast. You should feel tired after a speedwork but not to the point where you just raced your speed workout only to slam yourself the rest of the week. You will likely mess yourself up. Additional info is needed as well if you're properly recovering which you probably aren't if your dragging butt all the other days of the week. If your goal pace is a 6:30min/mile or whatsl ever your easy running during the week should be between 8:50 to 9:10min/mile. Not 8min or 820 for your recovery based on the 630 pace. Avoid running in the low end of moderate pace. If you have no i idea what pace is what use runbayou or danielrunningcalulator to determine your paces. It'll give you a great idea of where you should be training. Most of all be realistic of your times, if your a sub 24 min 5k guy today its unrealistic to be a sub 20 5k guy in 4weeks. Trying to accomplish something of that large of gap will either get you hurt or leave you deflated.

Sit and kick wrote:

Gobble gobble, mother f*kcer

Right answer.

almost true wrote:

5 x 1k w/2:30 rest leaves you exhausted, but you wonder if you should run longer intervals or more intervals with shorter rest than that? Multiple times a week.

If resting (and not sure if you are jogging your rests or what), that long at 5k pace leaves you exhausted, it's probably not your actual 5k pace. It's probably a lot faster. And you're probably not going to get a lot faster in 4 weeks. I mean, I guess it's possible. But unlikely.

If it were me, and I really cared about this Turkey Trot for whatever reason, I'd hop into a low key race this weekend, figure out what true 5k pace/effort is for me, and then next couple weeks focus on timed intervals (3 mins on, one off maybe) running at that 5k effort, probably twice a week.

I am standing still for my rest, and my hr is usually recovered by 90 sec, but I wait another minute anyway so as not to go anaerobic.

Excellent idea about the quick 5k benchmark. I may just do that this weekend. I'm the past I have been know to do my 1k intervals too fast, giving up after 2.5 instead of the full 5 or 6.

I am only dragging butt for a day or too afterwards, but am able to get a solid tempo in three days later. My thoughts at this point are that I am doing my intervals at 3k pace instead of perceived 5k fitness -- or actual 5k fitness. I will get a benchmark 5k race in now to see where I am.

It is hard to do easy runs slow like that, but I find that when I do them at 8:15 pace (using your example times) I'll get "good" at running that slow pace which has absolutey no race value. So maybe the answer really is to do easy days even easier than I have been doing them.