5k workouts for beginners

2/23: recovery run 3.2mi @ 9:53

2/24: roads run 4.67mi @ 9:07

2/25: steady run 7mi ~8:15 pace

this was a good run. Hit the first mile at exactly 10 minutes, second mile was like 9:20pace then ran the next 4-4.5 at 7:50ish hit the 10k at exactly 52 min and didn't feel winded or sore at all slowed down anyway and rounded out about 7mi in an hour run.

Hopefully no soreness tomorrow but will still plan for an easy day or day off. The soreness lately doesn't seem to come from actually running but I can still feel it the day after a steady effort if I stretch a certain way, so I am being careful and taking it easy 5 days per week and sticking to 1-2 steady efforts, going to chill on the intervals for a while longer since I think that is what caused issues in the first place

2/26: 5.42 mi roads @ 9:04

2/27: 2.4mi roads @ 8:58

I am in this weird situation where running doesn't hurt anymore. However the injured area is still sore at times. Usually right after waking up the area feels stiff and sore.Stretching seems to make it go away for awhile. Before, I could feel pain with every step and it was very clear that running was the cause of injury and making it worse. Now running doesn't hurt and jogging actually reduces the soreness afterwards generally. I am not sure where to land on it. I feel strong overall but don't want to get back into the pain territory.

Might take today off just to see if that helps. Days off seem to be worse for it than slow days somehow.

22:21 for 5km yesterday. 7:06mi, 14:19 at 2mi

felt good, easier than last time and no pain during the run or after. Still felt sore this morning the same as normal. Two-three days of easy runs /stretching then I plan to do a threshold session this weekend

I absolutely advice picking the threshold training from the Norwegian model. Running at 20min 5k pace is not really fast for the legs (I am not very much faster myself, so), and it is the aerobic capability that is limiting, not turnover or anything. Shorter reps at race pace are, well, too short and too fast/hard for the aerobic qualities to get the best adaptations. I recommend that you can get in 3 workouts

1. 30-40min work as long intervals around your 2h race pace (that would be some 25-30s/k slower that 5k pace) (2-7min with 30-60s rest)

2. 30min work as shorter intervals (45-90s with 15-30s rest),
around your 10k-15k race pace (5-15s slower than 5k pace)

3. 25min of 30-50s hill reps at a 30-15s/k faster than 5k pace, jog down

Other from that I would just fill in with easy runs and do not add a long run as I think the workouts are more important. You might fit in a 70min run if you have the energy for it, but 5k is rather short and you won't get beat up or anything. 10k is a different story, then you would need a slightly longer run at least every 2nd week

I did not mean yo do hill reps at 30s faster than 5k pace. I meant at an effort that matches 2s faster than 5k pace flat running. A 30s hill rep at 30s faster than 5k race pace is controlled, fast, but not really very hard. It is by far not max, but it is an anarobic workout to work on strength and anaerobic qualities, probably also touching on VO2 max.

Oh my god, writing typos. Do the hill reps at an effort matching flat running at 30-15s faster than 5k race pace...

I appreciate the advice. I think those first two workouts especially would be adding something missing from my routine. As for the hills, I started doing treadmill incline runs while I was injured which I'm thinking will add something unique to the mix and very low impact due to being on a treadmill and very slow pace, however it still can be challenging at a high incline(I do 6% incline for 2-3 mile intervals). I also run (shoed) on sand regularly, which somewhat mimics the hill action. However I would like to incorporate more sprints/speed work into my routine if I can avoid getting injured in the process. My long term goal here, after the sub20 5k, will be to sub 5 minute mile, so I will need a ton of speed endurance between now and then.

2/28 was the 5k PR (22:21) . Felt so easy compared to the other one I ran the week before a little bit slower. Felt good to know it's comfortable and repeatable now. Took the rest of this week fairly easy enjoying the great running weather and doing some lifting.

3/1: did an easy version of the treadmill incline workout. 2 miles jogging, 2 miles jogging at 6% incline, total 4mi @ 10:49

3/2: 6.54mi @ 9:10 pace (1 hour roads run)

3/3: 5.08mi @ 8:58 pace(45 minutes road run)

3/4: 4.29mi @ 8:42 pace

3/5: 6.22 mi @ 8:57 pace (run beach run but very windy)

3/6: 1 mile jog @ 11:00 pace. I felt really amped up to run a workout today but my left quad felt strained unexpectedly.Used that energy in the gym to put up some big DB presses instead. I think I stepped wrong on the sand yesterday at some point trying to manuever around some walkers. Hopefully everything is back to normal tomorrow.

I don't do long hill intervals, but I run on undulated roads. I also do hill sprints + often strides and think that this is enough of sprinting for me.

If going for the mile, I would transition a little in the training later after managing 5k. That would give a good aerobic base. But the hill workout I gave you is Ingebrigtsen specific for their mile, so you can get anarobic strength work by that with little injury risk

I will check it out. I'd like to shoot for a sub6 mile pretty soon. I think it's within reach for me in the near future as long as I can get familiar with running at that pace and stay uninjured

Ran my best 5km so far today at 21:56, first time under 22 minutes.

I have to say this run was on the treadmill and only at a 0.5 incline, as opposed to the 1.0 that I think would be needed to comp for wind resistence at ~7min pace. That being said, I will still accept it because (a) the treadmill takes ages to get up to speed, which wastes time for the time trial, (b) the majority of the run was exactly at 8.5mph with the last mile or so around 8.6mph. In a real life I would have had more room to make microadjustments and also would have kicked it in. I still had energy to do so in this run, but generally don't feel comfortable doing that on the treadmill because of risking injury. (c) I have done TT and workouts on this treadmill before and believe it to be well calibrated.

All that being said, for my actual goals (sub 6, sub 20, eventually sub5) I will only accept times in a real race or a time trial on the track to be 100% accurate.

Good! I believe at our paces around 4/k 1 deg is too much compensation. So half is OK. I also read that a study measured the difference for runner between a time trial and a competition and it was not unnormal to run 30s faster for a 5k in competition compared to a time trial.

As for top speed, I find it hard to have a good running technique for flat sprints, but in a hill I can go all out without being limited by the turnover. Also it is easier to activate large muscle groups in a hill compared to flat, so for me being 50 I find hill sprints of 10 s much better to touch max without having to worry about injury. Still, I have had to transition slowly into it since my 50 years old muscles need to get used to max over time to not strain any muscle... I now do some flat accelerations towards max (just to also push my max flat speed), but I do it much more seldom and always after my hill sprints when I have got warmed well up

This poster I think has it that I'm replying to, I'm not a competitive runner but their post is good. I race bikes, but this model for my discipline works well. I'm trying to break 21min for a 10mi TT and it takes what this person has posted here. Building the aerobic engine and threshold work. The 10mi TT is the 5k race of the bike world. Duration wise. I've attempted feebly to adopt the same idea to when I do incorporate meaningful run volume in my training with bike still the focus. And it works for my run stuff also. It's advice that works across endurance sports with events in that duration of effort.

Yea they have definitely put in some quality input in the past few posts. In my situation, I did have some pain and borderline injury which flaredup after doing some shorter interval sessions (200s, 300s, and 400s around that 20 minute 5k pace) although it may have also been from longer rep sessions or just lack of days off. I think I am too young/slow to be having these injuries.

However the pain in my waist was enough to have to stop running for a couple of weeks and hard to target exactly what the issue is/was. It may have to do with the psoas muscle. I also have scoliosis from birth, which could be associated with a tight/shortened psoas. I am still reading and learning bout it as I go. I don't want to be popping ibprofin at 29 just to work out, and I don't want to get really injured so I have to be careful all around.

3/9: 3.43 mi @ 9:09 pace

3/10: 6.23mi @ 7:54 pace

Today was a fun 10km workout. First mile was the warmup (~9 minutes) then the rest of the time was trying to 'catch up' so I could still break 50mins(finished in 49:16), which I'd never done on my Garmin. I knew I could easily run <50 in a 10k just never gotten around to it. Felt challenging but not race effort and got me curious what I could actually run for a 10k. Maybe something like 47-48 right now. Either way I consider this and Monday's TT to be solid workouts and the rest of the week will be taking it easy, maybe try a long slow run on Sunday something like 90 minutes, which I haven't done since I was a kid.

Btw good luck with your cycling goals! I've heard cycling is harder than running in a lot of ways, one of them being the time-in-seat needed to progress compared to the time-on-feet for running. How far off are you from the 21?

Also Jon you've mentioned you are in a similar spot to me with running. What are your times like now and what are your current goals?

Nothing will help as much as tempo.

Someone said it already, but a beginner can start with 4-5 minutes quicker during a longer run, then gradually get up to maybe 12-14 minutes over time.

Just realized my last post date's were off. The 10k was on 3/9

3/10: 5.1mi @ 10:10 pace recovery run

3/11: 6mi @ 9:17

3/12: 9.2mi @ 8:46 - first time doing a long run. This took 80 mins and felt pretty good and fun. Weather was perfect 64 degrees and cloudy with a strong breeze. Last three miles were 8:29, 8:22, 8:31. Would have been on pace to easily finish a half <2hr which is cool.

3/13: 4.15 @ 8:47

3/14: 1mi wu, 3x0.5mi @ 6:40 pace with few mins jogging between, 6x0.25 mi @ 6:40 pace with 0.25 jogging rest. Last couple 400s were hard and I started walking until my HR settled down to the 140s then jogged the rest of the 400. Didn't want to be starting the reps with high HR.

Going to be taking the rest of the week off work tomorrow and travelling a little. Probably will be taking it easy and just doing some funruns most of this week after a tough workout today. Maybe next week go for another 5k TT or a mile TT

I have always trained and trained a lot in my 20ies. Doing comtetitive orienteering. Never trained for road or track, but ran a 9.11 3k at 23. I never was fast, just decent at a national level. Then in 2012 I had trained quite good for some years, still doing orienteering, I ran a 3k at 11.05, so a lot happened in those 18 years.... In 2019 I had had 12 months with no training so I started again and have trained consistently and more and more every day since. Got back to a good level within 6-9 months and have basically stayed at that level ever since. That is frustrating and something I am trying to do something about with optimizing my training.

My main goal now is really to compete and I have a mental thing there. Since I always ran orienteering which is an individual sport not one on one like track or road, I am very "weak" when it comes to competing on road with other people. My main goal is therefore to enojy road and track-racing.

My training goal is really to lower my threshold pace as much as possible being approx at 4.00/k or 5.24 mile time today.

I am adjusting into a very sustainable, but well considered optimal training plan with weekly blocks. Optimal in terms of getting enough recovery, doing strength work, top speed. I follow the Norwegian model adapted to me. I focus on improving the 3k/5k race pace (around 15min race time). I guess I can do a 39 10k, a sub 19 5k and a sub 11 3k. I have a family sits that does not give too much time for racing, but I can make room for a 9 hours of training a week which I think is good.

Lately I have been thinking it is no use in training that much without enjoying racing so that is therefore the main goal in the near future...

Very nice Jon. I can be a very competitive person so I have to turn that off for running. Because of how slow I am it would drive me crazy to race at this point so I'm able to tune out and just focus on self-improvement. Whether or not that will end up biting me or holding me back eventually I'm not sure. For now it's off the table though.

3/15: This was a very wonky day. I went to the beach without checking the tides schedule first and arrived near absolute high tide. this meant I was stuck choosing between soft sand and water. After about a mile I realized that if I waited any longer there was a good chance I would not be able to navigate portions because the water would reach up to the dunes so I turned around. It was really lucky I did because it suddenly turned into an all out downpour. Drove to the gym to finish my run on the treadmill and lo-and-behold there was not a drop of rain on the ground or in the sky at the gym (less than 2 miles inland LOL)

beach part: 2.15 mi @ 11:16 pace

gym part: 3.17mi @ 9:27 pace

3/16: 3mi @ 9:58 pace

3/17: 5.25mi @ 8:40 pace

3/18: 3.33mi @ 9:59 pace

3/19: did some laps on the track after a 1mi warmup on a 1/3rd mile track. Did 5 laps hard with two mins walking rest in between

times were: 2:06, 2:05, 2:03, 2:01, 2:02

then did another 3mi or so at a slow 9-10 min pace

Was a little slower than I'd like given how few reps this was. I might have gutted out 1-2 more but I didn't see the point. I was already tired and my nose was running like a faucet. Kinda windy day I think the wind was kicking dust/pollen in. Going to try this workout again and shoot for similar pace 2:00-2:05 and try to get a couple more reps in

3/20: trail run 6.45 mi @ 8:59 pace

first five slow last 1.5mi was at tempo pace ~7:40pace

3/21 6mile rune @ 9:30

3/22 messed up workout. Went down to the gravel track at the park but every fountain was broken. ended up dipping halfway through and finishing the workout after I got water.

1.61mi wu (running to the park)

0.54mi @ 7:04

0.27 @ 9:27

0.29 @ 6:24

0.25 @ 6:11

1.61mi @ 9:19 (running back home cuz no water)

Later on did another 6 quarter miles around 6:30-6:40 pace and a cooldown

3/23: Forgot to record this day on my watch. It was a 3.5mi run with 2 miles at a 6% incline on the treadmill. All very slow around 10-11 minute pace.

3/24: 6mi @ 9:05 pace. Did a bunch of 100-400m pickups around 6:40 pace. Around 2-3 miles total at that pace in small chunks and very slow running in between

3/25: 3mi @ 9:43 pace recovery day

3/26: tempo pace workout. Had four settings (1) warmup pace ~11 min, (2) easy pace ~9:15-9:30 (3) tempo pace ~7:40-7:45 (4) 5k pace ~6:50

Started with 1mi warmup at (1)

then did six miles that were like

(2, 3, 4, 2), (3, 4, 2, 3), (2, 4, 3, 3),

(3, 3, 3, 1) (3, 3, 3, 3), (3, 3, 3, 3)

then a cooldown at (2)

Not sure if that makes sense basically it came out to ~8.2 miles and the middle 6 (the workout park) were mostly at tempo pace with a few easy laps and a few 5k pace laps here and there. the middle six miles took 47:45 in total. Didn't feel very hard unlike the shorter faster intervals I've been doing lately. The gravel track in particular felt miserable even if I had had water it just felt slow and dusty. I still want to be incorporateing sub 7 minute work but I will be working more at this 7:40 pace range because it's comfortable and feels productive. I have not done a 10k TT but I think this pace would be reasonable for me for a 10k

Just found this thread and read through it—wanted to say I am so impressed with your dedication and hard work! I see that you've already dropped a good bit of time and increased your fitness a ton. Good for you, man. It's got to be such a good feeling.

Also, definitely keep posting here, but are you on Strava? I've personally found it to be a great motivator to keep the training consistent, plus it helps log runs and workouts. Anyways, keep up the good work!