5k workouts for beginners

I've been getting into 5k training lately myself, currently in a "base-building" phase of sorts. I ran in high school and on-and-off in college but was never very good (or consistent in training, for that matter). My goal is to work up to a PR this summer or fall, maybe in a road race (PR was 16:09 on the track from freshman year of college)

Nice man. 16:09 sounds really good to me LOL. Did you take any significant time off between that PR and now or just kind of slowed down? Are you finding it easy to get back

3/27: 4mi @ 10:43. I was trying to see how slow I had to go to get my HR down into the aerobic zone. It just wasn't working. I'm not sure if it was because of the preworkout I'd taken earlier before lifting or whatever but my heart was jacked up. It was in the 170s by the end of this jog and was in the 150s before the first mile mark. Weird.

3/28: Workout day. I realized I've never run a mile under 7 minutes, although it would be easy to do so. I didn't want to waste a workout day doing an allout mile at this point so I just decided to run one at a pace I could keep up for the rest of the workout.

1.0, 0.5, 0.25, 0.5, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25 all @ 6:50-6:55 pace with 1 lap slow jog between each rep. I feel this is the pace I should be able to do an all-out 5km at, but I know I couldn't have done it today. I did not feel winded or aerobically challenged at any point in this workout, but my whole body felt sore by the end. My back sore from the start from deadlifting on Saturday and towards the end my whole core and quads were aching. I'm hoping on a well rested day next week I can do a similar workout around 6:40-6:45 pace

funny part is my HR average during the 6:54 mile was the same as the HR average from my jog yesterday.. It was not 'cold' either because I'd jogged 12 minutes to warm up at a simmilar or faster pace to what I was doing yesterday before starting the mile.

3/29: 6.3mi @ 9:22 pace

3/30: tempo run 1mi wu jog 4mi tempo 1mi cd jog

this run was interesting.. My goal was to run 4mi in 30 minutes. That felt doable given my 5km pace of 7:03 from 3/7. In fact I should be able to run a 10k close to that pace. However it didn't go so hot.

First two miles were dead on at 14:58 but I really stuggled in the last mile and came in at 30:41 (avg pace 7:40, target pace 7:30, last mile was close to 8 min pace). some excuses might be (1) My stomach felt uncomfortable before the run even started. Once I started runningI didn't notice the stomach anymore but I just felt crappy. After the run I spent about 3 hours on the toilet. (2) I had some brand new shoes on. They fit fine but they weren't broken in yet. The warmup and start of the run felt very 'thuddy'. Normally I run pretty softly but the sound of my feet smacking the ground were much louder than normal. Still a decent tempo run.

3/31: off, went out with coworkers and just decided to take one off

4/1: fun 7 miler, tried running at a pace I don't normally train at to mix things up. i realized I've never run 7 miles in under 1hour before and wanted to do that. To make it more of a challenge I ran the first mile as my warmup at 9:30 pace. From there I went to 8:40 pace and slowly increased to 7:40 over the next six miles. Finished around 59:30 so the average pace was 8:20 for 6. Felt a lot easier than the tempo run but still faster than an easy run for me. Main thing was my left quad started twitching a little bit towards the end. Didn't hurt just felt weird and unstable.

Next I would like to work on breaking a 6 minute mile. I'm hoping to do it in the next 8-12 weeks with a self-imposed deadline of 6/30. I'm hoping it won't take that long. I have not done much mile work so far but 5:59 is not a crazy pace so I think this is doable.

the fastest mile I've run so far was that 6:54 mile the other day. That was not an all out mile though, it was just part of a longer workout that was all at that pace.

On the other hand, a couple weeks ago I had run hard laps around a 1/3rd mile track. these laps took me between 2:01 and 2:05 to complete and I did five laps at that pace with rests in between. I could NOT have strung three together that day if my life depended on it. Although it was quite windy, at best I would call those 2flat efforts.

So as a baseline I am definitely below 6:54 but above 6:00. I would like to try a mile TT tomorrow, but I don't think I should until Sunday. I'll see how I feel tomorrow. After I get a better baseline I'll start putting together a plan to break 6 in the next couple months. I'm not sure if it's worth doing more than one mile-specific workout per week at my fitness level. I suspect my time may be better spent building up my aerobic system. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Nice job Bill, I have been lurking on this thread as I am 61 and running again.

All I've raced is two 5k's in the last two months. 23;01 then 20;41

At the end of April I have another.

I'd love to break 6 for a mile. I run 6;25 mile on the track now. I'll watch your progress

Best of luck !!

One more thing to note is that I've been lifting two days on 1-2 days off lately. the real killer is back day. My routine involves doing light weight dumbbell deadlifts and cable work during the week and one day of barbell deadlifts over the weekend.

I am typically sore for 2 days after that barbell deadlift and it negatively impacts my ability to run hard on those days. for now I will have to plan my aerobic training around this limitation.

Very nice! To go from 23:01 to 20:41 in one month is very impressive. I wish I could progress like that at half your age LOL

It sounds like you are talented and/or have a solid background in running. I bet you will be breaking 6 in no time!

Actually, this can be tricky to combine with running. General fitness, no problem, but to optimize running, care should be taken. Too much tiring leg strength training can hamper performance and progress. Strength (legs) has in my opinion two roles for running. To become resilient to injury, and to increase running economy and fatigue resistance. This depends on which muscles we talk about, meaning the main running muscles or the support muscles. For the main ones, like calf, quads, hams and glutes I would for example not do volumes of low weight high rep work. That only tires them and give little to running. I would do moderate volume of heavy or explosive strength for those. For support muscles it won't impact running much so you can do just about anything.

I do moderately heavy explosive leg work once a week and immediately after a workout. In that way I can recover both from the endurance workout and the strength work in the next days and be fresh in the next workout. I do this based on Marius Bakken's comments from his own trial and error. I do double workouts Tuesday and Thursday and do this strength session immediately after last workout on Thursday evening. I thought it would be tough but my legs actually feel strong and activated. I then do two days easy and often the legs are of course tired and heavy. After 3 days they are great again. I just do 2x5 reps of some deadlift and squat stuff. Apart from 5x12s Hill strides/sprints on Monday evening I do no more weekly leg strength. Even with this little volume I steadily progress in strength. I am 50.

For the upper body you can of course do whatever you like without impact on the running.

Bulking up hard and heavy stuff seems to be working better for me than distributing it. I manage to get 5 workouts of 25min work AND 3 days easy recovery å week which is impossible if evening out everything. This is actually one of Marius Bakken's important principles. I propose you at least test out some into your schedule

I started lifting right before New Years as a resolution. It does seem to have slowed down my running progress considerably, but I think overall it is still worth it. At first my lifts were so weak that it didn't seem to make much difference at all, but now as I'm progressing it is starting to become more of a trade-off. I may be more naturally inclined towards strength training than endurance. It seems my upper body strength is already on par with my aerobic fitness, despite putting a lot more effort into the running.

4/2: 3.55mi @ 9:48

very slow run, went to do some strides at the end and my quad started twitching again. It doesn't hurt but feels like one wrong step and it will get strained or cramp up. That happened during my 2nd stride so I just stopped running

4/3:

really pushed myself this day. Did a chest/tris workout I was proud of starting with db benchpress warmup set with 45s, set with 60s, then hit the 70s for sets of 6, 8, 10 then after the last set went straight to 50s as a superset until failure(failed at 10). Felt really good about this since I weight 150lb and only been lifting casually for a few months. Did flys, then dB ohp (light), dips, curls(just to get a pump lol), tri pushdowns then hit the ohp machine and busted out a few sets of 8 at 145 which felt great given it was at the end of the workout. One of my goals is to ohp my bodyweight with free weights and I'm thinking I'm pretty close at this point

all that was around 1-2pm then I still had to get my track workout in. I had planned to mile TT this morning before lifting but called it because of the quad twitching and plus it was windy (15mph, 20-25 gusts). I figured I'd just do a mileish focused workout instead after my lift. Did the workout around 5:30-7:00 on treadmill. Wanted to hone in on 9mph pace or 6:40 pace which what I estimate I'd realistically run for the mile TT since I'm not used to the feeling or pace. I wanted to focus on reducing the rest time slightly between reps since normally on my 400m workouts I jog a full 400m after each rep. This time I did:

400m on 250m jog for the first three then 400m on 100m walk 100m jog after the 4th rep to sip some water

400m on 325m jog for the next three then 200m walk 200m jog to rest a bit and stretch while walking

then did last two 400m on, 400m jog 400m on then went into the cooldown

in total 10 reps at 6:40 pace. Convinced myself I can probably crack 6:40 right now based on this workout, however it was not easy and I was slightly disappointed by how hard it felt. May have been from working out earlier and not being used to the short rests. The last two felt very hard. I felt like I would have needed a 3-5 minute walking rest to crack out any more and my legs hurt as well. would put it a solid 8.5 on the effort scale. I always do my cooldowns on feel, and on a good day they might end up around 9 minute pace. Today's was at 11 minute pace.

Plan to take today and tomorrow off from lifting, tomorrow focus on recovery and try to get a 50ish minute run in at recovery pace. Tuesday planning to shoot for a long run at a comfortable pace, with either some strides or some 200m pickups mixed in depending on how I feel by then.

Just realized the ohp sets I mentioned in last post were 160lb on the machine not 145. Not that it's really relevant but I had said I was close to my ohp goal so I thought I should clarify that

took it easy the past few days trying not to wear myself out. got back out today for another pretty good intervals workout. I feel like the drop from breaking 23 to breaking 22 was extremely fast for me but things have slowed down and I still feel quite far from breaking 21 or 6. Just going to stick with it and get there eventually. I've been working on my running form. Noticed that I tend to favour my left side significantly. I do most of the pushing with my left foot and just kind of coast with the right. This is more apparant at slower paces. Once I'm running faster and up on my toes I start to propel more with both feet.

4/4: 3.11 mi @ 9:37

4/5: 6mi @ 9:28

4/6 2.5mi @ 10:51 am // 4.5mi @ 9:14 pm did some strides

4/7:

Set 1:

800m on, 400 jog, 800 on, 400 jog, 800 on

100m walk 300m jog

Set 2:

400m on, 400 jog, 400 on, 400 jog, 400 on

100m walk 300m jog

Set 3:

400m on 400m jog 800m on

100m walk 300m jog

Set 4:

100m on, 300m jog, 100m on, 300m jog, 100m on, 300m jog, 100m on, 300m jog 100m on

all the "on" parts were 6:45-6:50 pace felt pretty good but not easy. had to dig deep for the last 800m and just added in set 4 for fun at the end felt like slightly slower strides

4/8: 8mi @ 8:55

4/9: 5.5mi @ 9:31 did some strides

4/10: 7mi run with two ~2mi pickups at tempo pace:7:47(7:52, 7:44) and 7:40(7:53, 7:27) felt good.. This run was on a hilly, rocky trail and was a totally different beast from the tempos I'd done in the past on flat roads, track or treadmill. Felt like a great workout though, just ran by effort instead of aiming for a certain pace.

Decided I'm going to scrap the mile-specific workouts for now. My mileage had been slipping from 40 to 35ish for the past month or two and I've been doing too much interval work relative to my mileage. Going to restructure and work up the milage to around 50 mpw, just doing 1 intervals workout, 1 tempo, and 1 long run per week. I've been having too many junk days of like 3-5 miles at recovery pace. I'm going to try to work up to 45-50mpw and, by adding in the long-run, try to hit that in 6 days so I can just take one day completely off and have two days of 6-8 easy with strides. We'll see how that goes.

I started taking BCAAs a week or two ago and it's really helped my recovery between running and lifting. Almost all of my aches and pains have seemed to go away over the last week, which has been a real blessing.

4/11: 6mi @ 9:09, strides

4/12: am: 3mi @ 9:19 pm: 5mi @ 9:09, strides

4/13: intervals workout, 12x400 with 400m jogging recovery avg pace 6:40 felt controlled

4/14: am: 3mi @ 10:15 pm: 4mi @ 10:09 recovery day

I will be busy tomorrow and hoping to sneak a couple miles in, but if not I have built up to the point where I can run 6 days this week and still hit 40mpw. Hoping to get a 9-10 mile long run in this weekend and a tempo/progression run on mon/tues. Planning to hold off on another interval workout until later in next week and focus on increasing my overall mileage from 35-40 mpw to 45-50mpw

4/15: off

4/16: 3mi @ 9:11 am / 5.12mi @ 9:32 pm

4/17: 4mi @ 8:18 am / 4.5mi @ 9:14 pm - strides

4/18: tempo run 4mi @ 7:28, I tried a tempo like this on 3/30 and averaged 7:40 pace so this was a good improvement. Mentally I find these tempo runs very difficult. It feels almost as hard as a 5km TT but mentally I don't have the idea of a PR motivating me and plus it lasts for longer. The first mile or two my inner monologue was not pretty. Unlike last time it didn't really feel harder as I went on, it actually felt easier mentally knowing I was almost done.

I only did like a five minutes cooldown because I had to get back to a meeting at work and plus I was feeling a little dizzy. Might do a couple recovery-pace miles tonight

4/18: Ended up doing another 4mi jog later in the evening to loosen up legs and get a high volume (9-10mi) day

4/19: 3mi @ 10:04 am / 4mi @ 9:20 pm

4/20: 6mi @ 8:39

4/21: 4.25 mi @ 9:22

4/22: went for a regular run that almost turned into a tempo by accident paces were like 8:55, 8:52, 8:20, 8:09, 7:38, 7:25 for six just felt super relaxed and easy even though it was about 82 full sun on the gravel track. I had planned to do a long fartlek tomorrow but maybe save that for sunday.Was just feeling great and did some long sprints at 4-5 min pace at the end

4/23: 4mi @ 8:54

4/24 6mi @ 8:39

4/25 intervals workout: 1mile, 1/2mi, 1/4 1/4, 1/2, 1/4 with 1/4mi jogging recoveries between each rep. mile was 6:45 and other reps average 6:48 pace. Felt very solid but not easy. did another slow jog in the evening to bring total milage up to 9 and to try to prevent sorness the next day

4/26: 6mi @ 9:04

4/27: 3mi @ 9:45pace am // 4.5mi @ 8:00 pace pm this evening run was a light tempo run, halfmile warmup, three miles steady (~7:45, 7:25, 7:05) then a few laps cool down. Felt very easy

I'm impressed, however I dont know why you feel you need to add a run in the evening (4/25). Your pursuit of mitigating soreness by adding extra mileage may result in an injury from too much mileage. Walking, pool work, or massage might be better with less risk.

missed a quarter mile rep on 4/25. the total volume at pace was 3 mile, (1.0, 0.5, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.5, 0.25) plus a few 100m strides around 6 minute pace