How to bridge the gap between 17:20s and sub 17 5k

Bump. Also curious about what LRC has to say on this. It is my goal too to break 17. Best of luck

Your times are good:

Below I have a week workout for you, which you can repeat each week for a couple of months ( or more).

I have coached runners before, but usually I focused on my running career, and then my career and running.

I ran in HS and college. Sports was cancelled for 1 year in our city, which removed my senior year, and I was expected to be the leader of the top CC team in the country, and to be part of a record setting 2-mile relay. My junior year (the previous year), we made all-American for the 2-mile relay.

In my late 20s, I ran 14:48 for 5K on the way to 30:12 for a 10K; 51:28 for 10 miles; and 15 miles at 5:15 per mile during a power run. I was coaching myself by that time.

My HS coach had trained under Dellinger and Bowerman while in grad school at Oregon, running with the CC team. I think the year was 1967. He is in the IL Coaches Hall of Fame .

WORKOUT

Day 1. One aerobic distance run per week: we would do 1 hour and cover about 9 miles (6:40 pace).

1a. So...run for 1 hour, once a week. It is meant to be aerobic, which means you are not short of breath. We did this on Sundays.

Day 2. Lydiard fartlek: 5-7 miles, building up to a fast, sustained pace, then slowing down. 3-4 such builds in the workout. We would build for about 3/4ths of a mile and sustain for 400m or so.

Day 3. Homer fartlek: 4-6 miles, running 6:30 - 7 minute pace, then stopping for several fast sprints with very short recovery (50s or 100s). Repeat 2-3 times.

Day 4. Power run every other week: 4-5 miles almost as fast as you can run that distance in a race.

4a. The alternate week: run ladders (600m, 400m, 200m) or (500m, 300m, 100m). Run 2 repeats, with about five minutes between intervals, and 10 minutes between sets. In other words, 3 sets of ladders, and it can be 3 of the same, or mix up the two. Run at expected mile pace for the 600, 400m, 200m; run at expected 800m pace for the 500m, 300m, 100m.

4b. Expected mile or half pace is what you hope to run during track season if all goes well.

Day 5. ; Weights ( and if you can, water running for 15 minutes: 5 at 2-mile pace, 3 minutes slower, 3 minutes at mile pace, 1 minute slower, 1 minute at half-mile pace, and 2 minutes slower). Just cup your hands and kind of run. It is great for ligaments and tendons, keeping them in balance with gains in muscle strength from weight training. Also, it maintains or improves both aerobic and anaerobic capacities.

Day 6. Light, or rest. This is Friday, unless your meets are on Friday.

Day 7. Rest or race or time trial, depending on the weather and time of the year.

This is only 25 - 30 miles per week. You will run much faster, if you run the speed workouts fast, which begins to influence the power runs, so that those become quite fast as well.

Run more, run slower on easy days, run faster on hard days, lose unnecessary weight. Those are the answers to getting faster.

Thank you for the insights! I'm 5'10" and 143 lbs, so I can probably afford to shave off a few more pounds. The plan above is interesting. I think I am going to need a few more miles than you suggested, but incorporating a little strength training I think, can be very helpful.

Can I do it? wrote:

Thank you for the insights! I'm 5'10" and 143 lbs, so I can probably afford to shave off a few more pounds. The plan above is interesting. I think I am going to need a few more miles than you suggested, but incorporating a little strength training I think, can be very helpful.

You are plenty light for sub 17. Run your easy days easier and run your workouts faster/harder. Don't be a hero everyday, sure it looks cooler running by the ladies at 7 flat pace vs 9 flat but take it easy. Stud out on your workouts.

Smoking in the basement wrote:

Can I do it? wrote:

Thank you for the insights! I'm 5'10" and 143 lbs, so I can probably afford to shave off a few more pounds. The plan above is interesting. I think I am going to need a few more miles than you suggested, but incorporating a little strength training I think, can be very helpful.

You are plenty light for sub 17. Run your easy days easier and run your workouts faster/harder. Don't be a hero everyday, sure it looks cooler running by the ladies at 7 flat pace vs 9 flat but take it easy. Stud out on your workouts.

Yeah, as previously said, you are light enough that you definitely don't need to lose any weight.

I'm 5'10 and 140 pounds and I don't think I could lose 5 pounds without becoming sick or injured. Make sure you're eating right, get in consistent mileage, and you should be well on your way to sub 17.

Those are all good advice, another thing that I'd add would be something like mile repeats at 17flat 5k pace (4xmile @5:25-5:29 with 1 min rest), and this will likely be your best indicator of sub-17 5k!

Run more.

If your PB is 17:20 and it's recent, then there's only one thing that you need to do to get to 17:00:

Race.

Running more easily on easy days is DEFINITELY something I need to get better at. In my last training cycle, I started out running 7:30-40/ mi each day but in the last 2 months, my average pace for 60 miles per week dripped into the 7:0X range. I will be more aware of this so I can really get after the hard workouts.

elvid32 wrote:

If your PB is 17:20 and it's recent, then there's only one thing that you need to do to get to 17:00:

Race.

^ this. The workouts you listed, particularly e 8x800 say that you are there. You just need to run some races. If one of my athletes ran that session, I’d expect sub 17 pretty easily.

Since those races might be hard to come by for the foreseeable future, you could do some workouts to boost your lactate tolerance (which racing does very well).

A great one to get you used to the stress of a 5k is 5-4-3-2-1. It’s 15 minutes of running broken up into those time intervals. Rest is only 30-45 seconds. I got this one from John Underwood, Coach of multiple Olympic athletes. We don’t use it much with my high school kids, because our schedule is already pretty full of races.

Another one that is pretty good is 20x200 with 30 seconds recovery. My athletes can usually do these somewhere between 2 mile and mile pace. Start closer to 2 mile pace and gradually work it down to mile pace. The back half of this workout is pretty tough, but you get used to running fast with all kinds of junk in your legs.

Replace your I pace stuff once every other week with one of these workouts. Keep the tempo stuff.

Mile repeats at that pace are definitely intimidating to me at 5k pace. I know I've done them at 5:50 w/ 60s rest but I'll definitely need to build up to doing them so quickly. I've seen progressions at 5k pace such as:

12x400

8x600

6x800

5-6x1000

3-4 x mile

Maybe I'll attempt this in the next cycle. And yes to the poster above, definitely want to race more! I might have to get some time trials in.

I think the volume seems fine, 60-65 should be enough to get you there.

Overall, the periodization you lay out in your plan seems OK, building speed first and then working on 5K pace. I followed the 5K/10K plan in Daniel's Running Formula over the summer, which was somewhat similar, and dropped from about 17:45 at last year's Turkey Trot to a little under 17 on a solo time trial this August. Definitely recommend that if own or can borrow that book.

Probably the major difference between Daniels' plan and what you've laid out is keeping some tempo work later in the plan, replacing the 400's at 3K pace that you have. Building up to 3x2 mile in ~5:50 w/ 2 min rest should be a reasonable volume for a workout at your mileage, and one that should help you reach your goal. Looking at your 800m workout versus your tempo pace I'd guess the endurance is more the limiting factor on your 5K than your speed, which the tempo workouts could improve. I don't know if you'd agree based on how your mile or 10K times stack up against your 5K PR.

If you're trying to make sure you take your easy days easy, the treadmill can be a good tool for that since you can just set it and not worry about rushing.

third - your workouts are already right at 17:00, just need to take a couple stabs at it. if you run 17:0x, my guess is you'll know exactly where you lost time and you'll get it on the next try. :20 is not a big drop at all with the work you've been putting in.

good thread--i was stuck at 17:20 5k summer after junior year of H.S then did 16:41 9 months later. As mentioned long intervals such as 1k repeats help a lot and I kept up some volume after my cross season...60-65 miles a week is more than enough for this distance; I did a usually did a long run of 10-12 miles which is decent for a high schooler/5k distance. Good luck!

These workouts (especially the 8x800 in 2:40) indicate much faster than 17:40.

I ran 17:45 this fall and I'll do 4x800 in 2:45 w/ 2:45 rest and that's a tough workout for me. Keep doing what you're doing and race when you can. Your workouts indicate around 17flat fitness now as it is.

Also, 5'10" and 143 and thinking you can shave a few pounds is borderline body dysmorphia. You could probably benefit from adding some muscle.

Thank you all for the advice so far. I agree, tempos could definitely be beneficial keeping them in for longer in the cycle and doing longer reps of them. You hit the nail on the head in regards to speed vs endurance. My mile PR from 3 or 4 years ago is 4:47 which is a lot strongerr than my 17:23/37:45 (10K from about 4 years ago). The tempos will help. I actually have Daniels 2nd and 3rd editions, so I will certainly check those out and use his structure.

An area that I struggle with is his jogging rest. 99% of my workouts include standing rest because I've found that my calves get very tight with the continuous running. Maybe I need to start with longer jogging rests to give them time to recover? I'm not sure, but I do value rest time as much, if not more than, the paces of the reps. This is great advice so far, thank you!

Thanks browski. I would guess I was probably 17:25-30 fitness by the time I got to the 800s which were tedious but not overly taxing. Started at 2:48 and progressed down to 2:34 for the last one. I would like to try it again later in the training block w/ 90s-2:00 rest.

A type of workout that seems to be missing is cruise intervals--repeats of 5-10 minutes at between 10k and half marathon pace with short recovery. These workouts are especially beneficial during base phase, as you get in some quality without compromising volume or overtaxing yourself.

Your 4 x mile at 5:50 w/ 60s recovery is close to this, but is maybe a smidge too close to race pace and also a little short on volume. 5-6 x mile @ 5:55-6:00 (or 8-10 x 1k) w/ 45-60s recovery (or 30-45s recovery for the 1ks) or 2-3 x 2-mile @ 11:55-12:00 w/ 90s-2mins recovery could be a good addition during your base phase.

And these types of workouts once a week (or every other week, alternating with a 30-40 minute tempo run at 6:10-6:15 pace or so), on top of a day of hills or shorter, faster stuff with full recovery (like 8 x 200m fast w/ 200m slow jog recovery, or two miles of in-and-out 100s) shouldn't be so taxing that you couldn't see if you could build your peak mileage to or just over 70mpw.

But like lots of other folks have said--no need to overthink it! Run slow on easy days, hard on workout days, long once a week, and then give yourself a few good racing opportunities and sub-17 (and potentially a LOT more) is in the cards for you!