Running 1k repeats for a year

Masters_Runner11 wrote:

If you wanted to run a 8K at 3:20 per kilometer and had a year to train how stupid or valuable would be to consistently do 1K repeats at goal pace once a week for year till that pace became second nature? I mean start at 5 x, and build for months till you were doing a lot of them like 12-15, then maybe start doing less of them with shorter tests. Could this be a way to get yourself in shape to run that pace for 8k?

Just asking questions about training that I’m sure if stupid but would there be any upside or even a chance that this approach could work in reaching that goal if you have no races planned for a year

3-4 miles of intervals of distances up 1600 will be fine. Mixing it up would be my recommendation

I dont think there'd be any real issue, especially if you're only doing it once a week and not trying to do it every session. The difficulty may come during different periods (cold weather, high mileage, longer or hillier runs in the legs) the paces you hit in the K's session may vary and you may start to get inside your own head and overthink it/your fitness. Always good to keep training varied therefore.

If you could run 15 x 1k at 3:20, you would race way faster than 3:20 pace for 8k.

This is a very good approach to 8k-10k training. Because 8k pace does not build too much blood lactate you can do it all year round.

Start at 5 x K and max out at 10

Start at 90 seconds rest and work down to 60

This really isn’t that hard of a workout but should work well.

Also a second weekly workout of 6-8 miles at marathon pace will compliment it nicely to improve aerobic capacity.

Good luck

my 3 cents wrote:

This is a very good approach to 8k-10k training. Because 8k pace does not build too much blood lactate you can do it all year round.

Start at 5 x K and max out at 10

Start at 90 seconds rest and work down to 60

This really isn’t that hard of a workout but should work well.

Also a second weekly workout of 6-8 miles at marathon pace will compliment it nicely to improve aerobic capacity.

Good luck

This is a horrible approach unless your 8k pace is already sub 3:25. If it is like say 3:30+ today, you are going to be running your intervals at like 3k pace initially and you are going to struggle to run more than 4 and will likely burn out after a couple weeks. You would be better off running 8x1k at 3:30 for a couple months and drop the pace/increase the reps/drop the rest as your fitness improves.

But yeah a core program of

8x1k @current 8k pace

6-8mile @current mp pace (call it 8k+30s if your not a marathoner)

is a solid core. Through in some sprints and your all set til you get close to race time. You might be able to come up with better programs (i.e. repeating the same 2 workouts is a bit dumb. Do some 4 milers at HM pace, miles at 10k and occasional 1k at 5k pace) but it is in the realm of reasonable.

Simple is simple, but not necessarily optimal. It is a reason why this philosophy is not used widely. To run 8k at 3:20, many different training forms can be used to make different adaptations that together push you to the goal.

Just running 1k intervalls would be very simple to assess the improvement, but since it is easy to do a test trial at 8k or 5k to measure improvement, that is also no motive for the simple plan.

you got a great simple advice that can bring you far with pace specific intervalls and MP-intervalls to build the specific endurance.

You could throw in some short intervall sessions such as 20x60s with 30s jogg at a pace of 10s faster than 8K pace. Should not be hard, just flowing faster than your 8k-pace in strong good running form

Running craze wrote:

If you could run 15 x 1k at 3:20, you would race way faster than 3:20 pace for 8k.

That was my first thought too. There's a lot of value in running over distance and under distance reps. You need the strength/speed combo to squeeze down goal pace at a given distance.

It's not a bad idea to do a pace workout once a week or once every two weeks. They don't always need to be k's. Mix it up for variety. But it'll be hard to improve without mixing in some 200-800 reps & without doing short & long tempos.

If you can run 15x1k in 3.20 and with a short recovery, you need to step up the 5k training pace down close to 3.00. So it does not make sense as a specific 5k workout anymore, but very good as a threshold-paced intervall workout

Not optimal. Think about the limiting factor. 8K pace is well over 90% of V02. To race at 3:20/k you need to push your threshold so that you are producing energy at that pace without significant build up of waste product. Race pace is well above your threshold right now. The bulk of your program should consist of long semi-hard tempos.

All serious training plans ask you to run speed sessions at race pace, slower than race pace and faster than race pace, where race pace is CURRENT race pace. As others said, if 3.20 is your 3K pace, doing 5 x 1K at this pace will lead to burnout.

A more sensible approach would be 2 workouts per week:

Week A (race pace and faster than race pace):

5 x 1000 @ current 8K pace (and build to more reps)

8 x 800 @ 5K pace

Week B (race pace and slower than race pace):

5 x 1000 @ current 8K pace (and build to more reps)

8K-10K @ HM pace (call it threshold-ish workout)

This way you teach your body faster speeds without burning out, exercise current race pace, which will slowly get faster to what you want and last but not least a workout to work on your threshold.

That's what I'd do with limited ideas/environment and a tight schedule that wouldn't allow me a more varied training. I'd replace the 5K pace with hills once in a while and the HM pace with a tune-up race if a 15K-10M-HM race shows up at the horizon.

To run well in 5k you need "all" abilities:

1. you need the aerobic base trained for all paces above threshold.

2. you need a well developed threshold to sustain a high speed without lactic buildup

3. you need to race respectably on 10k so that pace is also key for long intervalls or continous high tempo running

4. you need obviously to run well at the target 5k pace so that is a key workout to develop the VO2 max and the sustained running with higher lactate levels

5. you need to run well at 3000m/1500m so sometimes you need intervalls at that more anaerobic pace to train the anaerobic capacity, sustain lactate levels and speed up the legs

6 you need the speed of shorter than 1500m so speedwork to mechanically be fast is also important

So just doing 1k at future target pace will work for a short time, but then the improvement will stop

OP, a lot of good advice not to follow your plan.

Training builds stamina, but also assumes that the per stride mechanics improve as well.

Nowadays, I'm not so sure about the latter, what with running on roads (shuffling rather than spring in the stride), and the carbon-plate shoes.

The dyed-in-the-wool method for improving per stride mechanics is running shorter intervals much faster than race pace. Weights and water running also help.

Combined with longer runs that are more stamina oriented, this two-prong approach should get the results desired.

Look into Melbourne Track Club's training. They do 8x1km more or less every week of the year outside peak race phase.

It can work, the main thing is to just trust the process and not think about times week in week out.

Also, just cause this session is the same, doesn't mean you shouldn't be periodising your other training around it. The day before a session and the day after a session are just as important.

Goal pace stuff is mostly dumb.

Peter Coe said 5K pace is golden, I recall.

The Wizard JS wrote:

Not a good advice to stay with 1 k reps at 8 k race pace. A much better way is to do one maxVO2 workout of e.g 15-20 x 400m at 76-77 sec and another workout of LT reps to a total of 10-12 k at 3:27-3:28 min/ km . Just repeat this with easy runs of 40-80 min in between at easy pace and you have a guaranteed 8 k race at 3:20 min/ km within less than a year.

- Your magic coach - :)

Your only magic is making your athletes fail.

well 5k pace is a great aerobic stimulus. running economy is also specific to pace so running at 5k pace will do more per meter for your 1500-mile economy than slow mileage.

If you did do km intervals year around once a week. I wouldn't strictly only do km as your longer forms of of longer intervals. I.e. some 3-5 km in the base phase and some 600-800 meters when peaking. Also I would vary the amount and pace you do them at. Example 10-15x 1k at marathon to LT pace during base phase, transportation phase cut it down to 8-12 x 1k at 10k pace and finally something like 3-6 x 1km at 3-5 k pace. Adjusting the rest time too during this progression. Also in the base phase I would do them more on the hills to build up your strength a bit more. Just my 2 cents.