Ran XC in high school, best 5K was 20:30. Always felt like I should have been a little faster, maybe our training wasn’t the best.
We did a mix of stuff: some long runs (10–13 miles tops), a lot of 5–8 milers, and track workouts with splits/intervals. Always a mile warm-up/cool-down, stretching, etc. I could sprint hard at the end, but if I pushed earlier I’d just hit a wall with breathing — legs were never the limiter.
I’m 30 now, same build as back then (5’11”, 145 lbs, thin frame, decent strength). Did a race recently and ended up at ~177 BPM at the finish which felt terrible. When I hit 170 BPM that’s usually my red line. Felt a little dizzy/just bad after spiking to 177. Time was 25 minutes.
Main goal: finally break that 20:30 (sub 20 would be great!). Should I follow just a basic 5k program or does any of the above info change my approach?
Want to train better and break old PR
Training Advice/Discussion
5k/10k
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This is certainly not the end all be all but what I use with my athletes during base and pre competition phase. Certainly can be tweaked for fitness level and ability. Hopefully others can chime in with even better suggestions!
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Thanks, I’ll give this a try! I just need to find a hill in Florida.
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In general that all sounds good, you should add strength training though.
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puzzlepiececoaching wrote:
In general that all sounds good, you should add strength training though.
Def agree on the strength training! Here are a few good running specific options.
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I have been doing some but lots of room for improvement there too. Thanks
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Thanks! Appreciate the structure from these training documents/plans.
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