hey guys, I am ready to get flamed for this, but I am a freshman in college, I ran xc in high school. Right now I am just running for fun but want to do a local 5k. My best 5k is 19:30. Right now, I am running about 40 MPW easy base and have been for about 4 weeks now after a year of 20-30 mpw. I really want to do an 18:30-45 at this 5k. Can you guys give me some advice or simple workouts that could help me?
thanks!!!
maybe a testicular implant
Start doing 4 X 1k @ 6:45/mile pace w/ 60s recovery once a week. Add an interval every few weeks, and then bump up the distance to a full mile. See if you can get it to 4 x mile @ 6:45 w/ 75-90s rest. Once you're there, see if you can start dropping a few seconds off the pace, maybe down to 6:30.
At the same time, start running an aerobic fartlek per week. If you're doing a six mile run, do something like 1 mile warm-up, 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minutes at a pretty quick bu sustainable pace w/ 1 minute recovery. See if you can build this up to 2 x 12 minutes w/ 2 minutes recovery. You can even do this on the track every once in a while if you want to see how fast it's going: gun for just over 7:00 pace at first, and just under once you've got the intervals up to 8 minutes or longer (3 x 8 minutes w/ 2 mins rec).
Do a long run of 25% of your weekly mileage--for you, probably about 9-11 mpw. Do strides at the end of this run, as well as at the end of a couple other easy runs per week.
01010101 wrote:
maybe a testicular implant
Yeah, try growing a dick you pussy. Maybe then you'll be able to run more than 45mpw.
here is the key...up the mileage! and then more speed twice a week....focus on 800s and 400's that'll get you down if you just want to focus on the 5k.
dude, you said that you were ready to get flamed.
as you increase your miles, get out on good level, broad trails as much as possible. that will decrease the chances of injury as you build up. run with a group as much as possible, particularly the speed work. i was at 19:15 5k and 40-45 mpw (injuries kept me from doing any more) on the roads when i got to a place (bamako) where i could do all dirt road work, and that got me to 60+mpw quickly. I moved up to 80 on trails in central park, but I didn't yet see the time drops until joining a team, which got me doing much faster tempos and track work than I could do alone. I then dropped to 17:24 5k within a month and dropped to 16:53 on a hilly course and 16:37 on the track in another six months (injuries set me back for a couple months in the meantime). So obviously if with no talent and at 38 years old, I could do this, you can drop much more with persistence.
Wow, thats a huge improvement, that is awesome. I have access to trails and dirt roads where I live and there are several running groups around. I will look into that, thanks much.