14 Weeks to get a Sub-17 5K...help me.

Sounds like 16:59 is a good goal. I would suggest that you start incorporating speedwork a bit sooner though. Maybe a few strides by week 3 or week 4 at 5k pace and some 5k pace intervals by week 5. Maybe it would be good to plan a couple other 5ks over the next few months as well. If you give yourself a few different chances to break 17:00 I think it is pretty likely. If you only have one goal race, you may have an off day, or the weather may not be conducive to a PR. I find the best way to a 5k PR is to run other 5ks.

Thanks for the response. Anyone else?

I think you've got a solid plan, though I strongly agree with the poster who suggested racing several 5ks rather than putting all eggs in one basket. Also, if there's an 8k race available at some point, I've found that to be really good prep for a 5k.

Since it seems that you have plenty of speed but need better strength, I'd also suggest keeping tempo runs in the mix throughout your training (incl weeks 8-11) because, as you've presented it, it seems a little heavy on the intervals. Two alternatives to basic tempo runs are acceleration runs, which can keep things interesting and might help you get used to running fast while fatigued, and good old mile repeats.

Pete Magill also has some useful thoughts on 5k specific training -

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=19258

Good luck!

I'm a Hudson fan/like his conceptual framework of the various threads involved in race prep (aerobic support, muscular support, and specific)

Throughout the cycle progress the workouts for these three elements, eg

Aerobic support: mp/half mp tempos move towards 10k paced workouts (ie specific aerobic support)

Muscular support: 10x 10s hill sprints become something like 12x 400m @3k pace

Specific: 10x 30s fartlek becomes 5x1k at goal pace

Tailor the emphasis to your needs (eg based on those 200s you don't need to do too much muscular work to get 5k), don't 'lose what you have' (even though, ^in general you progress the workouts to become more specific, it'll likely make sense for you to sprinkle in some tempos and hill sprints in the last few weeks).

My specific suggestions: do strides the first week or and then start doing some hill sprints. I would start hill reps as a transition into track work. If the course is hilly, be sure to do some of your specific work on similar terrain. Also, again based on that 200 workout and your 5k PR, I'd emphasize speed endurance (eg doing a progression of workouts that leads to a large number of 200s/400s at just fated than goal pace with near full recovery) and aerobic support (a variety of tempos and progression runs). It may also be a good idea to develop your specific fitness primarily through extension (as opposed to progressing your 5k workouts by gradually speeding up longer intervals).

Good luck, stay healthy and you'll break 17

How old are you?

When did you run 17:35?

Why are you running 7:20 pace for easy stuff?

When and why do you do 200's that fast?

How many weeks have you been running 50 miles consistemtly?

WHat's your highest milesge ever?

Do you plan to only do 1200's and 10k for Thesholds?

Fast Legs wrote:

How old are you?

When did you run 17:35?

Why are you running 7:20 pace for easy stuff?

When and why do you do 200's that fast?

How many weeks have you been running 50 miles consistemtly?

WHat's your highest milesge ever?

Do you plan to only do 1200's and 10k for Thesholds?

1. 32, started running in late 2010.

2. Three weekends ago

3. I don't know why, it just feels comfortable to me. Even when I was a 19 minute 5K guy, 7:20 pace for an hour didn't seem like much of a challege, but 6:30 pace for 8 miles is painful.

4. Our club team has a sub-2 800-meter guy on the roster. He invited me to do a workout with him - and we were splitting 28's, but he's obviously quicker.

5. Since last summer.

6. 65-70 mpw a few occassions last summer - it helped me get into the 17's

7. Something along those lines. I never do tempos because I hate them. I figure I'm forcing myself to do them by jumping into a few longer races to help prepare me for my goal races at the end of summer.

I think if you keep training the way you've been training, you will easily break 17 very soon! Don't let running with faster guys (ie: sub-2) intimidate you. You can clearly hold your own. Lastly, I find the workouts that I hate most are the workouts that tend to be most beneficial to me (working on what's weak). When I was in college, I hated longer intervals/tempo runs, now I'm much stronger with the longer distances, but hate interval work (many of my fast gears as a youngster have diminished). So like you said, "I never do tempos because I hate them. I figure I'm forcing myself to do them by jumping into a few longer races to help prepare me for my goal races at the end of summer." Keep on at it no matter what the method, but definitely incorporate up-tempo work as much as you can. Good luck!

Mark V. wrote:

- 28-30 seconds in a 15x200 workout

- 4:54 Mile at local club track meet

- 6x800 workouts at 2:42 average.

- 50mpw (easy and long runs at 7:20 pace)

I think I have the prerequisite speed to do it.

Yes, you probably do! Those 200s are impressive. But your questions are all about strength, and other than your 50mpw (which is good), in the only workout that is going to tell us anything related to strength you've left out key information - the recovery.

6x800 @2:40-2:45 is a great sign, if done with 1:00-1:30 rest. My PR is almost exactly your goal, and I can tell you that when I did 8x8 @2:45 with 1:15 rest a couple weeks before that it was a solid effort. But I think it would have been pretty easy (and said less about my 5k ability) if I did 6x8 in 2:35-40 with 2:00+ rest.

I think that a staple workout for you should be 6x1000 or 5x1200 at 5k pace. Someone with your speed is going to be able to bang out six 800s at 5k pace pretty nicely, but accumulating > race distance in longer intervals, even at 5-10k pace, is going target the areas where you have room for improvement. When you can hit those sets with 1:30 or 2:00 rest, you'll know you're ready! Hitting your tempo pretty hard, right around 6:00 pace, and trying to take the length of it from 20 to 30 to 40 minutes, will help. So will a reasonable progressive long run (10-12 miles).

Good luck! Come back and update us!

You DEFF have the speed, and 6x800 at those paces is not far from a good indicator either. sub 17 in 14 weeks should be CAKE if you keep doing what you are doing. The only thing i would suggest, is getting a good long run in, and making one or two runs a weeks quicker - 620-645 pace.

I've bookmarked this thread and I'll continue to update it throughout the summer. Thanks for all of the advice, time to man up and do tempos.

Two 10K's are on my schedule, one in about two weeks. I did find an 8K in the beginning of August.

Mark V. wrote:

7. Something along those lines. I never do tempos because I hate them. I figure I'm forcing myself to do them by jumping into a few longer races to help prepare me for my goal races at the end of summer.

More tempos or in my opinion, negative split runs where you start out honest and build to a faster close. I am a masters runner who was stuck in the mid 17:00s for several months before forcing myself to do these every week. For me, it was a weekly 5 mile semi-hilly trail run (so obviously times are gonna be slower) where I started out @ mid 6 pace and dropped from there to about 6s. You gotta do whatever pace works for you, but they need to be honest i.e. they need to sting. They will hurt and you will continue to hate them, but the results for me after a couple months of these negative split runs . . .

1. 16:46

2. 17:03

3. 16:55

As previoulsy noted, you have the speed. I like the idea of jumping into 10Ks and using them as tempos as well, but unless you're doing them every 10 days or so, you're going to need to do some tempos on your own. It will suck and you will want to quit, but this is what you need. I would also start to incorporate them sooner rather than later. My guess is you blow right by 17:00 and surprise yourself with a mid 16ish mark. Large luck.

looking forward to following this thread. i'm hoping to run something around 16:40 off a 1:20 half marathon training program. i'll be focused on tempos, but i'm looking forward to following this.

Echoing what everyone is saying - Long tempo runs have helped me get from 1711 last year to 1630 this weekend. If you alternate a fartlek and tempo (I do mine on thursdays with a group) once done with base phase I think it will really help you out with the aerobic capacity.

You aren't in so-cal or orange county are you? if so I train with a bunch of people that are around your pace and a little quicker who would be good to mix it up with!

Far, far away from California - sorry.

I'll link to my results to let you know that this is a legit attempt and not something completely fabricated. From now on I'll be using my initials, instead of "Mark V." which was a guitar amplifier reference...

I'll also put together a PDF and post a link periodically which details every day of my training for here until the goal race.

This could be something of value for anyone who has sat in stagnation for almost a year and is looking to break through.

hey man, if you don't do well in a race, post the results anyway. most of us are just trying to run faster, and we want to see others do well. i'm not here to rag on you if you run a 5k tune up in 18:10.

bangalangadanga wrote:

hey man, if you don't do well in a race, post the results anyway. most of us are just trying to run faster, and we want to see others do well. i'm not here to rag on you if you run a 5k tune up in 18:10.

Absolutely. You'll get everything.

Update: Knocked out 71.32 miles last week.

Monday: 6.5m (50:00 / 7:41 pace)

Tuesday: 5m (no watch)/ 8m (1:02:13 / 7:46 pace)

Wednesday: 6m (41:51 / 6:58 pace) / 6.69m (50:11 / 7:30 pace)

Thursday: 12.16m (1:31:42 / 7:32 pace)

Friday: 4.5m (no watch)

Saturday: 6.2m (45:55 / 7:24 pace) / 6.62m (48:39 / 7:20 pace)

Sunday: 5.65m (43:05 / 7:37 pace) / 4m (29:27 / 7:21 pace)

Felt very good by the end of the week. No soreness, fatique, etc. The only day I felt bad was Friday.

Unfortunately this week I'm traveling, but I plan on trying to hit at least 40-50 in easy mileage before jumping into some tempos and hills.

Mark V. wrote:

Some notes:

- 28-30 seconds in a 15x200 workout

- 4:54 Mile at local club track meet

- 6x800 workouts at 2:42 average.

- 50mpw (easy and long runs at 7:20 pace)

I am 30 years old. I didn't do any consistent running from college until age 28, about 8 years. I recently trained for the Boston marathon, running a max. of 65 miles per week. One week I ran a tempo: 2 mile warmup, 7 miles at 5:40 pace, 2 mile cooldown, 14 miles at 6:45, 13.5 miles at 6:45 and a half marathon, my second ever. 1:15:57. I was shocked i wasn't more tired during the race (i opted out of Boston this yr because of the hot weather, so i'll try next year, hopefully 2:39 or so) I ran the 400m, 800m, 1600m in high school, as well as 2 seasons of cross country. I NEVER ran more than 35 miles a wk and ran 48.9, 1:54, 4:22, 16:19. Training for the marathon was very hard because i need massive amounts of fuel and recovery after hard workouts, I'm about 165 lbs...but i don't benefit from slow miles (above 7:15 pace). I can run wkouts like you described, getting close to 2:30 for the 800's but crawling to the line exhausted before each rep...feeling awful as a 30 year old with short recovery. SO, despite all i'd heard about more miles equalling strength and success, I thought i'd try this silly book my friend had, Run Faster, Run Less, to try and break 16 for the first time. I was tired of eating 4000 calories a day, stretching like crazy, and my girlfriend hating me for going to bed early on friday and saturday nights. I ran about 30 miles a week and ran 15:52 on a cool morning on a flat course recently. It hurt bad, but my fast tempo runs (5 miles @ 5:45, 3 miles @ 5:30 pace, and two mile tempos at around 5:20 minute pace) Just start doing these runs and see how far you get. You'll be suffering, it'll be terrible but you adapt. Take a day off after these workouts, maybe only run 4-5 days a week. I ran track workouts on tuesday, short tempo thursday, long tempo (5-7 miles around 5:50-6:10 pace) on saturday and tried to get a 10 miler in at 6:45-7:30, recovery pace. It worked. I was never really sore or tired. So, i thought i needed miles to get strong, and may have already had that after Boston training, but it was silly. 5k is only 3 miles. I didn't do tempos in high school, just ran a 5k race once a week or so and got my time down from 17:40 the first race to 16:20's by the end of the season, each of the 2 seasons. Don't over think it, just run hard. The more pain you endure, the faster you'll get, AS LONG AS YOU GET PLENTY OF REST. This all reminds me of what Bernard Lagat does. Quality, quality quality, rest recovery, rest. I'm done with all that because, what's the point. I'm not breaking down any doors and have no need to suffer like that anymore

I need to do more tempo work...totally agree with you...but it's important that I go through some periodization in order to grow as a runner.

I'll be perfectly happy as a 16:00 5K guy, racing every weekend, and doing lower, more intense mileage to at stay afloat (do think it's enjoyable to run 70-80mpw? I don't!).

I've drawn out several lower mileage plans (sub-50 mpw) that work on every piece of the 5K puzzle (ripping off Magill here) and will to experiment once I get in that 16:XX range.

If I continue at 50mpw right now and hammer almost every run I'll never improve. 8 months of no improvement told the entire story.

You have to understand that I was working out like a lunatic over the winter. I was doing miler workouts, 800-meter runner workouts, long ladders, hills, you name it. I got nowhere in the 5K, but was able to run 4:54 in the mile but I think I even underperformed there.

I need strength. I'm sick of out-kicking college girls and masters runners 400 meters from the finish line. This is stupid and has just got to stop.

I'll be jumping into some fast tempo stuff soon....thanks for the reply...and I'll look up that book you referenced.