Trying to break 20:00 for 5 k

Not sure if I'll have a track 5k but I do want to line up a fast road race, might be last minute, weather decision. The 6x800 felt great tonight, 3:07,3:08,3:08, 3:09, 3:08, 3:04 (with 70 sec 200 jog) and finished with

4x200 in 38-39.

Thanks for the advice again, navigating 5k training has been great with LRC!

Update, I broke 20:00 this morning on a loop course with half trail and half road and a big hill.... Drum roll 19:30!! Very happy!! Now I have 19 to chase!

ok, so last night I did a tempo interval workout, but realized I messed up...not to say it wasn't of value, but it didn't really "fit" with the paces or workouts McMillian would recommend. What I did was 2x2mile with 1 minute rest...first one was 13:34 (which felt quite easy to medium effort, 1 minute was more than enough) the second interval was harder, especially the last 800, but managed 13:25. All the miles were even, first interval did two 6:47 and the second interval two 6:42.XX

What I was thinking for Thursday (I am racing this Wednesday) was another similar workout, but 3x 1.5 miles at 9:45 with 2 laps of jogging in between. I am not racing next Wednesday, so working out on Thursday works for me, even though its suppose to be an easy day, I generally am sore two days after and take Friday off.

I'll probably do another 5x1000 on Saturday.

Awesome about the 19:30 - that's great! Chasing 19 is a worthy goal - will be curious to hear how the next set of 1000s go.

Back to running wrote:

I agree. To be honest I had planned to do 2x mile and then 2 x800, but the 6:11 was hard, maybe the heat, so instead I bomb in the next mile, I opted for the 400's. Any recommendation for 3xmile with 1 or 2 min rest that is appropriate speed? I think 6:10 is more like my 2 mile pace. Would 6:45 be too slow? I was thinking hills tonight, but repeat miles won't make me sore for the race on Wednesday *if* I don't go too hard.

Congrats on the sub 20!

When you are doing interval work the goal is to be running them faster than the race you are prepping for. Running 2 x mile at 6:45 isn't going to be quite as helpful when you have a goal of running 3 straight @ 6:25.

I've always viewed these types of workouts as getting your body used to running fast that way when race day comes the actual race pace won't feel quite as hard because you will have plenty of practice running faster.

Good luck with sub 19

I'm thinking I should try more 5Ks. My last one was last 4th of July, and I'm curious as to what kind of time I could run now.

The 2x2mile was not intervals...it was tempo. I have been doing a lot of interval running at or above race pace. The idea of the tempo was for aerobic strength. But after reading more, it seems I should do them slightly faster, but with more break in between.

Hence the 3x1.5miles at 9:45 per rep with 1/2 mile jog in between.

my 5x1000 will be at 3:50 or 3:55 pace with a quick 200m jog in between.

Congrats on the sub-20. Sub-19 should be right around the corner for you. Good luck

I've been following this thread, in hopes that I'll get my own sub 20 this summer, and just wanted to say congrats on the breakthrough! I look forward to reading more about your progress!

Thank you and good luck! I have been running a Long time and never really "believed" I could run sub 20 till about a month ago, maybe that's half the battle?

Well the summer of 5k running went well:

I did 6 races on the same trail course times below :

21:10

20:03.....the same week ran 19:30 on an easy road course

20:13

19:56

19:44 .....the same week ran 19:34 on a tough road course.

19:34 this race was a week and a half ago.

Since then, I stopped running workouts and have moved to building my miles from an avg. of 35 mpw with workouts to a goal mileage of 55mpw, ran 50 last week and going to run 45 this week.

I want to train for a 10k in Oct.

Curious of how I should approach the base phase into workouts, and workout suggestions would also be helpful! Race is Columbus day.

Feeling my quads are quite sore from this past week of higher mileage/long runs, not sure if I should run through it or take back and increase slower. But figured the effort of 50 easy miles is similar to 35 miles with hard workouts...

While building in more miles to my routine I typically do almost no speed/interval work.

Taxing the body with additional miles is already tough, throwing speed work on top of it just increases the risk of injury.

Once you hit the new plateau for a few weeks and you feel you have sufficiently adapted to it, then you can start adding in aggressive speed and interval work again.

Thanks for posting all the workouts/your progressions - cool to read this! I'm a 22y/o F. My next marathon training cycle starts in about a month so I'm just basebuilding now, but my 5k PR is old and from a hilly road race and 20:45, so breaking 20 has been on my mind for awhile. I just never seem to end up getting myself to short races or doing the workouts that will give me that sort of speed. Since I have a few weeks till long distance training starts, I think I'm going to key off of some of your workouts. I've done 5x1k before in times similar to yours (3:58 progressing down to 3:52, most recently) but not in the past few months.