I find that running four days a week works if you run at least two hill workouts a month, two tempos, two races, two track workouts and 2 long runs per month. The order doesn't necessarily matters as long as each month you get faster in all paces. This works best of course after a six month base of 7 days per week of jogging or hiking.
I was out jogging and thought about this some more.
It seems like you are trying to train at your *current* fitness at paces prescribed by established training charts, but are able to train at what those same charts seem to regard as your goal paces.
If you don' think you are at 18:00 5K fitness yet, maybe the issue isn't the time/speed of each rep but the recovery between each rep.
If I could do my intervals at a speed that is beyond my current fitness, then I'd probably want to start quickening/shortening my recoveries.
Now, that I think about this some more - I would say that would be the key thing on a minimal or four day a week training plan. I forget what famous coach said it, "the best training for a 5K is to race 5ks".
week 9:
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Monday: 10K easy pace
Thursday: 400 intervals on the treadmill, 200-300m jog in between
1.5K warmup, 3*400 @ 80s , 3*400 @ 78s, 3*400 @ 76s, 1*400 @74s
Friday: 10K, starting very slow (around 5:10 pace, and finishing at 03:26, average pace around 4:40)
total distance around 32Km
Week 10 (so far)
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Monday: went out for an easy run, felt very good, so ended up doing a 10K tempo, splits
4:22, 4:16, 4:02, 3:54, 3:49, 3:52, 4:01, 4:16, 4:10, 4:04... average 4:05, the 5K between Kms 3-7 done at around 19:40... and I felt very fresh
Wed: today 5K trial on the track...arrrrrrrgh, only 19:30....really pissed off..maybe I have not recovered from my monday evening tempo, but still I just died after 3K. There was a guy with me till around 3.5K, he kept the same speed and finished 18:40, so gaining like 50 seconds in just 1.5K...
anyways, back to the drawing board. Something doesn't feel right that I am not even able to replicate the times I have managed to run by myself. One thing I am thinking of could be my damn old GPS watch is not accurate any more. For example, today at the track when I finished it was showing 5.3 instead of 5K, that means, if I was training by myself on the road, I would have thought I have finished the 5K in about 18:40 or so. So maybe that is why I am getting super nice times when running on the road?
Will look at your comments and come up with a program for the next four weeks, and maybe able to run 5 times per week and include some hill training, reduce the time between intervals, do the intervals either on a treadmill or measured course rather than just rely on my watch, take it easy for one week after that and race my ass off....
Thanks a lot for the support so far!:-)
Week 11 (week ending August 30th)
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Mon: Monday: went out for an easy run, felt very good, so ended up doing a 10K tempo, splits
4:22, 4:16, 4:02, 3:54, 3:49, 3:52, 4:01, 4:16, 4:10, 4:04... average 4:05, the 5K between Kms 3-7 done at around 19:40... and I felt very fresh
Wed: 5K trial on the track, didnt go well. 19:30. my GPS was showing 5.3Km..It was a bit crowded and I have to pass others jogging several times on the outside lane, but still I doubt that will add up to 300ms.
Sat: 12K, mostly easy around 04:50 pace, but picked it up that last three..04:30, 04:05, 03:50
Total (including warmups and cooldowns on Wed ) = 30 Kms, (19 miles)
Will add one day of hilll training from next week onwards or/and one day of medium+long run of 10 miles or more. And I will take it very easy one week before a race. Next race is Sep 30, so still time to do some nice training. I want to do at least 18:30.
Is one of those commitments laziness
18 miles/week is appropriate for a high schooler running the 800. I honestly don't see the point of timing yourself for 5Ks with that kind of limitation. Just take it easy and ramp up your training when you get enough time and energy to properly train (I am an 800/1500 masters runner who averages 30-35, I wouldn't bother to race a 5K unless I had some 40-50 mile weeks under my belt).
Fitter Than Thou wrote:
18 miles/week is appropriate for a high schooler running the 800. I honestly don't see the point of timing yourself for 5Ks with that kind of limitation. Just take it easy and ramp up your training when you get enough time and energy to properly train (I am an 800/1500 masters runner who averages 30-35, I wouldn't bother to race a 5K unless I had some 40-50 mile weeks under my belt).
Good points.
No one said that the guy was going to race to his full potential this way.
A couple assumptions you may have missed. This guy does have a decent lifetime base - put in a few marathons and other stuff.
The question he is trying to ascertain is: can you pb by 30ish seconds off of 4 day a week training?
It might not be the ideal way to race, but it is an interesting question.
Shut the fvck up, you bitter old man.
This is a great read:http://www.amazon.com/Low-Mileage-Running-Short-Faster-Injury/dp/1514865068/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441414301&sr=1-1&keywords=low+mileage+running
gfjj wrote:
Shut the fvck up, you bitter old man.
^ that works too
I know that my current mileage can seem very low indeed. But I got my marathon PB of 3:01 in a not so flat course with three months of 35MPW training ( the maximum weekly mileage being around 40 three weeks before the race). So considering that, I thought 20 MPW didn't sound so little for a 5K.Apart from that, I almost have 100% injury risk when I up my mileage to more than 50 MPW. So this is just an experiment just to see what can be achieved with such a low mileage during a period when I can't afford to allocate that much time to running.Anyways, this experiment will end in about a month, as I will get more time for running after that.
Fitter Than Thou wrote:
18 miles/week is appropriate for a high schooler running the 800. I honestly don't see the point of timing yourself for 5Ks with that kind of limitation. Just take it easy and ramp up your training when you get enough time and energy to properly train (I am an 800/1500 masters runner who averages 30-35, I wouldn't bother to race a 5K unless I had some 40-50 mile weeks under my belt).
Week 12
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Monday: 16k easy
Wed: 1.6k warmup, 6x1k (3:39, 3:35,3:36,3:34,3:42,3:38), 1.5k cool
Fri: 1.5k warmup, 5k@20:35(4:07 pace), 3x400(87,89,86) 2x1k(4:08,3:50), 2k cooldown
Total: 38k (24 miles)
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If I did my conversion right, then the 6x1k (on Wk12 Wed) is about the goal race pace. And all the stuff on Friday was about the same; either goal race pace or slower (3x400 @ 87 about a 3:39 km pace...I believe).
Just another observation.
Sol, you are right. Week 12 was a bit off, so both the shorter and longer intervals were a bit slower than normal. And I was focusing a bit more on tempo runs. Something similar on week 13 as well.Week 13========Tuesday: 12K, 5:00 min/K paceWednesday: (treadmill) 1K warmup, 5K tempo in 20min, 2min break, 800m in 2:32, 400*3 in 74 (200-300m jog), 2K tempo in 8min (Stopped while still in good shape. My plan was to finish of with 3K or more at tempo pace, but was sweating so much and my shoes were almost slipping off me, so have to stop. And it was raining outside).Saturday: 20K, around 4:52/km pacetotal: 43Km (27 miles)
sloinnorcal wrote:
If I did my conversion right, then the 6x1k (on Wk12 Wed) is about the goal race pace. And all the stuff on Friday was about the same; either goal race pace or slower (3x400 @ 87 about a 3:39 km pace...I believe).
Just another observation.
I really like cruise intervals, which is a Daniels' thing. It's tempo paced intervals with 1 minute rest. One week do 400s at tempo pace, then 600s, 800s, 1000s. They don't kill you, they aren't mentally intimidating, and you can get in high volume. You can also cut down your times during the workout, so your last couple reps are at interval pace or even faster.
Is this how you have thought about the last 12 weeks?First six or so weeks more speed focused? Seemed like there was a lot of 200/400s at 5:00 mile pace or faster.And now (the last 2-3 weeks) transitioning into developing the speed-endurance needed for goal race pace?___________________Here's a thought I just had about continuously (always) doing *current fitness* race pace work during an entire training block. What about augmenting the race pace work with more speed-work in the beginning, and more speed-endurance at the end of the block? If I was training for a 5K the speed work would be almost mile pace fast and speed-endurance work would be like 10K pace. And during the whole block, my second workout would be race pace work - at my *current fitness*. I believe this would be (sort of) opposite Lydiard (his phases begin with speed-endurance/strength and finish with sharpening/speed). It might be kinda like Canova's sequencing, but he's training marathoners (mostly). Thanks for doing this. I've never really thought about my training in this degree/manner, and its given me some insights I'm not sure I would have had otherwise.
ethiopian wrote:
Slo, you are right. Week 12 was a bit off, so both the shorter and longer intervals were a bit slower than normal. And I was focusing a bit more on tempo runs. Something similar on week 13 as well.
Week 13
========
Tuesday: 12K, 5:00 min/K pace
Wednesday: (treadmill) 1K warmup, 5K tempo in 20min, 2min break, 800m in 2:32, 400*3 in 74 (200-300m jog), 2K tempo in 8min (Stopped while still in good shape. My plan was to finish of with 3K or more at tempo pace, but was sweating so much and my shoes were almost slipping off me, so have to stop. And it was raining outside).
Saturday: 20K, around 4:52/km pace
total: 43Km (27 miles)