what do you think of this 5k workout?

Bingo. This is how elites and fast runners train. They will have a 12- week training period, where the first half of their training is focused on base building and storing endurance. And as they get closer to their goal race, more emphasis is placed on interval and threshold training, as well as putting in speed work to keep fast twitch muscles stimulated.

Slow twitch muscles take time to develop, but once they do, they are in the bag for a long time. Intermediate and fast twitch muscles develop in a short period of time, and diminish in a short period of time, so they require a great deal of attention leading up to a race. In the final 2 weeks before a race, at least one long vo2max session needs to be performed, coupled with bouts of short fartleks and speed sessions.

2 weeks out:

Mon: 15 min warm up- 3 x 10 min cruise tempo runs - 15 min cool down

Tue: 45-60 mins easy + 5-7 Strides

Wed: 15 min warm up - 4 x 400 ( 15 sec above race pace ) , 4x800 ( 10 sec above race pace) , 1 x 1000 ( 5 sec above race pace)- 15 min cool down.

Thur: 45-60 min easy + 5-7 Strides

Friday: 15 min easy - 7-10 hill sprints - 15 min cool down

Sat : 45-60 min easy + 5-7 Strides

Sun: rest

Monday : Fartlek : 10 min easy - 3 min @ 1 mile pace- 3 min easy - 2 min @ 800m pace - 3 min easy - 5 min @ 5k pace - 3 min easy - 2 min @ 800m pace - 3 min easy - 3 min @ 1 mile pace - 10 min cool down.

Tuesday : 45-60 min easy + 5-7 Strides

Wednesday : short interval session : 15 min warm up easy - 2 x 400, 1 x 800 - All at 5k pace - 4-6 x 200s ( glorified strides) - 15 min cool down.

Thursday : 30 min easy + 5- 7 Strides

Friday: 20 min easy + 5- 7 Strides

Sat: Race day

The key is to maintain intensity all while keeping the body fresh.

Do you really believe that elites and fast runners all train in the same way?

This is essentially how my college coaches set up our XC season. The idea was sort of to funnel long, slow intervals and tempos into shorter faster workouts by season's end. I really bought into it at the time, but since then I feel it gets you maybe 90% of the way. We did well on hilly courses because we were very strong, for lack of a better word, but we got eaten up on flat courses because we weren't very fast. We used the same philosophy in track, and we weren't really fast there either.

All modern coaching programs I'm aware of (Daniels, Tinman, Coe, Canova, etc) set aside the last few weeks before peak competition for race-specific work. What Smoove is calling race day prep. It makes a lot of sense.

Smoove wrote:

If you are doing workouts 10 days out in the hope that they will increase your fitness for race day, THAT is a disservice.

I have nothing but respect for your posts here, but I think this is one issue where you should double-check the literature. It takes various amounts of time to realize different types of fitness gains (hours for CNS stuff, weeks for other things), but everything I've seen suggest 10-14 days for increased endurance is realistic. (A lot depends on the individual and the training age; new runners will improve in fitness after every easy jog.) For general mileage or a big long run, may 10 days out isn't usually enough to absorb the fitness, but I don't think you can categorically rule out substantial gains for a lot of runners from interval workouts 10 days out, especially if there aren't warm-up races prior to the goal race.

Scorpion_runner wrote:

2 min @ 800m pace

lol

Smoove wrote:

Do you really believe that elites and fast runners all train in the same way?

I would say the majority of elite runners focus on intensity maintenance:

Here is a summary of an elite runners training schedule 2 weeks before a race. He does a strong vo2max session 2 weeks out, and then he does a short vo2max session 4 days out. He does his 5000m race on the following Sat, and runs a PB

The point is to maximize intensity through training , and then maintain that intensity leading up to the race. Half marathon on down do not require any serious tapering , or even a huge workout reduction. Those are short races that are speed demanding, so keeping the system speed-stimulated and in top condition are key. The long runs have been logged, and endurance stored. After that, speed and strength become a premium focus, and maintaining them throughout the race season.

Tuesday January 19, 2011

At Tufts indoor track

3 miles warm up + strides

6 x 800m at 5k pace with 200m jog rest

2:15, 2:14, 2:14, 2:13, 2:15, 2:15

5800m total (5000m hard)

200m hard in 29.5

3 mile cool down

10 miles total

Tuesday January 26, 2011 PM

At Reggie Lewis Center

23:57 warm up + strides,

12 x 400m and 1 x 200m with 100m jog rest

1:07, 1:07, 1:06, 1:07, 1:06, 1:07, 1:06, 1:07, 1:06, 1:07, 1:08, 1:06, 32.4

6200m total (5000m of work)

3 miles cool down

11 miles total

Saturday January 30, 2011

3 miles warm up

Race BU terrier 5000m, 4th place 13:56.74- PB

Splits 67.38,

800m- 2:12.84

1600m- 4:26.44

2k-5:32.84,

3k-8:20.76

4k- 11:10.84

Last 800m-2:11.35

Last 400m-63.98

6 mile cool down

12 miles total

Tony1 wrote:

Scorpion_runner wrote:

2 min @ 800m pace

lol

actually that's an error : 1 min @ 800m pace, 2 min @ 1 mile pace, and 3mins @ 5k pace

Slow jogger wrote:

Ended up going with a 4x1200 at 4 to 6 sec faster than race pace with 400 jogs as my workout. I know this workout won't be a miracle workout that will put me over the top on race day, I did it more a confidence workout to let me know I'm not far off my goal.

If OP can do 4x1200 at faster than 5k pace with 400 jogs (2.5min I assume), then OP is either way tougher than me or way slower. 1200s at 5k race pace seem very hard to me. But maybe that's just me.

reed wrote:

Slow jogger wrote:

Ended up going with a 4x1200 at 4 to 6 sec faster than race pace with 400 jogs as my workout. I know this workout won't be a miracle workout that will put me over the top on race day, I did it more a confidence workout to let me know I'm not far off my goal.

If OP can do 4x1200 at faster than 5k pace with 400 jogs (2.5min I assume), then OP is either way tougher than me or way slower. 1200s at 5k race pace seem very hard to me. But maybe that's just me.

I agree with this. However, everyone has their on workout and we don't all have the same bodies, but the frequency of those at 5k pace is little too much. But again, if he can knock them out, and they work, then so be it.

I would go more for 1-2 x 1000 @ 5 seconds above race pace. Shorter distance, smaller frequencies, but with a small increase of speed to give the body a pinch of stress. But that would be coupled with some 4x400s and 2 x 800s above race pace.

I'll agree with most of that. It definitely is approach that is more geared for year round fitness with occasional mini peaks. That said if you modified the approach and added in a few more weeks of v02max you'd be past 90% of the way there and on your way to 100%. The downside is you'd need more recovery time following that larger peak and would be more at risk for overtraining/peaking too soon.

That being said, if your pyramid is 90% complete but you have a big base, your pyramid will likely be taller than the 100% complete pyramid with a small base.

I think race-specific work is a separate issue from v02max though. When training for the 3k and 5k the paces of race-specific and v02max overlap, but the workouts aren't necessarily the same. For example 12 x 400m would be race specific but not much of a v02max workout if at all, but 4x1200 at the same paces would be v02max. In the 4x1200 workout, only approximately the last 400 of 1200 is v02max because it takes at least 2min/800m to approach v02max.

Frankly though to best answer the OPs question, we would have needed to know what he's been doing the last 8 weeks. Any of the suggestions could have been valid, depending on what was missing/still needed. I would have wanted to know how much 5k specific pace work he had already done and how much v02max.

I strongly suspect that this particular athlete was not intending to peak at an indoor race at BU in January, but rather was generally training through this race, and reduced his normal workout volume as some accommodation to the fact that he was racing that meet.

I do appreciate that you backed the "all fast runners and elites" position down to "the majority of elite runners" though.

But we really don't know what this athlete's two weeks leading up to his goal race will look like (again, assuming that he was not setting an indoor meet in January as that goal race).

Moreover, none of what you have posted is an any material way contrary to my posts on suggested workouts, which included work at vo2max pace. In short, I am really not sure why you ever suggested that my proposal was "complete nonsense", "insanely conservative," or a "disservice."

By the way, you keep bringing up the marathon, and I have no idea why. Is it because I currently focus on the marathon? Is the suggestion that as a result of that, I do not have a good grasp of 5k training? If that is the case, you are mistaken. My shift to the marathon happened at age 42, and even since then, I have continued to race the 5k.

No. This is not a personal attack on you, not at all. I think you are slightly misconstruing things. Like others have stated, and all due respect, it's just that 3-4 weeks out still requires intensity training or a certain level of intensity training. Your approach, as others have mentioned, is overly conservative, so I was adding on to that. I was not coming at you, personally. I was simply disagreeing with your recommendation. I apologize if my my response appeared to be aggressive.

As far as my statement "half marathon on down " goes, I was just stating that speed endurance is more of focus because those are fast races, so it is key that speed intensity is developed and maintained.

Smoove, btw, another poster(s) used the words "disservice and inappropriate". I said nonsense, which may have been too aggressive, again I apologize.

Fair enough, I have suffered much worse statements on these boards than "complete nonsense" and "unfathomable."

I still maintain that you misread my post, however, as my suggested workouts were pretty well in line with what you are advocating. Maybe just some miscommunication.

reed wrote:

Slow jogger wrote:

Ended up going with a 4x1200 at 4 to 6 sec faster than race pace with 400 jogs as my workout. I know this workout won't be a miracle workout that will put me over the top on race day, I did it more a confidence workout to let me know I'm not far off my goal.

If OP can do 4x1200 at faster than 5k pace with 400 jogs (2.5min I assume), then OP is either way tougher than me or way slower. 1200s at 5k race pace seem very hard to me. But maybe that's just me.

I was reaching 94 to 95% max HR towards the end of my reps. (194bpm/205bpm=.946 (100)=94.6%) I had kind of an epiphany moment in the workout that I'm not trying hard enough in races, largely because I'm not used to running enough 5k intervals, I need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Also, I did say I ran my 1200s 4 to 6 sec faster than 5k goal pace. It's a long story for me, but I was injured came back and got consistent miles in and here I am.

As I see it, I think the disagreement here is between doing some shorter reps that touch on those speeds or some longer reps which are more race-specific but also more demanding.

For me personally, and as a Lydiard disciple, I would decrease the length of reps and increase the intensity approaching race day.

I'm just getting into the literature on detraining which is interesting (thanks for pointing it out Smoove). I will say the fact that V02max and AT detraining starts as soon as 2 weeks and definitely at 3 weeks only reinforces the argument that stopping hard training 3-4 weeks before a key 5k race is too soon. Characterizing it as conservative or too conservative is a fair IMO. Losing 5-10% of v02max gains after 2-3 weeks is significant. Those are numbers from the studies but that usually involve a hard stop, so they're upper estimates for sure.

It was noted that aerobic detraining is almost immediately (aerobic = a broad umbrella that includes v02max). On the other hand max power/strength detraining is much slower to take place. Based on this I would conclude that you really want to toe the line in terms of when you shut down the hard aerobic/v02max/at training. It's a balancing act for sure but detraining is a real risk. At the same time this whole idea of sharpening has less credence. Assuming you've been developing speed all along (which should have!) than there's only a minimal need to use sharpening workouts or "turnover" workouts. On the other hand if you've been neglecting your speed/max power, the idea of sharpening really should be reframed as "cramming for a test".

This is only one half of the equation though. The other half is the time for training effects to be realized. The consensus seems to be that it's 8-10 days. V02max work takes the longest to recover from and Pfiz suggests allowing 10 days for those adaptations.

It seems like Smoove may have conflated the time to realize gains and the detraining concepts to conclude that the hardest work should stop 3-4 weeks out. Whereas that's probably the upper bound and its more like somewhere between 7 days minimum and 3 weeks max.

I was actually looking for a study that I had previously read but could not find it. I think if you look closely at the 10 day to 2 week studies on detraining, they are studies where basically all training activity ceases, which is a different animal altogether. Let me know if you're finding studies that address detraining of vo2max while still training and not completely stopping training. I couldn't find them.

You can train vo2max via threshold work or CV work (a la Tinman), it just isn't as efficient as vo2max intervals. Honestly, even easybdistance will maintain the bulk of your fitness for an extended peirod. Sobuse that window of 3-4 weeks to emphasize things other than vo2max adaptation, such as race modeling (which would include work that would maintain vo2max conditioning).

But yeah, my position is crap - essentially resorting to "common sense tells us detraining vo2max will. It happen if you're still at least doing some quality days" - unless I can find the journal article that I remember seeing on it.

I'll also join in the camp of putting that last big vo2max workout less than 2 weeks out (8-12 days or so) from a peak race. My evidence will be purely anecdotal, and I feel like some people have different needs to peak properly, so take it with a grain of salt.

I've done a decent amount of trial and error with my peaking plan, and here's what has seemed to work really well for me from 5k to the half marathon in the past couple of years. I like to touch on all different types of training once in the last 2 weeks, and that includes vo2max intervals, lactate threshold work, maximum speedwork like short hill sprints, the long run, and some really light work at mile race pace or so (short reps, lots of rest). Every one of those sessions is not the most difficult of its type throughout the entire training cycle, but they are definitely not the easiest either - somewhere right in the middle. The only one that is on the more difficult end is the vo2max interval workout, and again, that's somewhere around 10 days out.

For example, let's say the easiest LT workout of a training cycle was 5x1 mile with 1:15 jog rest and the most difficult workout of the cycle was either a 6 mile LT run or 4x2 miles with 2:00 jog rest. For me, a workout somewhere in between the difficulty of those was 6x1600m with 1:00 rest. It's a little bit more volume than the first workout and a little bit faster due to better fitness, but not as high volume as the 4x2 miles and easier than the 6 mile LT run due to having some rest.

I pretty much follow that type of logic for all of those types of workouts that I mentioned. Getting in the vo2max workout earlier in those last 2 weeks is important, throw in the LT workout 4-6 days out, and fill in the blanks with the rest while making sure the long run is at least a week out as well. That's what has worked well for me. Of course, there's a lot of psychology that goes into peaking as well, so that should be taken into account when planning a taper too.