My goal of Sub 15:00 5k

In looking at the few weeks of workouts you've posted you seem to be doing a LOT of tempo runs (at least one a week). (and 5:30 for a tempo run pace is pretty fast for someone with a 15:55 PR). Not sure that is a great idea at this point of the season. I would think you'd be doing a bit more speed work and longer sustained intervals, like kilos, etc.

I agree with others that I would bump up your mileage a bit (and it doesn't have to be quite as fast).

8:50 is a great place to start, just not sure you have enough base to carry that over to a sub15 (at least based on the limited info we have here).

I PR'd at 15:18 and an 8:43 (on a 150m track in a championship race with a big negative split) indoor my sophomore year, and then ran a few more 15:20s that outdoor season (I think I was in shape to be near or under 15, but never got in the right race, which can be a bit harder to find in DIII). Then spent the next two years injured or sick. Enjoy the fitness while you have it. 15 years later and I still heavily regret not having more of a go at going sub 15.

I had the same goal for 2 years and finally ran sub 15 on the road 10 days ago. I went from being in about 16:30-16:50 shape at the start of the block (note: with a PB previously of 15:18) to running 14:46 with 18 weeks of training with about ~115km per week volume. Here is a full breakdown of all my training:

https://goo.gl/mVq94F

Thoughts and comments on the doc welcome.

Thanks for the response NWA,

I am impressed with your volume! That is a solid amount for a HS runner. I am positive you have the aerobic capacity to run some quick times. Keep up the good work!

And yes, I have been rolling out my PF with a lacrosse ball. Thankfully we have an athletic trainer and doctors that come by our school that has helped me treat it. It feels almost gone.

Hi, very nice report !

How fast did you start your first one - two kilometers in the cross-training ? A little bit slower ?

And your pace at 150, 160 heart rate ? How did you feel ? It's like 80 and 86% of your max heart rate.

This was great, thank you for sharing. I am impressed with the detail and thoroughness. Do you think you would have been capable of something closer to a 14:30 on a track? Your training results were impressive.

A couple of questions:

What was your HR on easy runs AFTER the base period? I noticed your heart rate was around 145-155 during the base period, but am curious to know what it was after that.

Also on the subject of easy runs, did the 4:10 pace feel "easy". The last few weeks I have found myself gravitating to 7:00 a mile pace on my easy runs (4:21 km) and this seems to be the sweet spot for me. Albeit, I think I am 15:15-15:20 shape right now so my easy runs may naturally be a little slower than yours.

What is your next goal? Sub 14:30? Or moving back to the marathon?

Definitely think closer to 14:30 would be possible on the track (though would need the right group there to share the work, Armagh had the benefit of having a large group to run with but with the downside of being slightly congested). Unfortunately no track in Ireland outdoors until around May so I won't know.

It was down around 140-145 if I recall correctly so still quite high (some days it will be higher than others depending on sleep, etc).

The 4:10 started to feel easier as time went on and now even 4:00 pace feels easy (even if some days HR goes up to 145-150 on it). The way to make it feel easy is also to not kill yourself on the quality sessions. If I were to have to decide on a week of easy with no quality or a 2 quality and no easy I would choose the week of easy every time, I think aerobically it has a better impact.

I think of fitness as a line that either increases or decreases. Easy will make the line increase steadily and consistently. Quality sessions make it grow sharply for a brief brief period but that level of growth is not sustainable for long periods (thats why I limit to 2Q per week rather than 3).

My wife is due in 2 weeks so running takes a bit of a back seat for the next while! That's not to say I won't be trying to fit in races left right and centre, but these will be best effort, if I can get to them great, if not who cares, more important things to worry about.

I consider myself more of a marathon runner to be honest (though I haven't ran one in over a year) so I really just want to run one and enjoy it. I booked in for Brighton marathon on the 14th of April on a whim this week. Its about 4-5 weeks after my wife is due (I am taking off 6 weeks with my wife to stay home and help take care of the baby so I doubt I will get amazing training in during that time). My wife is super supportive of my running and has organised to have her mam up that weekend to cover me heading over for the day (again things could change on that front depending on how she is doing). After that, switch back to the track for the summer (GV Ryan 5k in May to start, maybe Highgate 10k June, Nationals in July) and then Berlin marathon in September.

SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:

Er... wrote:

How can you claim "perfect individual training" when all you're doing is putting up numbers in response to a list of PRs? You don't know anything about this kid. Not all indoor 8:50 runners are the same. And the reps are excessive. 12 x 1200m at 3:53 is NINE MILES at 5:10 pace. He'd be much better off running 6-8 x 1000m at 5:00 pace.

Just think once more and ask yourself : " Have I coached 12 winners of international races in just 3½ years coaching?" I know exactly what I`m doing and why…. This is a very effective way of fast improvement on low total mileage and low injury risk. The reps 12 x 1200m are at LT-pace and not so very demanding and with perfect individual rest between. If I had proposed 12 x 1200m at 5 k pace it had of course been a ridiculous workout.

How is 5:10 LT pace for a 15:30 runner!

They can only manage 5:00 pace for 3 miles.

That session would finish them off

Actually it's even worse they have only run 15:55 so your session is at race pace!

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Actually it's even worse they have only run 15:55 so your session is at race pace!

The 15:55 at 5 k was 2 years ago!

You have to calibrate out from the fresh 3000m 8:50 indoors! As I said, I have coached 12 winners of international races in 3½ years coaching. I know what I`m doing . Only perfect individual exact paces. ))

- Magic Springtime -

Goal this season is 16:20.

Fair point but they still have not shown they can hold the equivalent to 5km

To suggest that they run 12x 1200m at that pace is still ridiculous. You don't even know how old the runner is.

Nobody would start on 12x anyway you would have to at least start on less and build up. No effing way does this college kid have the endurance for it

RACE DAY

Just finished up the first 5k of the season. Here are the details:

temp: 45 degrees

wind: 5mph

dew point: 42 degrees

WU: 2 miles

Splits

74-72-74-70 (4:50)

74-73-72-74 (4:53)

77-79-78-73 (5:07) 36

Total Time: 15:25.96

I know your first instinct may be to point out that I went out way to hard, and you would be correct. If you notice the surge on lap 4 that was due to the fact that two groups began to form and I did not want to be stuck with the slower pack. My choices were to either go out at a slow pace and get stuck with the pack that ran 15:45 or go out hard and get pulled along with the pack that ended up running 15:00-15:15. Obviously, I chose to go hard and paid the price but managed to hold on to a 15:25 and a 30 second PR! Sub 15 is finally in sight!

Also, thank you, everyone, for your comments so far. I apologize for my lack of response, hopefully, this weekend I will have time to go through and reply back.

Cheers

Congrats to a fine PB 15:25.96 ! :) If you follow my advice you will run sub 15 before the years end. Good luck! - The Mighty Wizard -

Well done. The past few years my first track 5K of the season has been 30+ seconds slower than my final one, and I'd not be at all surprised to see you take off a similar amount with increasing fitness and even pacing.

Keep up the good work!

That's awesome!!

Just a reminder, we're all human, so don't think you can't get sick, do everything you can to stay healthy while in this shape so you can keep improving!

Reply to Coach JS: Thank you, Coach! I am sure your training has produced great results, but I will mention that I am on a team so I do not have complete control over the training. Thank you for the advice though, I will have to look back on it when I am post-collegiate.

Reply to David: Thank you for the encouragement! Hopefully, your experience holds true for me as well. I have about another month or so of training before I run my next 5k so the next few weeks should be a good training block!

Reply to NWA: You are very correct, sir. As soon as I finished I reminded myself that I still have a long ways to go for my goal. Consistency is the key, which means we must stay healthy. By the way, any training or race updates?

2/25

7 miles easy (7:00 pace)

2/26

4 mile tempo @ 5:37 average

5x300s @ 48 second

9 miles total

2/27

10 miles easy (7:00 pace)

2/28

7 miles easy (6:55 pace)

3/1

RACE

5k: 15:25.96

Already wrote about the race details in the post above.

7 miles total

3/2

10 miles

3/3

OFF

Total: 50 miles

Hallo. Just out of curiosity...

How do you count these cross-training velocity ? Seems that you take average 5 k pace and just follow 60% of that pace ?

How fast should run a person with 17:30 goal pace ? Roughly 7:50/mile ?

Thanks

Prefontaine91 wrote:

Hallo. Just out of curiosity...

How do you count these cross-training velocity ? Seems that you take average 5 k pace and just follow 60% of that pace ?

How fast should run a person with 17:30 goal pace ? Roughly 7:50/mile ?

Thanks

JS quit spamming these threads with your posts.