Sub 20 min 5k

Tom Joad

Would appreciate any advice.

Signed up for 5k next weekend - really want to go sub 20mins to round off a good year, after a couple of really frustrating years with injuries, and to keep me motivated over the winter months.

With all the injuries I have had over the last few years, have focussed on shorter distances and managed my first sub 45min 10k and first sub 35min 5mile:).

Have been going well in training lately but had nothing lined up until a couple a weeks ago when I seen a 5k coming up. Done 5k on my treadmill on Thursday in 19.40 - was thrilled with this and thought I was well on course for a sub 20 but have twice tried to match this on the roads and results were nowhere close. First attempt had to stop after 2mile (pace was 6"50) and this morning got to 2.9 miles in 20.13 and was struggling badly.

Is there anything I can do with the few days left to maximise my chances of reaching my target or am I going about this all the wrong way

Sorry for long post but would appreciate any advice

ecoli

Tom Joad wrote: »

Would appreciate any advice.

Signed up for 5k next weekend - really want to go sub 20mins to round off a good year, after a couple of really frustrating years with injuries, and to keep me motivated over the winter months.

With all the injuries I have had over the last few years, have focussed on shorter distances and managed my first sub 45min 10k and first sub 35min 5mile:).

Have been going well in training lately but had nothing lined up until a couple a weeks ago when I seen a 5k coming up. Done 5k on my treadmill on Thursday in 19.40 - was thrilled with this and thought I was well on course for a sub 20 but have twice tried to match this on the roads and results were nowhere close. First attempt had to stop after 2mile (pace was 6"50) and this morning got to 2.9 miles in 20.13 and was struggling badly.

Is there anything I can do with the few days left to maximise my chances of reaching my target or am I going about this all the wrong way

Sorry for long post but would appreciate any advice

No more hard runs this week chasing the time. Any benefit you can usually get from running hard normally takes 10 days roughly to actually reflect on fitness.

In terms of the race the fact you have been doing time trials on your own you should be close to cracking it. Although the treadmill differences are significant come race day you will have people around you and adrenaline which should make you run faster than on previous attempts on your own.

If this is a big target ease up training this week to 75% distance of what you usually do no hard sessions and do a few strides at roughly 5k pace (100m distance is fine) with a walk back recovery after your run say perhaps wednesday.

The day before the race do roughly a mile about 90 sec to 2 min slower than your normal ease pace just to get the blood flowing in the legs for the race the day after. I presume the race is the Race Pix 5k if so its a flat course so there is every opportunity to break 20. Doing the race myself

Best of luck

Woddle

I don't think there's anything you can do in a week. Based on a 35 minute 5 miler I can't see a sub 20 happening but you never know.
You need to do 6'26 minute miles for sub 20 which is alot faster than the 7'00 mins for 5 miles.
But you never know maybe you could push yourself to the limit. I'd go off hard and try your hardest to hang on, it's a short enough distance that this tactic may work.
Maybe on Tuesday go do some 400 meter reps at race pace to get the feel with plenty of recovery.

If you don't do it this weekend, give yourself 8-10 weeks of specific training before having another go.
Best of luck

tunney

What gradient do you set your threadmill at? 1 degree simulates outdoors. Less than that is downhill.

Tom Joad

ecoli wrote: »

No more hard runs this week chasing the time. Any benefit you can usually get from running hard normally takes 10 days roughly to actually reflect on fitness.

In terms of the race the fact you have been doing time trials on your own you should be close to cracking it. Although the treadmill differences are significant come race day you will have people around you and adrenaline which should make you run faster than on previous attempts on your own.

If this is a big target ease up training this week to 75% distance of what you usually do no hard sessions and do a few strides at roughly 5k pace (100m distance is fine) with a walk back recovery after your run say perhaps wednesday.

The day before the race do roughly a mile about 90 sec to 2 min slower than your normal ease pace just to get the blood flowing in the legs for the race the day after. I presume the race is the Race Pix 5k if so its a flat course so there is every opportunity to break 20. Doing the race myself

Best of luck

Cheers for that - yes it's the RacePix 5k - course I'm doing time trials on is probably a bit more hilly. Would love to crack this so will give this a whirl - hopefully the crowd will drag me along Thanks for the advice.

Tom Joad

Woddle wrote: »

I don't think there's anything you can do in a week. Based on a 35 minute 5 miler I can't see a sub 20 happening but you never know.
You need to do 6'26 minute miles for sub 20 which is alot faster than the 7'00 mins for 5 miles.
But you never know maybe you could push yourself to the limit. I'd go off hard and try your hardest to hang on, it's a short enough distance that this tactic may work.
Maybe on Tuesday go do some 400 meter reps at race pace to get the feel with plenty of recovery.

If you don't do it this weekend, give yourself 8-10 weeks of specific training before having another go.
Best of luck

Cheers for that - part of me knows that this may be a bridge too far but I can almost touch it!!!

I was thinking of going off hard and trying to cling on for dear life but think this may be high risk for me - I can usually get the 6"25 miles in at the 2-3 miles mark, but if I try the first mile at that pace I usually blow up. This is a first at this distance for me so am worried that my usual tactic of starting slow and building up to the quick finish won't work over 3miles.

Reps on Tuesday sound like a plan

spurscormac

Try working out a pace per km. That way you can start with an easier first km or two, then start to pick up the pace if you feel able to.
With 5 splits, there'll be more time to react. Using mile splits, mean you've really got to pick it up on the last mile if you're behind on mile 2.

You'll need to do a 4min/km pace, which is easy to break down at the splits
4
8
12
16
20

If you're in around the 12 at 3k, you have a good chance, but you'll need to be at the 16 mark @ 4k and really push it on the last km to get under the 20mins.

Tom Joad

tunney wrote: »

What gradient do you set your threadmill at? 1 degree simulates outdoors. Less than that is downhill.

Its a 15 year old job with no gradient setting so the running downhill makes sense :mad:.. try not to use the treadmill too much but its a useful back-up when the weather is really crap

Tom Joad

spurscormac wrote: »

Try working out a pace per km. That way you can start with an easier first km or two, then start to pick up the pace if you feel able to.
With 5 splits, there'll be more time to react. Using mile splits, mean you've really got to pick it up on the last mile if you're behind on mile 2.

You'll need to do a 4min/km pace, which is easy to break down at the splits
4
8
12
16
20

If you're in around the 12 at 3k, you have a good chance, but you'll need to be at the 16 mark @ 4k and really push it on the last km to get under the 20mins.

You make it sound so simple!!! seriously though never thought of looking at it that way - will definitely try this and see how it goes:)

spurscormac

My own goal would be to eventually get down to sub-20, but that's out of reach at the moment.
Hopefully with a solid winter of training I can look to it next year in the Galway 5k series.

My problem always seems to be in the mid section of the race, I can go ok for the first two kms, but tend to drop off too much in either the 3rd or 4th, and then pick it up in the final K to the finish.

I need to get a more even pace across the board to get my time down, as well as that base fitness at longer distances so that it seems easier to keep that faster pace over the full 5km.

When trying to measure my pace, I always split it down as far as possible. With a 5k race, there's usually km markers to enable that.
For my track session last night, I split it down to 100m to try and keep my pace even.
So for my 5x1200m session, I split it so that I know roughly where I should be at each 100m.

griffin100

Slightly off topic, but how much time can you except to pick up in a 5km during a race as opposed to a solo time trial, if any? In other words if I can do 21.31 for example in training would that drop by much on race day all other things being equal?

ddel

In fairness spurscormac no matter what time you're looking for if you're "on the limit" of pb pace/effort things get messy (and slower) around that 3rd or 4th k area. You're far enough into the race to be f*cked, but to far from the line to dig really deep and go all out! Those 5x1,200 sessions will have you in bits, but are great for the fitness.

ecoli

griffin100 wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but how much time can you except to pick up in a 5km during a race as opposed to a solo time trial, if any? In other words if I can do 21.31 for example in training would that drop by much on race day all other things being equal?

The fact is you will see an improved difference for a number of reasons:

• Normally You rest up for a race so are fresher
• Race day adrenaline
• Normally you warm up better for a race as people racing seem to take warm up for a race more seriously
• Mentally easier to run in large group of runners and "chase people down"
• Physically easier if weather is a factor using people to block the wind

These are a few reasons which help but it is not always the case however I would say that come race day you could see as much as 20 secs or more off your time if these factors do affect you

catweazle

griffin100 wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but how much time can you except to pick up in a 5km during a race as opposed to a solo time trial, if any? In other words if I can do 21.31 for example in training would that drop by much on race day all other things being equal?

I would think you are faster than that Griffin judging from your tempo runs from the marathon log, I did a 10k training race as part of the marathon programme and was holding pb pace until 5k and then I gave up

I know my 10k pb is soft and I am in the shape to go well under it but when it got hard I just couldn't be bothered. Now in fairness to me put me in a race situation and I would very much doubt I would give up like that during it.

A 5k training run pb would be very difficult as your lungs are burning almost straight away. I certainly wouldn't fancy it anyways.

griffin100

I would think you are faster than that Griffin judging from your tempo runs from the marathon log, I did a 10k training race as part of the marathon programme and was holding pb pace until 5k and then I gave up

I know my 10k pb is soft and I am in the shape to go well under it but when it got hard I just couldn't be bothered. Now in fairness to me put me in a race situation and I would very much doubt I would give up like that during it.

A 5k training run pb would be very difficult as your lungs are burning almost straight away. I certainly wouldn't fancy it anyways.

I've never done a 5km race outside of a sprint tri where distances are anything but accurate. I think my 5km tri *pb* is around 20.12 or so but that was definitely a short course (I usually average around 22.30ish for a sprint 5km).

I did a 5km TT last week as a tester and was pleasantly surprised with the 21.31. I'd like to try and go under 20mins so I've 91 seconds to find. If as ecoil suggests I could loose 20secs in a race situation then I've another 71secs to find. That's a lot over 5km I think but then again I've never trained properly for a 5km, that 21.31 is off marathon training.

I think my next training log will be aimed towards pb'ing over 5km, 10km, HM and ultimately marathon (long term goal of sub 3.30hrs)

th1nman

a piece of longer term advice would be to do a hard 5k tempo run as part of your training every week . we do this every saturday morning in letterkenny and the saturday course is so tough it makes a good flat 5k course much easier .

Tom Joad

Thanks folks for all the advice, much appreciated - missed out by 10 seconds - mainly due to an injury flaring up but I know I have a sub 20 in me now:)

Woddle

Tom Joad wrote: »

Thanks folks for all the advice, much appreciated - missed out by 10 seconds - mainly due to an injury flaring up but I know I have a sub 20 in me now:)

At least you know next time you try it you'll be well under. Really good effort based on the info you gave in the first post so well done hope the injury isn't too serious.

Tom Joad

Woddle wrote: »

At least you know next time you try it you'll be well under. Really good effort based on the info you gave in the first post so well done hope the injury isn't too serious.

Cheers - really encouraged by today - I like setting the bar high

Injury wise - will know Monday when I see my physio but fear that it could be a flare up of tibial band injury again :mad:

daithi1970

Hi folks, I started running last april using the c25k programme,and just completed my first timed road race in 23.5 mins. Like the OP, I would also like to get to a sub 20min time by the time the Galway 5k series rolls around next summer. My current training regime/workout consists of the following:

1. Sat/Sun: 5-7 km run,hilly in parts,at a 25min/5km pace
2. a. Mon/Tues: Treadmill hill intervals,alternating between 2. and 6.0 at apace of 10kph for 20mins
b. Elliptical Stepper speed intervals alternating between 120 and 145 reps/min for 25mins
c. 13.5-14.0kph run for 5 mins at 1.0 gradient
3. Wed/Thurs: As for mon/tues
4. Fri/Sat: As for points 2 and 3
Basically 6 days of gym and 1 day running per fortnight..barring attacks of lazyitis:D I can only get to run at the weekends at the moment, with time constraints

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts/suggestions on the above..

BTW, Tomjoad, have you got an IT Support band?You can get them in Elvery's-It sorted my IT band issues fairly quickly..

Cheers,

Daithi

RayCun

daithi1970 wrote: »

Basically 6 days of gym and 1 day running per fortnight..barring attacks of lazyitis:D I can only get to run at the weekends at the moment, with time constraints

Time constraints stop you from running, but not from going to the gym?

ecoli is starting a training plan for post-marathon runners here. In theory the target is the Raheny 5 mile race but it would also be good training for 5ks.