Trying to become faster over short distances - where to start?

FutureGuy

Hello all,

I'd like to spend the winter getting my shorter distance times down before building towards my second marathon next year. I'm male, 38, 5'10" and 172lbs - I have weight to lose.

My PB for the 5k is 23:51
My PB for the 5 mile is 40.59

My three weekday training runs are completed around the 5.15 min/km pace.

My longer slower run at the weekend is 5 miles and I usually hit around 43-44 mins.

Is there any website that can generate me a training plan based on my current times in order to decrease them over the course of a few months?

I have a Garmin Forerunner 220 with HRM but I can't find training plans to increase speed on Garmin Connect.

Anyone with any advice? My first goal is to get down to 22.XX.

Thanks all!

Hani Kosti

Is there a local running club near by?
My one has several sessions a week and even one track season/week makes a major difference

menoscemo

Seems to me that you are doing your training runs way too fast for your current abilities. You are also not doing enough overall distance per week (I am guessing about 15 miles?)

You'd need to increase your mileage first off, but you'd need to slow down your standard runs to about 6 min/km or slower based on your current PBs. from ther you can build the length of the runs up a little or introduce an extra day of running. Once you get it up to 20-25 miles a week you could then introduce one faster run a week. That could be either a tempo run (probably at around your current midweek pace) a Fartlek (where you randomly run short fast burst in your run) or structured intervals.

Basically however it's running more that will make you faster. Don't race your training runs and you'll easily be able to run more.

FutureGuy

menoscemo wrote: »

Seems to me that you are doing your training runs way too fast for your current abilities. You are also not doing enough overall distance per week (I am guessing about 15 miles?)

You'd need to increase your mileage first off, but you'd need to slow down your standard runs to about 6 min/km or slower based on your current PBs. from ther you can build the length of the runs up a little or introduce an extra day of running. Once you get it up to 20-25 miles a week you could then introduce one faster run a week. That could be either a tempo run (probably at around your current midweek pace) a Fartlek (where you randomly run short fast burst in your run) or structured intervals.

Basically however it's running more that will make you faster. Don't race your training runs and you'll easily be able to run more.

Hi there,
I must add that my pb was achieved while I was running my training runs at aroun 6 min/km and only recently increased the speed of training runs in an atempt to decrease race times.

So I need to increase the distance to 20 miles first and foremost. Given the updated information I provided, is should 6 mins/km still be the speed I should look to run?

Thanks again!

FutureGuy

Hani Kosti wrote: »

Is there a local running club near by?
My one has several sessions a week and even one track season/week makes a major difference

Thanks, yes I found a few groups that I'm going to try and join.

menoscemo

FutureGuy wrote: »

Hi there,
I must add that my pb was achieved while I was running my training runs at aroun 6 min/km and only recently increased the speed of training runs in an atempt to decrease race times.

So I need to increase the distance to 20 miles first and foremost. Given the updated information I provided, is should 6 mins/km still be the speed I should look to run?

Thanks again!

For standard 'easy' runs yeah but you should introduce some for of speedwork once a week once you build up your mileage a bit.
For now you could just do 'strides' once a week short bursts of pace for maybe 15-20 seconds and full recovery. Not quite full out sprints but about 80%. You can do that at the end of one of your easy runs midweek.

But really from what you have said the issue here is too little mileage. Slowing down your runs will also allow you to up the frequency and length of your runs without risking injury.

clear thinking

I couldn't disagree more - Telling someone to slow down is not good advice to get faster!!!

If you want to run faster, run faster.

An easy way to run faster is to shed a few pounds.

The best way to do that is to improve your training. This is where I do agree with Menoscemo. Do increase the long run a little, build up half a mile now and then until you get to 7-8 miles comfortably. I'd keep that 5-15 pace if I was you.

On one of the shorter runs do fartleks as suggested - 1-2 minutes fast with the same time to recover walking or tipping along slowly, repeat 6-8 time. At the end of the run, when you've recovered a bit but are still warmed, up try 5*10 seconds fast, just to get yourself and that metabolism going -it'll recruit a few fast twitch fibres.

Do the exact same on the other day except do 3 minutes fast/ 3 slow - you might only get 2 the first time, aim to get up to 4 or 5.

You might shed a few pounds doing this too and that will help with speeding up. If you hit 164lbs you'd have been doing the above well for 2-3 months and be in good shape for a mid-22 run.

I wouldn't worry about tempo runs if you don't plan to do 10k races, even if you do plan it, try to knock some speed in for a few months before doing that.

menoscemo

clear thinking wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more - Telling someone to slow down is not good advice to get faster!!!

If you want to run faster, run faster.

The OP is doing his 3 Midweek runs (which I am guessing are 5k??) at his 5 mile PB pace. You seriously think this is a good way to train?

I am only suggesting to slow down these runs as a means to lengthening them and then to introduce effective speedwork, not just 'going out and running as fast as you can'.
A 4 time per week runner should be doing 2 easy runs, 1 long run and 1 speedier run, do you not agree?

clear thinking

menoscemo wrote: »

The OP is doing his 3 Midweek runs (which I am guessing are 5k??) at his 5 mile PB pace. You seriously think this is a good way to train?

I am only suggesting to slow down these runs as a means to lengthening them and then to introduce effective speedwork, not just 'going out and running as fast as you can'.
A 4 time per week runner should be doing 2 easy runs, 1 long run and 1 speedier run, do you not agree?

Yes, doing tempos and lsr is no use, just go for short n sharp to get a bit of speed in. His q was how to get faster.

The minutes on/off are easliy adjusted to - you just do as many as you can, and there'll be a natural pace in the 3 minutes slots that still a little quicker than 5.15.

If OP can run 5.15 for 5 miles, crack on I say - build it by the half mile now and then to up the mileage would be my take on it. Doing that for 7 miles in a few months time will mean a LSR 10 miler will be easy(ish).

I'm not saying do it forever!

Notwork Error

clear thinking wrote: »

Yes, doing tempos and lsr is no use, just go for short n sharp to get a bit of speed in. His q was how to get faster.

The minutes on/off are easliy adjusted to - you just do as many as you can, and there'll be a natural pace in the 3 minutes slots that still a little quicker than 5.15.

If OP can run 5.15 for 5 miles, crack on I say - build it by the half mile now and then to up the mileage would be my take on it. Doing that for 7 miles in a few months time will mean a LSR 10 miler will be easy(ish).

I'm not saying do it forever!

Easy runs are for recovery and general aerobic support and improvement, these runs support everything in training and are by far the most important aspect of a training plan, they should never be dropped in favour of hard running which is what you are suggesting.

5:15 per km is in all likehood faster than his aerobic threshold which would get them in the realm of tempo runs which you advocated against but want him to run at that pace on all his easy runs. That is really not a good way to train as it is completely unbalanced in intensity. Speedwork should complement Easy runs because without them, it's not very effective in any long-term progression.

Speed over a long distance race is primarily a function of aerobic endurance.

average_runner

Get Jack daniels book and following the 5k plan or try something like this:

1st Run : Sprint work, 400m reps, or 800m reps or 1,000m reps



2nd Run: 30 min tempo, move it up to 40 mins as you go along.
Take note where u start the tempo from, turn around at half way point and
you should finish from where you started. If your short you went too hard and
if you go pass it, you didn't go hard enough


3rd Run; LSR: Go easy on these runs, can add progress runs to this later or even
finish a bit faster

RuMan

FutureGuy wrote: »

Hello all,

I'd like to spend the winter getting my shorter distance times down before building towards my second marathon next year. I'm male, 38, 5'10" and 172lbs - I have weight to lose.

My PB for the 5k is 23:51
My PB for the 5 mile is 40.59

My three weekday training runs are completed around the 5.15 min/km pace.

My longer slower run at the weekend is 5 miles and I usually hit around 43-44 mins.

Is there any website that can generate me a training plan based on my current times in order to decrease them over the course of a few months?

I have a Garmin Forerunner 220 with HRM but I can't find training plans to increase speed on Garmin Connect.

Anyone with any advice? My first goal is to get down to 22.XX.

Thanks all!

I'd do most of my runs around your current training pace of 5;15. My 5k time is over 6 mins quicker then you though. Run more, run slower. If u must do speed work throw in a few strides at the end. Google mcmillan running calculator for training paces.