Runner’s World Intermediate 5K schedule - Week 1
New log. New plan. New goals. Time to consign the
old log to the archives and start afresh. It might encourage me to look forward and avoid comparisons with fitter times (at least until I’m back to full fitness!). I found a 6 week schedule in Runner’s World ‘Guide to Road Racing’ and I guess it’s as good a place as any to start.
Monday 12th
Local loop, started just after it started pelting down. A refreshing run ! Ran it a bit too fast, for some reason the legs were willing and didn’t want to slow down but the lungs weren’t quite able to keep up. HR on the watch was acting up and gave me an average of 99 bpm for the run. Hmmm, don’t think so.
Tuesday 13th
Got this done in Santry Demesne during daylight. Session was 6 x 400m @ 5K target pace with 200m recovery jog. Tried to warm up on the grass but it was pretty mucky and slippy in parts so terrain was mixed for the warm up and I stuck to the tarmac and packed trail for the session. 2 miles and 4 strides to warm up then into the reps. Target time for the 5K at the end of this 6 week block is 22:30 so I was aiming for 7:15 min/mile pace. Splits ended up 6:47/7:17/7:11/7:19/6:55/7:19. Guess which ones were into the wind! 1,3,5 felt easy enough and I was consciously slowing down, the others were tougher but I wasn’t really paying attention to the watch and might have come in on target with a bit of extra effort. Oh well, not bad for the first speed session in almost a year. 2 miles to cool down. Average HR for the reps was in the 160s so that might be useful as a guide for the hill reps on Thursday as going for pace on those might finish me off all together.
- 6.8 miles incl. 6 x 400m @ 5K pace (grass, trail, tarmac)
Wednesday 14th
Just Pilates this evening. Didn’t even walk there the weather was so manky. Good class and felt much taller after it

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