Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon by Brad Hudson

Author:Brad Hudson [Hudson, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7679-3020-8
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

A good coach monitors his runners to make sure their fitness is moving in the direction of race-specificity. As a self-coached runner you must do the same for yourself. © Alison Wade

Specific-Endurance Training for 5K

Specific-endurance training for the 5K is fairly straightforward, because every 5K runner should aim toward the same peak-level 5K specific-endurance workout: 5 × 1K @ 5K goal pace with 1-minute jog recoveries. All of the preceding specific-endurance workouts in the training cycle should be structured and arranged to ensure that you are able to complete the peak-level workout at your goal pace.

Start your 5K specific-endurance training with fartlek intervals in the 10K-to 3K-pace range in the introductory period. It’s best to do one such workout per week, because it delivers a manageable dose, and most likely your only dose, of race-pace running at this stage. Progress by adding intervals, increasing the duration of intervals, and increasing the overall duration of the workout.

As fartlek interval workouts are phased out in the transition from the introductory period to the fundamental period, hill repetitions, speed intervals, and race-pace intervals are phased in. Hill repetitions prepare 5K runners to better handle the stress of challenging speed and race-pace interval sessions by building strength along with speed and specific endurance. Therefore I recommend that you do at least one hill-repetition workout before taking on your first challenging speed and/or race-pace interval workout. But you don’t have to delay your first such workout until after you’ve completed a “block” of hill repetition sessions, as this table may seem to suggest. Just avoid doing your first very hard speed and/or race-pace interval session until after you have a couple of hill-repetition sessions in your legs.

I keep saying “speed and/or race-pace” because in the early fundamental period your specific-endurance workouts should emphasize efforts at 5K to 1,500-meter pace, a range in which 5K specific endurance blends with speed. The objective of your specific-endurance workout progression in this period is to gradually extend your speed by increasing the distance of the intervals you run at race pace and faster.

By the late fundamental period, your specific-endurance workouts should focus squarely on your goal 5K pace. Take your specific endurance to peak level by continuing to increase your interval distance to an upper limit of 1K and then cutting the jogging recovery periods between intervals down to one minute.

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