Question on running/jogging?

Yeah HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) has worked wonders for me. I by no means consider myself a "runner"... but l jog 4 or 5 days a week for at least 3 miles per session. My goal is to be able to do a 5k in under 30 minutes; l'm close but not quite there.

I've used HIIT to help get my cardio up and l'm able to actually jog for long periods of time and feel good about it. When l first started l honestly couldn't handle 4 mph on the treadmill for more than 60 seconds straight, l was that out of shape.

Now l can chug along at 6mph for at least 20 minutes straight.

Interval training is great and very useful, however, building a cardio base will be of far more benefit to in the beginning. Speedwork, hills, intervals, tempo, are fine tuning.

It is generally overall mileage that you build. Usually you focus on one longer run with a few shorter runs during the week. For a faster 5k, I would be looking at building to at least a 10k run once a week. This should be a slower, steady pace run.

If you aren't up to 20 miles a week, then your priority should be getting to 20 miles per week by adding days and miles (I hold by the theory that people should have one complete recovery day).

Once you get to 20 miles, you will want to start building in specialized workouts with specific goals.

Do both. Add days, up to 5. Add mileage to each run too. But don't add more than 10% per week in total distance.

i.e. you run 9 mpw in three 3 mile runs right now. If next week, you want to add a 4th day, spread 10 miles out over the 4 days. The week after 11 miles over 4 days. etc.

Until you get up to a lot of mpw (like over 70 or 100), additional miles will make you faster at any distance (only distance running, obviously sprinting requires different training)

I am up to 20 miles per week. Guess I need to start the speed work and tempo runs and intervals. But first I should look up what those things are :drinker:

Three types of quality run, each with different effects:

The long slow run, which builds endurance and improves your ability to exploit glycogen. For me this is my weekend run, now between 2 and 3 hours at 6mph. The pace is comfortable, and sustainable, your classic conversational. For me this is about 150-170bpm territory.

Your tempo, or threshold run, shorter duration at a faster pace, just below the point where your system goes anaerobic. For me that's a 10-12 minute warm up at 6mph then 20-30 minutes at about 8mph followed by a 10-12 minute cool down. I'm up to about 175-180bpm for the tempo portion. The purpose of this is to improve your exercise efficiency by raising the lactate threshold, essentially by running for a period just under the threshold you improve your ability to sustain these paces for longer.

The interval run, otherwise worshipped as HIIT. Warm up, then a number of repeats of a short period at maximum effort, followed by a period of reduced intensity to recover. There are lots of variants of this, but in the main the effect is to increase your VO2Max, oxygen uptake. My programme involves a warm up of 15 minutes a 6mph followed by one or a combination of 20 seconds maximum followed by 20 seconds at 6mph again repeated ten times, or intervals of 400metres, followed by 400 metres recovery, 200 metres with 200 metre recoveries, or one kilometre with three minute recoveries. All the variants go on for around 20 minutes as it's just not sustainable for longer than that. I'm generally so wiped by the end that my 15 minute cool down is down at 5mph. I've also seen variants that get down to 30-45 seconds maximum effort with lengthy 2-3 minutes of walking. My HR can get into 190bpm territory on these.

So for a minimum you'd look at one of each of those per week, and if adding sessions the fourth would be another steady state recovery pace session, for a much shorter period. Intervals in particular can be very debilitating and for most people more than one a week is into diminishing returns.

All pretty straightforward, but as above the increases in distance need to be managed, limited to around 10% per week, with regular download weeks. If adding 10% per week then every fourth is a much reduced mileage.

I've seen a big improvement in my speed, from just increasing my routine runs in distance, and then chopping up in this way and adding the speedwork.

As Varda mentions upthread, rest days are pretty important so on off days I generally cycle, row or do some resistance training. All of those are complementary to the running and help mitigate injury risk as well as adding power.

I would increase your mileage by about 10% per week, taking a cut back week every 3 weeks or so.

I would not add in speed specific workouts like intervals until you have been running 15-20 mile per week for a couple of months. Then you can do 1 interval workout, 1 tempo run, 1 long run, with the other 2 days being easy runs or cross training. I, personally, choose to cycle or kayak on those days because I love it.

Throwing in a couple of lifting sessions a week will also make you stronger and faster overall.

Good luck!