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running - beginner speedwork for 5k/10k?

shilshilshil

Some background: I started running about 9 months ago, and hated it (and was terrible at it) at first. I ran my first 5k in September, and another in December (31:56). But I think I've finally turned the corner from "tolerate running" to "kinda like running"! For most of that time, I ran twice a week, but I've recently upped that to 3-4 times as I've caught the bug.

I'm currently running 3 miles 2-3 times a week, and 4-5 miles once a week, all at an easy pace (11:30ish for me right now). I'm slowly increasing my distance each week (adding about 1 mile per week, split over a couple days).

My goals for the spring are to get my 5k time down to <30 minutes, and to run a 10k (hopefully <60).

My question is, when I'm at a distance/weekly mileage that I'm happy with, I'll probably add in some speedwork once a week, but what kind should I add? Short intervals? Long intervals? Tempo? Strides (isn't that just another word for short intervals?)? There are so many plans and bits of advice floating around that I can't figure out where to start.

Replies

RUN_LIFT_EAT

There are lots of strategies. I would keep increasing my weekly long run by 10% each week (backing off on the 4th week), and then start adding some hillwork. The hills will build leg strength (hamstrings, glutes, and calves) which will provide power in your runs. Or you could always add a Tempo run in your week, or maybe some track work.

Speed work is tough on the body, so keep it short, don't do too much in the week, and skip a week here and there until your body can handle the work load. It's better to play it safe instead of gaining an injury. :-)

gdyment

shilshilshil wrote: »

My goals for the spring are to get my 5k time down to <30 minutes, and to run a 10k (hopefully <60).

My question is, when I'm at a distance/weekly mileage that I'm happy with, I'll probably add in some speedwork once a week, but what kind should I add? Short intervals? Long intervals? Tempo? Strides (isn't that just another word for short intervals?)? There are so many plans and bits of advice floating around that I can't figure out where to start.

I wouldn't even bother with speed stuff until you've got 4-6 months of 30+ mile weeks. Chug up a few hills every now and then if you need to get that HR up. You'll get faster just through running economy.

RoxieDawn

gdyment wrote: »

shilshilshil wrote: »

My goals for the spring are to get my 5k time down to <30 minutes, and to run a 10k (hopefully <60).

My question is, when I'm at a distance/weekly mileage that I'm happy with, I'll probably add in some speedwork once a week, but what kind should I add? Short intervals? Long intervals? Tempo? Strides (isn't that just another word for short intervals?)? There are so many plans and bits of advice floating around that I can't figure out where to start.

I wouldn't even bother with speed stuff until you've got 4-6 months of 30+ mile weeks. Chug up a few hills every now and then if you need to get that HR up. You'll get faster just through running economy.

I am sorry but needing 30+ miles a week in order to up time on a 5k is not necessary. It is not even necessary for 10k.

And you are already running and do not need 6 months of this type of running on your legs to do what you are trying to achieve.

I def would add in tempo runs and even some hills runs. Tempo is where you work on speed and the hills will make you def stronger and learn to tax your cardiovascular.

The only increase in milesge each week should be 10% and work in the tempo and hills.

msf74

What worked for me was running consistently 3-4 times a week with one of those sessions being a decent tempo run.

shilshilshil

Thanks a bunch! It sounds like hills and tempo are a good place to start. I appreciate the advice!

filovirus76

If running 4 times a week:
Day 1 - Tempo (Not the whole run, only about the middle third to half at tempo)
Day 2 - Recovery (Talking pace)
Day 3 - Rest
Day 4 - Distance (10-20 mins longer than recovery run, still at talking pace)
Day 5 - Recovery (Talking pace)
Day 6&7 - Rest

gdyment

gia07 wrote: »

I am sorry but needing 30+ miles a week in order to up time on a 5k is not necessary. It is not even necessary for 10k.

And you are already running and do not need 6 months of this type of running on your legs to do what you are trying to achieve.

So what is necessary? 10 mpw? 15 mpw? OP has a specific goal to get faster and is enjoying it. There are no shortcuts and while some (especially younger) runners can get away with high intensity low volume sooner or later injury comes calling. And intervals suck - especially without that multi-year base.

Give me two 30 year old guys, one who is following whatever interval/sprint/fartlek/strides/yasso800 routines you want but only 20 mpw. The other is running 40 mpw, no speed at all. After 3-4 months the 40mpw guy will most likely destroy the 20 mpw guy by minutes not seconds.

Aed0416

gdyment wrote: »

gia07 wrote: »

I am sorry but needing 30+ miles a week in order to up time on a 5k is not necessary. It is not even necessary for 10k.

And you are already running and do not need 6 months of this type of running on your legs to do what you are trying to achieve.

So what is necessary? 10 mpw? 15 mpw? OP has a specific goal to get faster and is enjoying it. There are no shortcuts and while some (especially younger) runners can get away with high intensity low volume sooner or later injury comes calling. And intervals suck - especially without that multi-year base.

Give me two 30 year old guys, one who is following whatever interval/sprint/fartlek/strides/yasso800 routines you want but only 20 mpw. The other is running 40 mpw, no speed at all. After 3-4 months the 40mpw guy will most likely destroy the 20 mpw guy by minutes not seconds.

I mostly agree. But I think anyone can do interval work and is a great way to progress. An interval workouts can vary greatly. I would argue that couch 25k runs are interval runs and I am sure they vastly differ from interval work that is part of your routine.

I would limit one day to three miles total. Take 5 minutes each for an easy warm up and cool down then see if you can maintain your comfortable pace with three or four 30 second intervals of an increased pace. See how this feels.

blues4miles

gia07 wrote: »

gdyment wrote: »

shilshilshil wrote: »

My goals for the spring are to get my 5k time down to <30 minutes, and to run a 10k (hopefully <60).

My question is, when I'm at a distance/weekly mileage that I'm happy with, I'll probably add in some speedwork once a week, but what kind should I add? Short intervals? Long intervals? Tempo? Strides (isn't that just another word for short intervals?)? There are so many plans and bits of advice floating around that I can't figure out where to start.

I wouldn't even bother with speed stuff until you've got 4-6 months of 30+ mile weeks. Chug up a few hills every now and then if you need to get that HR up. You'll get faster just through running economy.

I am sorry but needing 30+ miles a week in order to up time on a 5k is not necessary. It is not even necessary for 10k.

And you are already running and do not need 6 months of this type of running on your legs to do what you are trying to achieve.

I def would add in tempo runs and even some hills runs. Tempo is where you work on speed and the hills will make you def stronger and learn to tax your cardiovascular.

The only increase in milesge each week should be 10% and work in the tempo and hills.

I kind of agree with @gdyment here. Don't think he's saying you can't do speedwork sooner just that it's not necessary to getting faster at this point.

I agree 30 miles a week would be ideal for optimally speed training your 5k. Just working up to 30 miles a week at 98% easy runs you will see big improvements in your 5k race speed. Perhaps such that speed work itself would have very little effect. That doesn't mean can't do speedwork, just that building up mileage would be more effective. Also OP is only running 3 days per week sometimes? I'd want 3 days 'easy' before I added speedwork as my 4th day. I also agree with @gia07 though to start with tempos. Wouldn't do more than one speedwork session a week on 4 days of running.

glevinso

I'll add my voice to the 30ish mpw chorus before trying any specific speed work.

That's not to say a little tempo running now and then isn't a bad thing, but unless you are putting in a reasonable volume you aren't going to know what your tempo pace is.

If you are talking actual speed work, like 200m and 400m repeats like you might do to train for a fast 5k, honestly that can be a recipe for injury if you don't have sufficient volume under your legs.

scorpio516

To pile on: more miles. Slow and steady.

rileyes

Strength training adds power to movements. Hip thrusts can help you sprint faster. Would this strength training help with 5k speed?

kristinegift

The best way to get faster is to keep at it and run more miles. You'll naturally start to see the pace get quicker.

If you want to add speedwork, I'd recommend running lots of hills -- not necessarily at a fast pace -- because that will give you stronger muscles. Or fartleks, which I think are the best "beginner" speedwork. You spend a lot of the run going an easy pace, but then decide to run as fast as you can to a lightpost, the end of the block, whatever your landmark is. Fartleks are "speed play," and so I think it's a good way to introduce speedwork without rigid workouts that may burn you out.

glevinso

rileyes wrote: »

Strength training adds power to movements. Hip thrusts can help you sprint faster. Would this strength training help with 5k speed?

Not as much as simply running more.

Thing is to go from 31:xx for a 5K to, say 25:xx, the answer is to just run more miles. You will natrually get faster. You don't (seriously literally don't) need to do anything specific to "get faster" other than run more miles. Running intervals, or tempos, or whatever, is not going to really help you and is only likely to possibly injure you. As you start pushing your 5k times into the low 20s and maybe even below 20, you may find benefit to "speed work".

ironhajee

Good luck mate! Looks to me like you know what you're doing!!

MeanderingMammal

Same as upthread, lots of easy miles. For my first 10K I was doing a long of about 15km, and three 10Km sessions per week.

That got me to a 24 minute 5K and 50 minute 10K, without any speedwork, per se.

filovirus76

Key to running faster are to increase lung capacity and leg strength (lungs and legs). As others have said, more miles brings stronger legs. A distance workout once a week helps with the legs. A recovery run the day after helps gets legs used to going when slightly fatigued. Tempo runs work the lungs. A tempo run once a week will train the body to more efficiently circulate oxygen (VO Max). Again, a recovery run the following day will train muscles while slightly fatigued.

Four runs weekly will do wonders for times. Skip speed workouts for a while. It's probably better to hit the gym for core workout than speed work until your times improve a bit. Add a couple minutes to each run every week to get more miles in. Try not to add more than 5-10% each week. Ie: if my recovery runs were 30 mins, the next week they would be 32-33 mins.

shilshilshil

Hi all, thanks again for the advice!

Lots of people have suggested just slowly adding more easy miles, and I'm definitely planning to do that (currently adding about a mile per week, split over a couple runs, and will continue doing that). My "easy" pace is already getting faster, and that's super encouraging.

That being said, one thing I should have mentioned in my original post is that I don't see myself wanting to get above 20ish miles a week in the near future - I'm not interested in investing more time than that, though of course I might change my mind. I'm hoping that a <60 minute 10k is a reasonable goal that I can accomplish within these constraints!

glevinso

shilshilshil wrote: »

Hi all, thanks again for the advice!

Lots of people have suggested just slowly adding more easy miles, and I'm definitely planning to do that (currently adding about a mile per week, split over a couple runs, and will continue doing that). My "easy" pace is already getting faster, and that's super encouraging.

That being said, one thing I should have mentioned in my original post is that I don't see myself wanting to get above 20ish miles a week in the near future - I'm not interested in investing more time than that, though of course I might change my mind. I'm hoping that a <60 minute 10k is a reasonable goal that I can accomplish within these constraints!

With a <32 minute 5k under your belt now, I am fairly confident you will be able to accomplish both goals on this volume. If you manage the <1:00 10k, then on that level of fitness a 27-28 minute 5k wouldn't be unreasonable.

shilshilshil

glevinso wrote: »

With a <32 minute 5k under your belt now, I am fairly confident you will be able to accomplish both goals on this volume. If you manage the <1:00 10k, then on that level of fitness a 27-28 minute 5k wouldn't be unreasonable.

Yay! That's confidence-building news

lporter229

I agree with what has been said about the best way to increase your speed being to add more mileage, but some people have neither the time nor the inclination to run 30+ miles per week. Since that seems to be the case for you, there is no reason why you can't add speed work into your current training. As others have said, only add a little bit. It is still wise to follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of your running should be done at an easy, comfortable pace and 20% at a higher intensity. This is based on time, not miles, so if you are running 20 miles per week, no more than 5 of those should be dedicated to tempo runs or hills or whatever will get your heart rate up into a higher zone. Keep in mind that you will still want to do a slow warm up and cool down along with your speed work.

_Waffle_

I think @RoxieDawn is correct. You don't need to do 30+ MPW to improve a 5k time.

gdyment

You don't have to spend more than an hour a week to learn how to play the piano. But you probably should if you want to get good at it. If there was a magic shortcut to get the same results as running 60 or 100 miles a week without actually running 60 or 100 actual miles don't you suspect we'd have it figured out by now?

If you only have 2 hrs a week then that's your choice - raise the intensity bar and the risk of injury bar at the same time. I'm trying to think of a single person I know in real life that this worked for and I'm drawing a blank.

glevinso

_Waffle_ wrote: »

I think @RoxieDawn is correct. You don't need to do 30+ MPW to improve a 5k time.

Depends on what the time is, doesn't it?

Going from 31 to 28? Right. No need for any speed work or 30+ mile weeks.

Want to get <20? You are now talking about 30+ mpw and obvious attention to speed intervals.

For what it's worth I don't consider "tempo runs" to be "speed work". Until you become experienced, a tempo run is just a run where you go a bit faster than usual for a while after a warmup.

xLyric

My sister and I are halfway through C25K right now. When we're done, instead of moving to the 10k program, she wants to work on her speed. Based on all of these replies, we should do the 10k instead of interval training, and by doing that our speed will increase on the way? Just want to clarify.

Does this still work if we're stuck on treadmills? You can't really naturally get faster on a treadmill without manually increasing the speed, obviously, so should we stick to our comfortable speeds or slowly (maybe by a decimal or two a week) move the speed up?

Somebody_Loved

xLyric wrote: »

My sister and I are halfway through C25K right now. When we're done, instead of moving to the 10k program, she wants to work on her speed. Based on all of these replies, we should do the 10k instead of interval training, and by doing that our speed will increase on the way? Just want to clarify.

Does this still work if we're stuck on treadmills? You can't really naturally get faster on a treadmill without manually increasing the speed, obviously, so should we stick to our comfortable speeds or slowly (maybe by a decimal or two a week) move the speed up?

I'm sure more experienced runners can answer this better than I can, but I'd say to go ahead and do the 10k program. When I finished c25k, my 5k time was 29:52. I did the 10k app immediately after c25k, did no speed work, and got my 5k time down to 27:01 just from adding more miles.

AdrianChr92

I think doing speed work or interval work or tempo work or anything like aren't necessary in the beginning but I still do one every other week just to mix things up. It might get boring to just do easy runs after a while so every now and then I do one just for the kicks. I'm pretty sure speed doesn't come exclusively from these runs if you aren't intermediate or have built mileage first cause I just got my 23:30 min 5k within 4 months of easy running. My current mileage is around 20 miles per week. Long runs helped me the most since I had the speed to run fast but I couldn't sustain it because no aerobic base. Everyone can run fast. The trick is to run fast longer and that comes with mileage. I haven't done interval training yet cause I want to build mileage then finish a half marathon then maybe I might do some interval training. Right now, aerobic capacity will help you more than just speed.

@xLyric I can vouch that running a 10k will help her 5k pace a lot than just run a max of 5k on a run. It did wonders for mine when I hit 10k long runs and longer. In my case it dropped from 27 min to a whooping 23:30 min. I did no speed work during this time.

filovirus76

xLyric wrote: »

My sister and I are halfway through C25K right now. When we're done, instead of moving to the 10k program, she wants to work on her speed. Based on all of these replies, we should do the 10k instead of interval training, and by doing that our speed will increase on the way? Just want to clarify.

Does this still work if we're stuck on treadmills? You can't really naturally get faster on a treadmill without manually increasing the speed, obviously, so should we stick to our comfortable speeds or slowly (maybe by a decimal or two a week) move the speed up?

I use the MiCoach (adidas) app for all my running. It is very good at all levels. You must create a goal for any race, and it will provide a training program for that goal at that distance. It also tells you to speed up/slow down during your runs according to your pace. It has a good mix of distance runs, recovery runs, tempo runs, negative split runs and speed runs (not intense speed runs. An example would be 8 reps of sprint 20 seconds, slow jog 2 minutes). It really does adapt well to any level runner.

I've used it in the past to train for an 18 min 5k with good results. Right now I am training for 24 min 5k (9 months off and lots of food bring one's time down significantly) and the training plan is almost perfect right now for my out-of-shapeness.

zdyb23456

I'm training for an 8k. I googled 8k race training program and found a 6wk intermediate/advanced level training program on about.com.

Sunday is a rest day
Monday is a easy 3 miles or cross training
Tuesday is a long run 6-8 miles
Wednesday is a easy 3 miles or cross training
Thursday is a 25 min tempo run just under my race pace, then 5 hills
Friday is a rest or 40 min cross training
Saturday is a interval run 1 mile warm up then 4 min at race pace, 2 min recovery, repeat 5 times. Finish with a 1 mile cool down.

This is the most running I've done in 10+ years. It's kind of kicking my butt, but I'm starting to feel good about the race!

xLyric

Somebody_Loved wrote: »

xLyric wrote: »

My sister and I are halfway through C25K right now. When we're done, instead of moving to the 10k program, she wants to work on her speed. Based on all of these replies, we should do the 10k instead of interval training, and by doing that our speed will increase on the way? Just want to clarify.

Does this still work if we're stuck on treadmills? You can't really naturally get faster on a treadmill without manually increasing the speed, obviously, so should we stick to our comfortable speeds or slowly (maybe by a decimal or two a week) move the speed up?

I'm sure more experienced runners can answer this better than I can, but I'd say to go ahead and do the 10k program. When I finished c25k, my 5k time was 29:52. I did the 10k app immediately after c25k, did no speed work, and got my 5k time down to 27:01 just from adding more miles.

AdrianChr92 wrote: »

I think doing speed work or interval work or tempo work or anything like aren't necessary in the beginning but I still do one every other week just to mix things up. It might get boring to just do easy runs after a while so every now and then I do one just for the kicks. I'm pretty sure speed doesn't come exclusively from these runs if you aren't intermediate or have built mileage first cause I just got my 23:30 min 5k within 4 months of easy running. My current mileage is around 20 miles per week. Long runs helped me the most since I had the speed to run fast but I couldn't sustain it because no aerobic base. Everyone can run fast. The trick is to run fast longer and that comes with mileage. I haven't done interval training yet cause I want to build mileage then finish a half marathon then maybe I might do some interval training. Right now, aerobic capacity will help you more than just speed.

@xLyric I can vouch that running a 10k will help her 5k pace a lot than just run a max of 5k on a run. It did wonders for mine when I hit 10k long runs and longer. In my case it dropped from 27 min to a whooping 23:30 min. I did no speed work during this time.

filovirus76 wrote: »

xLyric wrote: »

My sister and I are halfway through C25K right now. When we're done, instead of moving to the 10k program, she wants to work on her speed. Based on all of these replies, we should do the 10k instead of interval training, and by doing that our speed will increase on the way? Just want to clarify.

Does this still work if we're stuck on treadmills? You can't really naturally get faster on a treadmill without manually increasing the speed, obviously, so should we stick to our comfortable speeds or slowly (maybe by a decimal or two a week) move the speed up?

I use the MiCoach (adidas) app for all my running. It is very good at all levels. You must create a goal for any race, and it will provide a training program for that goal at that distance. It also tells you to speed up/slow down during your runs according to your pace. It has a good mix of distance runs, recovery runs, tempo runs, negative split runs and speed runs (not intense speed runs. An example would be 8 reps of sprint 20 seconds, slow jog 2 minutes). It really does adapt well to any level runner.

I've used it in the past to train for an 18 min 5k with good results. Right now I am training for 24 min 5k (9 months off and lots of food bring one's time down significantly) and the training plan is almost perfect right now for my out-of-shapeness.

Thanks for the help!