Hi Everyone!
Today I am sharing a running workout. This workout was designed by Coach Shep, to improve speed, while building endurance.
One of the goals I am currently focusing on, is to improve my race pace for the 5K. It’s been a long time since I trained for anything speedy, and as a result I have slowed down. I have two 5K races planned over the next month and a half.
My first race is on Thanksgiving morning. I want to improve my 5K pace between now and then. My running consistency has been fair lately. I know I can be getting in better and more consistent runs. Part of the reason I decided to re-focus on the 5K is because I can get in shorter, but higher quality runs while still having time for my full time job, blogging and teaching Boot Camp/Yoga.
I enjoy the Half Marathon much more than 5Ks, but they also take a larger time commitment for running. I want to get back to filming more new workouts & lately it has seemed like I am aiming for to many things and I needed to narrow my focus a bit.
Yesterday’s workout was 5.5 miles total, but you can decrease the distance to 3 miles to save time. It was a nice building workout, that let me work on some speed, without wearing me out. It also helped that I did this run with friends. My favorite running Guru, Shep, started us out with this workout & ran it with us.
The breakdown for this run is very simple:
Warm-up
200 Meter Repeats X8 (Half a lap on a standard track) at goal race pace or slightly faster.
Cool-Down
The length of the workout can be adjusted to suit your goals/needs. This is a good building workout. It focuses on building your speed & endurance. As my training progresses over the next few weeks, the fast repeats will increase in length/distance.
Our workout breakdown:
2-Mile Warm up at an Easy/Conversational Running Pace
Eight 200-Meter Repeats at Goal Race Pace: Walk an equal distance for rest between reps.
2.5 Mile Cool Down: Easy/Conversation Pace
*Pacing: adjust pacing to meet your goal race time, or run at a pace that feels challenging, but isn’t a full out sprint.
We did our 200 Meter Repeats between 48-51 seconds per repeat. For the final repeat I picked up the pace & completed it in 43 seconds. The goal is not to go at a burn-out pace, but to find a maintainable, but challenging pace.
I hope you all enjoy this workout! Do you have any races coming up? Let me know here, or on Facebook.
Melissa
I do this kind of interval workout for one third of my running workouts when I’m training for a race, and increase the number of times/length of the fast sections depending how long the race is. It’s a really great way to see improvement in your race time. Thanks for sharing, Melissa!
You look way happier than I would if I were running that race! 🙂
Hola, Melissa!
I’ve been doing speed workouts very similar to what you recommend here. However, I’ve seen a minimal decrease in my 5k race times. I can’t figure out how to transfer the speedwork to my racing. I would like to maintain a pace range successfully.
Do you include tempo runs at all? During speed work, you want to continue progressing the amount of time that you are spending at race pace. Intervals should become longer, and the number of reps may increase as well. This helps teach your body to sustain your desired race pace. It sounds like you are on the right track. How aggressive is your goal?