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5K Training Plan for Beginning Competitive Runners

By Rick Morris

5K races have become the most popular road racing distance. There is a 5K race almost every weekend in most areas. The 5K distance offers something for everyone. The relatively short distance makes it achievable for novice runners and the need for sustained speed supplies a challenge for more advanced runners. The need for long distance sustained speed also makes it a perfect "time trial" or training run for longer distances such as 10K's and marathons. The ease in finding 5K races at any time of the year and the moderate distance of the 5K makes this race an excellent choice to begin your competitive running life.

The transition from recreational or fitness running to competitive running can be somewhat of a shock to the system of many distance runners. Competitive training requires more high intensity running than fitness running. As you move towards more competitive types of distance running you will need to develop your top running speed, sustainable running speed, stamina, lactate threshold, VO2 max, vVO2 max, running strength and injury resistance. While that seems like a lot of extra training, you don't need to take it all on at once. The switch from fitness running to competitive running is a gradual and progressive process, just like when you first learned to run. This beginning competitive plan for 5K racing will begin the process of building up your fitness and strength and give you a great base of fitness for more advanced competitive 5K plans and are an excellent springboard to longer 10K, half marathon and marathon competitive plans.Custom 5K Training

This 5K training plan follows a 12 week schedule that has the prerequisite of being able to run at least 3 miles or 5K without stopping. If you aren't at that level, please build up using a beginning runners plan before taking this one on.

This program utilizes a variety of workout types, including easy endurance runs, long runs, fast finish long runs, interval training and compound sets. Training paces include easy pace, tempo pace, 10K pace, 5K pace, 3K and sprint pace. Easy pace is just like it sounds. You should be running at what feels like a relatively easy and comfortable pace. Tempo pace should be moderate in difficulty, at about a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. 10K pace should feel moderately hard or around a 7 on the scale. 5K pace should feel hard or about an 8. 3K pace is very hard or around a 9 and sprint pace is the fastest pace you can maintain for the workout segment or about a 10.

 

 

Before beginning any workout, warm up with around 5 minutes of easy running and then do 5 minutes of dynamic warm up drills. After your workout do 3 to 5 strides or 100 meter sprints. A good place to do those is on the infield of your local track, but you can do them anywhere. If you have a safe, soft surface to run on, it is very beneficial to perform your strides, barefoot. It will strength your lower leg muscles and improve both your running efficiency and injury resistance. After your strides cool down with a couple of minutes of easy running and then some static stretching.

5K Training Schedule for Beginning Competitive Runners
Week Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
1  Rest  Run for 30 minutes alternating between 5 minutes at an easy pace and 1 minute at 5K or a hard pace  3 miles at easy pace  4 x 400 meter repeats at 3K or very hard pace. Recover between each repeat with 2 minutes of rest  3 miles at easy pace  Rest  4 miles at easy pace
2  Rest  Run 2 x 800 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 400 meters at easy pace between each hard repeat  3 miles at easy pace   5 x 400 meter repeats at 3K or very hard pace. Recover between each repeat with 2 minutes of rest  3 miles at easy pace  Rest  5 miles at easy pace
3  Rest  Run 2 x 800 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 400 meters at easy pace between each hard repeat  3 miles at easy pace  6 x 400 meter repeats at 3K or very hard pace. Recover between each repeat with 2 minutes of rest  3 miles at easy pace  Rest  6 miles at easy pace
4  Rest  Run 6 x 100 meter hill repeats up a steep hill at what feels like a very hard pace. Run down the hill at easy pace for recovery  3 miles at easy pace  7 x 400 meter repeats at 3K or very hard pace. Recover between each repeat with 2 minutes of rest  4 miles at easy pace  Rest  7 miles at easy pace
5  Rest  Run 2 x 1200 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 400 meters at easy pace between each hard repeat  3 miles at easy pace  8 x 400 meter repeats at 3K or very hard pace. Run 400 meters at an easy pace between each hard repeat  4 miles at easy pace  Rest  8 miles at easy pace
6  Rest  Run 8 x 100 meter hill repeats up a steep hill at what feels like a very hard pace. Run down the hill at easy pace for recovery  3 miles at easy pace  Run 20 minutes alternating between 30 seconds at 3K or very hard pace and 30 seconds at tempo pace or moderate pace  4 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 30 minutes at tempo pace
7  Rest  Run 2 x 1600 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 800 meters at easy pace between the two repeats  3 miles at easy pace  Run 2 x 400/800 meter compound sets. Run the 400 meter segments at 3K or very hard pace and the 800 meter segments at 5K or hard pace. No rest between segments. Rest for 4 minutes between each compound set  4 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 8 miles. Run the first 7 miles at an easy pace and the final mile at 10K or moderately hard pace. Finish with 400 meters as fast as possible
8  Rest  Run 3 x 1200 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 400 meters at easy pace between the two repeats  3 miles at easy pace  Run 24 minutes alternating between 30 seconds at 3K or very hard pace and 30 seconds at tempo pace or moderate pace  5 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 35 minutes at tempo pace
9  Rest   Run 3 x 1600 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 800 meters at easy pace between the two repeats  3 miles at easy pace  Run 3 x 400/800 meter compound sets. Run the 400 meter segments at 3K or very hard pace and the 800 meter segments at 5K or hard pace. No rest between segments. Rest for 4 minutes between each compound set  5 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 8 miles. Run the first 6 miles at an easy pace, the next 800 meters at 10K or moderately hard pace and the final 800 meters at 5K or hard pace. Finish with 400 meters as fast as possible
10  Rest  Run 3 x 1600 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 400 meters at easy pace between the two repeats  3 miles at easy pace   Run 3 x 400/800 meter compound sets. Run the 400 meter segments at 3K or very hard pace and the 800 meter segments at 5K or hard pace. No rest between segments. Rest for 4 minutes between each compound set. Now run 1 mile at 5K or hard pace with no recovery  5 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 40 minutes at tempo pace
11  Rest   Run 3 x 1600 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 200 meters at easy pace between the two repeats  3 miles at easy pace  Run 2 x 400/800/400 meter compound sets. Run both 400 meter segments at 3K or very hard pace and the 800 meter segment at 5K or hard pace. No rest between segments. Rest 4 minutes between each compound set  6 miles at easy pace  Rest  Run 8 miles. Run the first 5 miles at an easy pace, the next 2 miles at 10K or moderately hard pace and the final 1 mile at 5K or hard pace. Finish with 400 meters as fast as possible
12  Rest  Run 4 x 800 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 200 meters at easy pace between each hard repeat  3 miles easy  Run 2 x 1200 meter repeats at 5K or hard pace. Run 200 meters at easy pace between each repeat  3 miles at easy pace  Rest  Race Day!

 

 

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