HOW I RAN A SUB 15 5K: Workouts, Mileage and Long Runs

0:00 so welcome back to episode 19 of my vlogmas Series today I am casting Back The Years a little bit to the first time I broke 15 minutes in the 5K some 16 months ago I ran 1457 at The Wimbledon 5,000 m Festival in 2022 and in today's video I thought I would talk to you through some of my training I did to break that 15minute barrier go over three key workouts that I used and hopefully you can apply that

0:27 to your own training if you yourself also looking to PB in the 5K or even break the 15minute barrier [Music] yourself so in the Wimbledon 5000 M Festival I ran 1457 it was the first time I ever broke 15 minutes my previous PB going into the race was 15 minutes and 11 seconds so I wanted to have a little look back at the eight weeks I did prior to that race and talk you through the sort of mileage I

0:58 was doing the sort of training I was doing and the sort of long runs that I was doing in order for you to have a good insight into what it takes to run that sub 15 minutes so in the 8we period building up to the race I averaged 131 km per week which was 1,53 km my training was very much consistent apart from one week of illness other than that I had a session every week a speed session a longer more

1:26 threshold Tempo style session and then a long run which I alternated in each week which I'll talk through in just a little bit but I wanted to talk about three of the sessions I did to give you an insight into the sort of sessions I was doing and the sort of Paces I was running for the Reps so the first workout I wanted to talk you through was a workout I did 3 weeks before the race

1:47 it was four sets of 3 * 500 M these are typical workouts that I would have done down at the track um I was training at the time with some athletes that were faster than me over the 1500 M so it was always good to get these speed sessions in once per week uh to encourage me to develop a little bit more of that top end speed so this specific workout was youd run 500 M at between your 3K and

2:10 1500 M Pace you then have 20 seconds before starting the second 500 M you then have 20 seconds again before starting the third 500 M and it was in sets of three and we did each Set uh four times it was around 6 km of work all around my 3K to 1500 m pce so faster than my 5K race Pace hence why I used to call it the speed sessions and for this workout looking back at it now I average

2:36 1 minute and 24 seconds per 500 M which translates into around 248 per kilometer which is roughly around my 3K pace and the last rep I ran in 1 minute and 20 seconds which is 240 per kilm so again around 20 seconds quicker than my 5K race Pace these sessions were really good at developing my top end speed so when it comes to the 5K running at 3 minutes per kilometer didn't necessarily feel too fast I felt in control and felt

3:06 comfortable having trained at slightly faster speeds and if I was looking to improve my 5K PB I would be including these style workouts at least once per week to really improve your top end speed and the second workout I wanted to draw attention to was more of a longer style session that I would typically do again once per week to focus more on threshold running which is roughly the pace that you can maintain for an hour

3:28 so this session was 10x 1K with 1 minute recovery in between super simple session and I think I averaged between 315 and 320 per kilometer so looking back at it now it was nothing special the Reps were around 20 seconds uh per kilm slower than my race Pace but the overall session was quite big in volume so for this session I did 10 reps so 10 km of work whereas my race was only 5K so sort

3:55 of an over distance session working on building that threshold pace Pace I just find that helps really build my strength so one again running at my 5K Pace um I feel like I can maintain it over the course of the whole race if you're at the very start of your training block I would recommend doing a lot more threshold Tempo style running and then as you get a little bit closer to your race then you want to include the

4:15 workouts like the first one uh those speed work to really get your leg turnover moving ahead of the race and the third and final workout I wanted to draw attention to in my training prior to the 5K race was my taper session so two 2 days before the race uh I decided to do my final workout of the block which was two sets of 1K 600 300 now the idea of the session was on those 1K reps

4:42 was to really dial into my race pace so 3 minutes per kilometer or faster and I think for this session 2 days before I averaged 301 per K so pretty much spot on for the 600 I would then increased the pace a little bit and I ran a pace of 247 so those 600s were in around 1 minute and 40 seconds and then for those 300 M reps I would really work on improving my turnover so these are

5:06 almost flat out I averaged 43 seconds which is 228 per kilometer which is really my topend speed as a long-distance Runner um and I just find taper session like that gets your body ready to run fast the volume of the workout is relatively small but the intensity is quite high so for me this style of taper session works really well it's something that I've practiced with races um and I find 2 to 3 days before the race is a really good time to do

5:34 them um and it just leaves me feeling fresh sharp ready to run fast on race day so yeah if you want to include a taper session in your 5k plan then you want to be doing this probably around 3 days before the race itself so I also quickly wanted to touch on the type of long runs that I was doing during the block um so I decided to alternate between a steady long run and a long run

5:55 more at my Tempo effort so for example one week I would run 22 km at around 4 minutes 405 per km which for me is about 30 seconds quicker than my easy run pace and then the week after I would do a slightly shorter long run but with a bit more intensity so I averaged around 335 per kilometer which is more of a Tempo effort so I found a really good balance between doing a long steady run versus a

6:22 shorter longer run with a little bit more intensity and I alternated that each week these long runs range from 22 km all the way up to around 26 km which for me looking back is probably around The Sweet Spot that I like to do when I'm training for the 5K so to break 15 minutes for the 5K for the first time I was averaging 130 km in the 8 weeks prior to the race I was doing one speed

6:46 session per week uh which was typically 500 M reps or shorter now these would all be around my 3K to 1500 M Pace to really work on my speed I was also doing one or sometimes even two Thresh hold style sessions which ranged between 8 km and 14 km of total volume uh and these were all around around that 320 per kilm Mark so again 20 seconds slower than my race Pace but I found this to be really

7:13 good for developing my strength and to building the foundation for my speed and the third aspect was those long runs again alternating between a long and slightly slower long run versus a shorter but slightly faster long run and I did that uh every other week one of thing to note during this period is I also did a lot of racing um I raced a 10K I think two weeks prior to my 5K PB and around 3134 and I also did a 1500 M I think I

7:42 ran around 408 um so nothing crazy but these were just sort of like B go races to get me ready to get me sharp um and to be ready to go into a race with a little bit of like tactic a bit of knowhow of where my fitness is at so that's it for today's video that's how I ran sub 15 for the 5K for the first time my PB is now 1442 so i' ran a little bit

8:03 quicker since that day 16 months ago but it's nice to have a little look back at the training I was doing at the time and see how things have progressed but I hope you can take uh a few workouts a few little tips and tricks from today's video but until next time aspire to run run to inspire I'll see you again soon