Workout of the Week

A couple of weeks ago, I started doing some workouts. Before that, it had been all easy runs. My goal for the year of breaking 18 minutes in the 5K led me to start doing workouts again.

In the past, I’ve shared my training log, but from now until I run a virtual marathon in November, I’ll share a key workout I’ve completed each week. Last week I did a tempo run and an interval workout. Both went great, but I’ll share my interval workout since it went particularly well.

When training for a 5K, I’ve set up interval workouts that best mimic the effort of racing a 5K. The key workouts in my progression are 6 X 0.5 miles at 5K pace with two minute recoveries, 5 X 1K at 5K pace with two minute recoveries, and 3 X 1 mile pace with two minute recoveries.

Last week my workout was 6 X 0.5 miles at 5K pace. I’ve been a little discouraged because my goal of breaking 18 minutes in the 5K has been looking unlikely based on my previous attempts, but this workout gave me a lot of confidence.

After a warmup, I jumped into the intervals. Here’s how they shook out according to minutes-per-mile pace.

1 - 5:49 / mile

2 - 5:38 / mile

3 - 5:26 / mile

4 - 5:40 / mile

5 - 5:32 / mile

6 - 5:28 / mile

The big pro from this workout was that I ran every interval but one at a pace fast enough to run a sub-18 minute 5K. It’s exciting to me that those intervals didn’t seem overly taxing — I wasn’t completely spent after the last one and the next day I wasn’t really sore. 

The con coming out of the workout was that I wasn’t very consistent.

After running this workout, I had some confidence on my next 5K attempt. I managed an 18:08 — a big improvement from my previous season best of 18:45.

Next week I’ll share another workout. I’m hoping it goes as well as this one.