PUBLISHED 04/01/2004
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Two words define the training goal at this stage of your running life: "race feel." To reach your 5-K ceiling, you must replicate in training how it feels to run that far that fast. Which means timed repetitions both at (pace) and faster than (speed) your 5-K goal pace--but with short recovery. Uncomfortably short. Because in a race, of course, there is no recovery. So the more intimate you become with the sensations of the race itself on a twice-weekly basis, the more you'll be able to handle the 5-K's physical and mental combination punches on race day.
You have legendary British coach Frank Horwill to thank for this. Horwill found that when athletes were stuck at a certain 5-K time--sometimes for years--and could not break through, they were almost always running lots of repetitions significantly faster than 5-K race pace (sometimes as fast as 56 seconds) with 400-meter jogs. When Horwill pointed out that they would not get 400-meter recovery periods in a race, the usual reply was, "But I'm running so much faster than race pace." Sorry, Horwill said, doesn't work that way.
Invariably, when he had his runners do the repeats slightly faster than projected 5-K pace, with recovery jogs as short as 50 meters (about 20 seconds), their times dropped. "They needed to get the feel of what it was like to run a tough 5-K race," Horwill explained. "The recovery time after repetitions at 5-K pace is a crucial factor. Figure to jog a quarter to a half of the distance of the repetition.
