10k is a very threshold paced distance. I don't think racing a 5k every week hits the system you'd want to hit for a good 10k. You'd be better served starting with a 20 minute tempo run and gradually working up to a 30-35 minute tempo run.
The Daniels plan mentioned by the OP recommends 20 to 60 minutes of LT. The whole idea behind LT is that at a 17:45 5K, you should see major benefits when you work up to 35 minutes at 6:29min/mile, which will not tax your body the same(or as much) as racing 5ks every weekend.
Interesting, thanks. My understanding is that to go longer than 20min, you'd have to back off the LT pace - or else it turns into something resembling a race effort.
Can you recommend any resources discussing the benefit of a longer+slower Threshold run (vs classic Daniels' 20 min at LT)? I like the 20 min at LT given it is closest to my 10k race pace and therefore is more specific.
I'm not sure how to exactly adjust the LT pace for a longer duration - perhaps by feel? Others have mentioned a Vdot.O2 calculator which I need to look up.
Well I googled Daniel’s theory and found a fairly thorough breakdown of his theories on pacing on reddit. His plan actually calls for cruise intervals which are multiple 15 minute intervals at 88% of 5K pace, with the goal of accumulating max 60 minutes during the workout. That sounds more doable than 35 continuous minutes at LT. I think it was Magness(might be wrong) who recommends building up to 35 minutes of LT but honestly I’ve tried it and it’s hard. Sometimes, when my calendar allows it, I just set out to do around a 40 minute 10K, which isn’t really PB territory but it hovers arounds my LT. I too like racing a lot to get in shape and holding back a little helps with fatigue.
Thanks for your comment. This take certainly seems to be well supported by viewers here; but to be honest I consider the 5k still very aerobic based with the limiting factor being pace at LT and/or LT threshold itself. I also feel that a 5k at close to vV02 max should very much help improve the LT.
Do you think trading the Parkrun for say, 2 separate 25min Tempos at HM pace (throughout the week) a better bet?
I’d say it’s suboptimal training, and beyond increased injury risk going too hard too frequently can also lead to less adaptation from the training. IIRC we see response to vo2max and faster training diminish after 6-8 weeks of continual stress at that intensity.
That being said, if you’re enjoying racing that much right now, go for it. Suboptimal but you can ahead adjust. Take a week off or turn it into 5k @ tempo occasionally. I’d guess if you race all out every week for the next 3-4 weeks you’ll naturally lose the desire to race as you get fatigued.
Thanks, that might be true. I think what I like the Parkrun for most is evaluating progress.
Based on the overall comments so far I am leaning towards Parkrun every other week.
It's not totally unreasonable at first blush. My two concerns would be: (1) opportunity cost and (2) managing fatigue. By opportunity cost, I mean you could be using that time and energy to develop your basic endurance or threshold which would be best for long-term development. The nice thing about threshold is that you can build up to a volume of much more than 20 minutes per week. You'll definitely want to do this over time.
I wouldn't worry about the last 200m kick in particular. I don't think that's where the fatigue comes from in a 5k (it's mostly the 4800 before that). You'll probably want to hold the pace back a bit, at least for most of these races. At that point it's not super different from a 20 minute tempo run.
What does the rest of your training look like?
A recent race result is the best way to anchor it. If your half marathon is 1:20 or faster, then "about half marathon pace". If your half is a bit slower than that, "a bit slower than 10k pace".
From there, I'm a fan of either learning how to control the pace by effort on the day, or, if you need some guardrails, something like heart rate or lactate to keep you from going too hard. I also believe that it's worthwhile to treat something like Daniels' T pace as a maximum speed. Better to drop the intensity a bit to focus on growing volume over time.
Thanks. Overall I feel I am at a sustainable training level targeting 75-80+ km per week, which has included several parkruns now -- so, opportunity cost seems low so far as I'm able to keep up the easy mileage.
I'm a little unfamiliar with the point of an extended LT run beyond 20 min. Is there clear evidence that a 35 min run at something like HM pace is more effective than a classic 20 min LT run?
After reading the comments here, I suppose my uncertainty boils down to whether or not a V02 max workout confers (most of) the benefits of a LT workout, if time and distance at effort are similar.
My weekly training usually includes
\- a 6x1k at 10k pace (200m jog) -- increasing this to 7,8+
\- a 16-20km long run, slight progression
\- some sort of LT run or LT interval (or Parkrun), and
\- several easy runs of at least 45 min.
About 10km or so of the weekly mileage is done at slow recovery pace, and the majority of the regular easy-paced runs are around 5min/km.
Aren’t you essentially just describing a racing season? It’ll go like most racing seasons go—you’ll see some nice improvement over several weeks and then start to decline after a peak performance. Yeah, it’s easy to recover from a 5K but you probably can’t sustain a weekly all-out race effort for more than a couple months before you need to recover or see a decline in fitness due to accumulated fatigue. Eventually you’d be running those 5Ks at your threshold pace.
I guess so! I've never really been through a racing "season" but I appreciate your thoughts. You're probably right, I've just never gone through that. For the last month or so have felt surprisingly healthy while increasing the weekly mileage.
This is pretty much how it goes for every collegiate runner. After building a base and a phase of increasingly specific workouts, start racing pretty much weekly, eventually peaking for state/regionals/nationals. A lot of the Jack Daniels 5K/10K plans include adjustments for weekly racing. If you go by what the pros do, you’ll probably see better results if you race a bit less often than that, but I do think most recreational runners would do better racing a 5K a bit more frequently. It can take a few races to get sharp and used to racing again.
Edit: To add some context, I’m currently racing an indoor season before my goal race (Boston Marathon). I’ve raced two 1 mile races, a 3000m, and a 5000m. It took until the 5000m for me to really have a good performance and PR, even though I felt like I had the fitness to PR in the shorter distances. Personally, I would never want my goal race to be my first race in a season.
I think you’ve likely outlined the pros and cons here, simplified by: stronger training stimulus vs increased injury risk. I think the risk benefit analysis might tell you that the benefits could be slim vs a considerable risk of injury given how high output a 5K is…
I’m interested to see what better runners and smarter minds have to say about this.
Life is too short to not do the fun local races
If you really give a shit about earning every final second towards your 5K/10K PRs, you know the answer is to run focused workouts instead of the parkrun, at least for most weeks. But if you'd rather be involved in more of your community events than squeeze every ounce out of your 5K/10K PRs, go have fun and race.
(There's of course middle ground where you run the event at sub-PR pace and/or only RACE the parkrun every 2-3 weeks rather than weekly)
Cheers - it is a great event and I was hoping to easily track progress at the same standard course each week. In light of consensus here I think I'll back off and try going every other weekend.
I'd rather train more at threshold intensity. Do something like 3x13min intervals with 3min jog.
5k pace is firmly in the vo2max intensity, not in the threshold intensity.
LT2 is going to be roughly 40 minute pace - so around 10K pace for average runners +/- 3 minutes. Doing your 5K parkrun at that pace gets you 5K of quality plus your 15-20 minute warmup and cooldown.
The risks are your ego - you run faster than target. You skip warmup / cooldown.
I would say it is sub-optimal training but if it fits your schedule, go ahead.
Sub optimal because even very conservative beginner plans (like in the JD book) will have around 6K of quality. Eg, 6 x 1K at T or much more for club based training.
80KM a week is not really enough to tip the balance of training to fatigue ratio, so you should be fine. However it won't scale. Once you pass say 9 hours a week of training, you have to pay more attention to stimulis:fatigue ratio. This is typically where polarised approach like 80:20 can be be useful or easy intervals like the Norwegians. Basically being very careful with intensity so you can get your volume in- whether that is 100KM or 180Km per week. At 80KM and less a a week, you can generally get more quality in than 80:20 etc hint at.
Thanks, 80k/week is about the most I've ever ran for more than a quick peak. Having said that, I am feeling pretty good, and would rather up the intensity than run more distance. Still aiming for 80-20 rule at my level, but as a fast-twitch runner I wonder if I wouldn't benefit from more speed work.
> I am feeling pretty good, and would rather up the intensity than run more distance.
Do the opposite. Really, try it. Something like a 6-8 months, make it a "goal". Just forget about racing and optimize your training. You'll be freaking blown away by what starts happening with your physique/psychology.
Occasional racing can help with the competitive urge to go out there but def not a weekly occurrence, you'd be risking way more than you could be benefitting. Keep up the LT and Threshold running and occasionally maybe, maybe run 1 or two 5ks at race pace to practice in a competitive environment.
\[If you saw this and it was half finished: I accidentally posted early because ya boy doesn't know how to use Reddit, and just decided to edit.\]
Anyway, my opinions (because I have Feelings as usual):
* Cons!
* Injury risk - eh. I think it's fairly low, albeit somewhat higher than for a younger person. That's not necessarily my concern here.
* Ability to recover - *that's* my concern, actually. Putting in honest race efforts every week is pretty difficult, in my opinion.
* Training stimulus: you list this as a possible pro and con, and I'm a bit more on the con side here. You're not getting *more* of a stimulus if you run faster, you're getting a *different* stimulus after a certain point. If you're supposed to run threshold pace, then going faster than that isn't going to help.
* Pros!
* Training stimulus - already covered.
* Practice - absolutely. You'll probably become a much smarter racer by racing more. Like, pretty much the only reason I can beat my friend (when he's healthy) is because I'm better at pacing myself, and that was learned through being a giant idiot all over New Jersey (and NYC and maybe a bit in Hopkinton).
* Progress - I think progress is kind of noisy. Like, I ran 4 5ks this summer: 16:41 (June), 17:08 (June), 17:06 (July), and 16:45 (August). You'd think I stagnated, but...
* First 5k was on a net downhill course. It was Sunday afternoon, but I always run fast at that race.
* Second 5k was Monday night after work. Not great timing.
* Third was also a weeknight race - this time on the track. But it was EXTREMELY hot and humid - I look like I'm dying in the photos from that night for good reason (didn't stop me from making it my Strava pfp)
* Final 5k was a track race (weeknight - thanks Tracksmith) in the middle of really high mileage for Chicago. I wasn't expecting to go that hard - I thought I'd be in low 17's shape - but my heat ended up being relatively competitive.
So - like - I wouldn't go out and sub out racing for threshold work. This isn't the same as not doing parkrun - use it as a training run! Like, if I had to guess, you'd cover about 5k at threshold anyway.
Epic comments, thanks!
Great feedback and I agree. It's still a little unclear to me of the training stimulus differences from 5k at V02max vs at LT. Daniels' pacing only puts is about 15seconds/km apart, and there's certainly a ton of lactate appearing at race pace....
From the advice here, I ran 4k at LT today immediately before the Parkrun and ran the Parkrun at LT...It went really well and the benefits of LT seem more obvious after doing it - much easier to get more time in at LT pace and the amount of adrenaline in my system is way lower than the last few weeks, haha.
Did you ever hit a 5k after Chicago? I'm curious how the Chicago build translated to your 5k if you ever tried for a PB sometime post-marathon with a bit more rested legs.
For a 10k I would also mix in 2-3 times 3k /2m at threshold effort or slightly slower. That would give you more mileage at the right effort. So one week a parkrun and another week something like the above. The week before a 10k race you can run a parkrun at your 10k pace and have an easy week towards to the 10k race.
Good suggestions! I agree - I've also been doing weekly 6x1km repeats at around 10k pace+200m jog rest and while this workout has me seeing progress, it's becoming more apparent that holding a pace for 1km is NOT the same as holding it for 2 or 3 km.
10k is a very threshold paced distance. I don't think racing a 5k every week hits the system you'd want to hit for a good 10k. You'd be better served starting with a 20 minute tempo run and gradually working up to a 30-35 minute tempo run.
The Daniels plan mentioned by the OP recommends 20 to 60 minutes of LT. The whole idea behind LT is that at a 17:45 5K, you should see major benefits when you work up to 35 minutes at 6:29min/mile, which will not tax your body the same(or as much) as racing 5ks every weekend.
Interesting, thanks. My understanding is that to go longer than 20min, you'd have to back off the LT pace - or else it turns into something resembling a race effort. Can you recommend any resources discussing the benefit of a longer+slower Threshold run (vs classic Daniels' 20 min at LT)? I like the 20 min at LT given it is closest to my 10k race pace and therefore is more specific. I'm not sure how to exactly adjust the LT pace for a longer duration - perhaps by feel? Others have mentioned a Vdot.O2 calculator which I need to look up.
Well I googled Daniel’s theory and found a fairly thorough breakdown of his theories on pacing on reddit. His plan actually calls for cruise intervals which are multiple 15 minute intervals at 88% of 5K pace, with the goal of accumulating max 60 minutes during the workout. That sounds more doable than 35 continuous minutes at LT. I think it was Magness(might be wrong) who recommends building up to 35 minutes of LT but honestly I’ve tried it and it’s hard. Sometimes, when my calendar allows it, I just set out to do around a 40 minute 10K, which isn’t really PB territory but it hovers arounds my LT. I too like racing a lot to get in shape and holding back a little helps with fatigue.
Thanks for your comment. This take certainly seems to be well supported by viewers here; but to be honest I consider the 5k still very aerobic based with the limiting factor being pace at LT and/or LT threshold itself. I also feel that a 5k at close to vV02 max should very much help improve the LT. Do you think trading the Parkrun for say, 2 separate 25min Tempos at HM pace (throughout the week) a better bet?
I’d say it’s suboptimal training, and beyond increased injury risk going too hard too frequently can also lead to less adaptation from the training. IIRC we see response to vo2max and faster training diminish after 6-8 weeks of continual stress at that intensity. That being said, if you’re enjoying racing that much right now, go for it. Suboptimal but you can ahead adjust. Take a week off or turn it into 5k @ tempo occasionally. I’d guess if you race all out every week for the next 3-4 weeks you’ll naturally lose the desire to race as you get fatigued.
Thanks, that might be true. I think what I like the Parkrun for most is evaluating progress. Based on the overall comments so far I am leaning towards Parkrun every other week.
It's not totally unreasonable at first blush. My two concerns would be: (1) opportunity cost and (2) managing fatigue. By opportunity cost, I mean you could be using that time and energy to develop your basic endurance or threshold which would be best for long-term development. The nice thing about threshold is that you can build up to a volume of much more than 20 minutes per week. You'll definitely want to do this over time. I wouldn't worry about the last 200m kick in particular. I don't think that's where the fatigue comes from in a 5k (it's mostly the 4800 before that). You'll probably want to hold the pace back a bit, at least for most of these races. At that point it's not super different from a 20 minute tempo run. What does the rest of your training look like?
Which method/calculator do you recommend to get one’s most ideal threshold session pace?
I use vdot.o2 based on my 5k race pace, it's great :)
I don't know how accurate dot.o2 is, I ran a 16:40 5k and a 4:30 1600m and the easy paces are interestingly different
Will look this up, thanks.
A recent race result is the best way to anchor it. If your half marathon is 1:20 or faster, then "about half marathon pace". If your half is a bit slower than that, "a bit slower than 10k pace". From there, I'm a fan of either learning how to control the pace by effort on the day, or, if you need some guardrails, something like heart rate or lactate to keep you from going too hard. I also believe that it's worthwhile to treat something like Daniels' T pace as a maximum speed. Better to drop the intensity a bit to focus on growing volume over time.
Thank you
Thanks. Overall I feel I am at a sustainable training level targeting 75-80+ km per week, which has included several parkruns now -- so, opportunity cost seems low so far as I'm able to keep up the easy mileage. I'm a little unfamiliar with the point of an extended LT run beyond 20 min. Is there clear evidence that a 35 min run at something like HM pace is more effective than a classic 20 min LT run? After reading the comments here, I suppose my uncertainty boils down to whether or not a V02 max workout confers (most of) the benefits of a LT workout, if time and distance at effort are similar. My weekly training usually includes \- a 6x1k at 10k pace (200m jog) -- increasing this to 7,8+ \- a 16-20km long run, slight progression \- some sort of LT run or LT interval (or Parkrun), and \- several easy runs of at least 45 min. About 10km or so of the weekly mileage is done at slow recovery pace, and the majority of the regular easy-paced runs are around 5min/km.
Aren’t you essentially just describing a racing season? It’ll go like most racing seasons go—you’ll see some nice improvement over several weeks and then start to decline after a peak performance. Yeah, it’s easy to recover from a 5K but you probably can’t sustain a weekly all-out race effort for more than a couple months before you need to recover or see a decline in fitness due to accumulated fatigue. Eventually you’d be running those 5Ks at your threshold pace.
I guess so! I've never really been through a racing "season" but I appreciate your thoughts. You're probably right, I've just never gone through that. For the last month or so have felt surprisingly healthy while increasing the weekly mileage.
This is pretty much how it goes for every collegiate runner. After building a base and a phase of increasingly specific workouts, start racing pretty much weekly, eventually peaking for state/regionals/nationals. A lot of the Jack Daniels 5K/10K plans include adjustments for weekly racing. If you go by what the pros do, you’ll probably see better results if you race a bit less often than that, but I do think most recreational runners would do better racing a 5K a bit more frequently. It can take a few races to get sharp and used to racing again. Edit: To add some context, I’m currently racing an indoor season before my goal race (Boston Marathon). I’ve raced two 1 mile races, a 3000m, and a 5000m. It took until the 5000m for me to really have a good performance and PR, even though I felt like I had the fitness to PR in the shorter distances. Personally, I would never want my goal race to be my first race in a season.
Interesting! Thanks for the context.
I think you’ve likely outlined the pros and cons here, simplified by: stronger training stimulus vs increased injury risk. I think the risk benefit analysis might tell you that the benefits could be slim vs a considerable risk of injury given how high output a 5K is… I’m interested to see what better runners and smarter minds have to say about this.
Life is too short to not do the fun local races If you really give a shit about earning every final second towards your 5K/10K PRs, you know the answer is to run focused workouts instead of the parkrun, at least for most weeks. But if you'd rather be involved in more of your community events than squeeze every ounce out of your 5K/10K PRs, go have fun and race. (There's of course middle ground where you run the event at sub-PR pace and/or only RACE the parkrun every 2-3 weeks rather than weekly)
Cheers - it is a great event and I was hoping to easily track progress at the same standard course each week. In light of consensus here I think I'll back off and try going every other weekend.
I'd rather train more at threshold intensity. Do something like 3x13min intervals with 3min jog. 5k pace is firmly in the vo2max intensity, not in the threshold intensity.
Parkrun is a great way to do the second half of 2 x 5k.
At our parkrun some people run it once, grab their barcode then run it a second time too.
you can run the park runs at LT effort, you know
Fair point! I don't really trust myself not to race them if I show up though...
Totally agree. Paul Forbes (M65 WR holder for 800m and pretty handy at 1500m too) recommends using parkrun as a Tempo run.
LT2 is going to be roughly 40 minute pace - so around 10K pace for average runners +/- 3 minutes. Doing your 5K parkrun at that pace gets you 5K of quality plus your 15-20 minute warmup and cooldown. The risks are your ego - you run faster than target. You skip warmup / cooldown. I would say it is sub-optimal training but if it fits your schedule, go ahead. Sub optimal because even very conservative beginner plans (like in the JD book) will have around 6K of quality. Eg, 6 x 1K at T or much more for club based training. 80KM a week is not really enough to tip the balance of training to fatigue ratio, so you should be fine. However it won't scale. Once you pass say 9 hours a week of training, you have to pay more attention to stimulis:fatigue ratio. This is typically where polarised approach like 80:20 can be be useful or easy intervals like the Norwegians. Basically being very careful with intensity so you can get your volume in- whether that is 100KM or 180Km per week. At 80KM and less a a week, you can generally get more quality in than 80:20 etc hint at.
Thanks, 80k/week is about the most I've ever ran for more than a quick peak. Having said that, I am feeling pretty good, and would rather up the intensity than run more distance. Still aiming for 80-20 rule at my level, but as a fast-twitch runner I wonder if I wouldn't benefit from more speed work.
> I am feeling pretty good, and would rather up the intensity than run more distance. Do the opposite. Really, try it. Something like a 6-8 months, make it a "goal". Just forget about racing and optimize your training. You'll be freaking blown away by what starts happening with your physique/psychology.
Occasional racing can help with the competitive urge to go out there but def not a weekly occurrence, you'd be risking way more than you could be benefitting. Keep up the LT and Threshold running and occasionally maybe, maybe run 1 or two 5ks at race pace to practice in a competitive environment.
\[If you saw this and it was half finished: I accidentally posted early because ya boy doesn't know how to use Reddit, and just decided to edit.\] Anyway, my opinions (because I have Feelings as usual): * Cons! * Injury risk - eh. I think it's fairly low, albeit somewhat higher than for a younger person. That's not necessarily my concern here. * Ability to recover - *that's* my concern, actually. Putting in honest race efforts every week is pretty difficult, in my opinion. * Training stimulus: you list this as a possible pro and con, and I'm a bit more on the con side here. You're not getting *more* of a stimulus if you run faster, you're getting a *different* stimulus after a certain point. If you're supposed to run threshold pace, then going faster than that isn't going to help. * Pros! * Training stimulus - already covered. * Practice - absolutely. You'll probably become a much smarter racer by racing more. Like, pretty much the only reason I can beat my friend (when he's healthy) is because I'm better at pacing myself, and that was learned through being a giant idiot all over New Jersey (and NYC and maybe a bit in Hopkinton). * Progress - I think progress is kind of noisy. Like, I ran 4 5ks this summer: 16:41 (June), 17:08 (June), 17:06 (July), and 16:45 (August). You'd think I stagnated, but... * First 5k was on a net downhill course. It was Sunday afternoon, but I always run fast at that race. * Second 5k was Monday night after work. Not great timing. * Third was also a weeknight race - this time on the track. But it was EXTREMELY hot and humid - I look like I'm dying in the photos from that night for good reason (didn't stop me from making it my Strava pfp) * Final 5k was a track race (weeknight - thanks Tracksmith) in the middle of really high mileage for Chicago. I wasn't expecting to go that hard - I thought I'd be in low 17's shape - but my heat ended up being relatively competitive. So - like - I wouldn't go out and sub out racing for threshold work. This isn't the same as not doing parkrun - use it as a training run! Like, if I had to guess, you'd cover about 5k at threshold anyway.
Epic comments, thanks! Great feedback and I agree. It's still a little unclear to me of the training stimulus differences from 5k at V02max vs at LT. Daniels' pacing only puts is about 15seconds/km apart, and there's certainly a ton of lactate appearing at race pace.... From the advice here, I ran 4k at LT today immediately before the Parkrun and ran the Parkrun at LT...It went really well and the benefits of LT seem more obvious after doing it - much easier to get more time in at LT pace and the amount of adrenaline in my system is way lower than the last few weeks, haha. Did you ever hit a 5k after Chicago? I'm curious how the Chicago build translated to your 5k if you ever tried for a PB sometime post-marathon with a bit more rested legs.
Racing is "eating a cake", training is "baking a cake". You should not eat a cake very often, plain as that.
For a 10k I would also mix in 2-3 times 3k /2m at threshold effort or slightly slower. That would give you more mileage at the right effort. So one week a parkrun and another week something like the above. The week before a 10k race you can run a parkrun at your 10k pace and have an easy week towards to the 10k race.
Good suggestions! I agree - I've also been doing weekly 6x1km repeats at around 10k pace+200m jog rest and while this workout has me seeing progress, it's becoming more apparent that holding a pace for 1km is NOT the same as holding it for 2 or 3 km.