5k Friday: Your 12 Week 5k Training Program, Week 3

Your 12 Week 5k Training Program, Week 3

By the end of last week, you were running up to running two minute intervals, with walk breaks of only 30 seconds. Hurray for you! (Just getting started? Here’s week one.) Hopefully, you’ve been following the plan, resting when prescribed, icing, stretching, etc. Our goal for this week is to bring the running up to five minutes straight! Let’s get started.

Remember, you always want to start your workout with a warm up, and for now, it will be walking briskly for 8-10 minutes. And always take about five minutes at the end of the workout to cool down, nice easy walking is best.

Day One: You’re going to start with last week’s Day Five workout. After your warm-up, run for two minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Repeat five more times. Finish with your cool down. Do not skip the stretching and icing.

Day Two: Kind of a mixed bag workout. After your warm up, run for two minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Now, run for three minutes. Walk for one minute. Run for two minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Run for three minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Run for two minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Run for three and a half minutes. Cool down. (If you feel like you need a little longer break after the longer intervals, please go ahead, but don’t walk for too long.)

Day Three: Still your rest day. Yoga, weights, etc. are okay.

Day Four: After your warm up, run for three minutes. Walk for one minute, then run for four minutes. Walk for 30 seconds, then run for three minutes. Walk for 30 seconds. Run for four minutes. One minute walk, then a final three minute run. Cool down, stretch, ice.

Day Five: Complete rest today, we’ve got a big one tomorrow.

Day Six: After your warm up, run for four minutes. Walk for one minute. Run for five minutes. Walk for one minute. Repeat both intervals. Cool down, stretch ice.

Day Seven: Rest. You had a tough week, but look what you’ve accomplished! A total of 18 minutes of running with very little walking time. You can do some strength training, etc. but complete rest is okay, too.

Week three is complete! Congratulations. Next week, we’ll add another running day and increase those running intervals a little more.

Running Faster

Refer back to this post for information on whether you’re ready to add speed to your workout, how to find your goal pace, reasons for each workout as well as the first week of workouts to add to your training.

The Workouts

The Long Run: This week add one half mile to your run on one day of the week.

The Interval Workout: After your four-lap warm up, run 800 meters at about your goal 5k pace (that’s two times around the track). Walk or jog for 200 meters. Repeat two more times. Finish with a cool down and a good stretch.

The Lactate Threshold Workout: This week we are doing this by time instead of mileage. Warm up for eight minutes. Run at a pace about 20 seconds slower than your goal 5k pace for five minutes. Jog for three minutes. Depending on your current mileage abilities, repeat once or twice more (don’t exceed the mileage of your “long run” day). Cool down for five more minutes and finish with a stretch.

Remember, in addition to these workouts, you can run another one-three days during the week, nice easy, shorter runs (recovery runs). A sample schedule can be found in the last post.

Keep up the good work! See you next week. Click here for week four.