Advice on Sub 17 5k?

I’d try that workout again with a 2:30 recovery and see if you recover as well as you do with 3:00 recovery. That’s a good sign of progress.

btw check out my running channel on YouTube, I’ve got a fully detailed sub 17:00 5k plan and another workout video specific to sub 17:00 5k. You might find it helpful.

Top of The Line Running is the name of the channel.

All the best,

Jason

You’ve improved so much so fast!! My coach used to say the fastest runners are the ones that can stay healthiest the longest. With that much improvement, I think you can easily expect to keep improving and break 17 soon as long as you give your body a chance to rest before it breaks. Something like true slow rest days three days a week, and a couple days per month of not running at all. It’s so hard to not want to keep pushing when you’re getting results, but your body will keep delivering if you give it rest.

Thanks a lot TaylorSailor! I was about 55lbs heavier a year ago (I'm 28 now, stacked it on the past few years...) so that definitely helps. The body (mainly feet and ankles) have been getting a bit battered as I approached 60mile weeks (which is the highest I've ever done). I currently take one rest day a week so hopefully that gives a bit of a chance to recover...

I'm keen to see what happens on race day now :D

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

jiggymeister wrote:

Jan,

I challenge you to provide scientific reasoning behind your universal "120 bpm" threshold.

Then we have to go back to the early days of the 1930-1960 and the great German coach Woldemar Gerschler and his compatriot Ph Reindell .

http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=129https://www.newintervaltraining.com/old-interval-training.php

I'm sorry, but there is no reasoning in the article you linked. They only state the procedure, not the reasoning behind it.

jiggymeister wrote:

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

Then we have to go back to the early days of the 1930-1960 and the great German coach Woldemar Gerschler and his compatriot Ph Reindell .

http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=129https://www.newintervaltraining.com/old-interval-training.php

I'm sorry, but there is no reasoning in the article you linked. They only state the procedure, not the reasoning behind it.

One can find many indicators of improved performance. One can redo just any workout and look for improvements in terms of avg pace, pace progression, HR levels and progression, etc. It does not necessarily correlate 100% to race performance. 120 bmp is in my opinion troublesome in many senses.

First it is a dividable on 10 so it is adapted to our numbering system. Not sure that is very scientific and obviously it is a somewhat rough number.

Secondly, max HR, and resting HR can vary greatly btw athletes so 120 in terms of what percentage of the practical HR scale between resting HR and max HR will vary a lot. 120 is 60% of a max HR of 200. If i have 180 in max HR it will be 67%, and if 220 -> 55%. A well trained person could have a HR fall rate of 1 beat/sec of resting so a +/-5% variation can translate to +/-10s rest, ie. using this on a 180 max HR guy compared to a 220 max HR guy can make the first start the next rep 20s before the latter...

Thirdly this does not account for excess caridac drift due to hot weather, but I guess JS would account for that..

Forth point, I am not sure I have seen any science supporting that guiding rest by HR is the way. If the workout is quite hard it makes sense to control the rest and there are probably many drivers of HR that are elevated during hard efforts. If the lactate is below LT I would guess these drivers are less and the rest excess of 20-30s is not really that important. I recon this workout is harder than LT effort? At least it is a very simple way to control the rest time and if you go too hard at it the HR will be elevated longer needing more rest.

Well Jon Arne, Gerschler and Reindell scientifically tested out about 3000 runners and we all of course know that 3000 runners have different max heart rates.My method just use this old golden knowledge in a new smart way in combination with Lydiard's LSD (Long Steady Distance ) and then race results correlate close to 100 % to predictions.

jiggymeister wrote:

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

Then we have to go back to the early days of the 1930-1960 and the great German coach Woldemar Gerschler and his compatriot Ph Reindell .

http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=129https://www.newintervaltraining.com/old-interval-training.php

I'm sorry, but there is no reasoning in the article you linked. They only state the procedure, not the reasoning behind it.

Then you didn't read the second article I attached?

jiggymeister wrote:

SUPERIOR COACH J.S 1 wrote:

Then we have to go back to the early days of the 1930-1960 and the great German coach Woldemar Gerschler and his compatriot Ph Reindell .

http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=129https://www.newintervaltraining.com/old-interval-training.php

I'm sorry, but there is no reasoning in the article you linked. They only state the procedure, not the reasoning behind it.

Then you didn't read the second article I attached?

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

Thirdly this does not account for excess caridac drift due to hot weather, but I guess JS would account for that..

Hahahahahahaha

Good joke!

J.S the man wrote:

Then you didn't read the second article I attached?

I just did.

Still, there is no mention of why 120 bpm was chosen as the holy grail value.

Quick update: I just did a 5x1k workout with 90 sec jog.

The splits were: 3:19 - 3:18 - 3:16 - 3:18 - 3:09 - average jog pace 8:30/mile.

What do you guys think I'll be able to pull off on race day given these times with the mile times above?

Cheers.

You're probably somewhere between 16:30 and 17. But if you keep looking at workouts as a "race predictor", you're setting yourself up for failure. Run the workouts, then run the race, then go back and look at how the two could be related.

NewbieRunner1 wrote:

Quick update: I just did a 5x1k workout with 90 sec jog.

The splits were: 3:19 - 3:18 - 3:16 - 3:18 - 3:09 - average jog pace 8:30/mile.

What do you guys think I'll be able to pull off on race day given these times with the mile times above?

Cheers.

Drew P. Knutzak wrote:

NewbieRunner1 wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes this post is serious to those asking. Alright I'll start off at 17min pace and work it down if theres anything left over the last few km.

I would give wizard Coach JS a chance. He actually is good coaching.

Out from your last workout 3:19- 3:18 - 3:16 - 3:18-3:09 , 5 x 1000m with 90 sec easy jog between at 8:30 mile pace a qualificated guess would be that you can hold 3:15 / km or slightly over ( that last 3:09 looks like you had a lot left in the tank) and then 16:15-16:30 at 5 k.

Good luck! :)

You definitely can run sub 17 with that workout