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Since August, I've started running. I never did much of sports before with lots of movement because of my blister forming condition (luckily I have the mild, simplex, variant), but it seems that the conditioned environment in my gym is OK for running and sports in general without (much) blisters. I do this to show off to myself: Even if I have a medical condition, I can still do things I never did before because of the lame excuse of that same condition.

My normal workout routine, 2 to 3 days a week is a warmup (cross trainer, 10 min.), free weights (around 1h.) and then running. I started running as a cardio exercise, but more and more I feel addicted to it.

I progressed from nothing to under a 6:00 pace on the 5km. following a (variant of the) C25K program. My steady pace is around 6:40 (9 km/h). I am a 36 year old male, 180cm / 74kg (5'11" / 163 lbs)

Goals:

  1. 5K under 30 min. (check)
  2. 60 minutes of running (I'm now doing 40 min @ 6:40 and feel that I can do 1 hour, but am not hurrying this too much to prevent injuries)
  3. 10K under 60 min. (effectively lowering my pace to 6:00 on the long run).
  4. 5K under 25 min. and even better, under 22 min.

How should I train to reach my latter two goals?

What I am now trying to do:

  • day 1: long run (steady pace, but add some minutes to the former run)
  • day 2: kind of HIIT (just restarted the same C25K program, but doing 9km/h for my slow pace and 12 km/h for sprint pace, eventually this should bring me to 5K in 25 minutes)
  • day 3: short run (5K with 6:00 pace and increasing speed near the finish if I feel for it)

This is a schedule I feel myself comfortable with, but maybe you can help me with improvements or advise in general.

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I would start adding extra runs on your other days, until you are able to run 4-6 days per week easily. Running isn't as much about how hard you work (Although that is a factor to some extent), but how much you work.

The more intensity that you add to your running, the more you increase your chance for injury, especially if you don't have a lot of base miles/background in running. For your program, I would keep the 3 days as you have it, and add 5-10 minutes extra twice a week. Keep those extra workouts, and gradually increase the distance until you have it up to 25 minutes or so for each day.

Once you've gotten to the point where you are running 5 days a week without issues, then you can start adding some speedwork to your runs, by doing short spurts at or near race pace, something like 8 x :30 seconds at race pace in the middle of a 4 or 5 mile run. You can also start gradually increasing distance.

One of the best summations I ever saw for running was "Run. Run lots. Mostly slow, sometimes fast."

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  • Thank you. I'm now thinking about doing some running out in the open (in the cold months it is feasible for my skin), those two additional days would make a good starting point.
    – AutomatedChaos
    Nov 19, 2013 at 7:07
  • @AutomatedChaos - Sure, just dress in layers for warmth, and you may need to use lotion or other moisturizer to keep skin from becoming dry/cracking. I ran cross country in college in temps down to -15 Fahrenheit.
    – JohnP ♦
    Nov 19, 2013 at 14:23

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