Guys, no doubt its been asked a million times already so sorry for that. But im looking to do a bit more running, i did the C25K last year and i lost a bit of weight and kept running, im doing 5k in 32 or so mins, ive also done a few 10k runs, at around 1 hour 5 mins. So pretty slow all round.
Basically i want to get faster, im gonna be 40 this year, and i want to get my times down and hopefully in the process, lose some more weight, can anyone suggest any techniques,ideally i'd like to be running 5k in 25mins, realistically how long does take to get to those times from 32 mins! Most of my running is on the road, im also going to be doing a park run now that they do one in my town.
Any advice appreciated.
It depends on your current weight, genetics and the time you have to train.
In April 2014 I started running more seriously after trying to diet in the previous months but not having fun at it. Last November I ran a 3:01 Marathon, I haven't raced shorter courses but that translate into about a 18:30 5K, 38:30 10K for reference. In that time I dropped weight form 80kg down to 64kg (now around 66, intend to be 62kg on race day). I'm a few years younger than you.
So I made good progress in about 18 months. However, I was fairly active before and did a lot of hiking. My very first runs were already in the 3 to 4 mile range, i didn't age to build up to that and I found it easy to get to 10-12 miles over a few months training. Moreover, I dedicated a lot fo time to running. In the last 6 months that has been 60-80 miles per week, 6-7 days for 1 to 3 hours. Plus swimming, cycling and some core-strength exercises.
The key to improved fitness and run times is simply to put the hours in. The more you run, the more adaptions your body makes, the faster you can run. The important part is that most of your running should be at an easy conversational pace, no need to go hard every run. A little hard work goes a very long way, too much hard running will cause injuries and even if you survive that then you have to realize you don;t actually gain much by always running very hard. Many of the important adaptions occur only at lower effort levels, e.g. the ability to burn fat, increasing mitochondria, increased blood capillaries, reinforcing slow-twitch muscles, stronger more efficient heart muscles, stronger muscular-skeletal system. Recovery is also important to realize the benefits of the hardwork you put in to training.
I suggest you increase your running volume, very slowly. Depending on what you are doing now you can add about 10% of your volume, or 1 mile on every run you do n a week. Then hold that for 2 to 3 weeks, then have a cut back where you drop maybe 20%, the following week go back as you were, and then add the next 10% step and hold it for 2-3 weeks. Repeat. Ignore any hard running in this period, no track workouts, intervals. Trail running and hills are the exception, in moderation but not the week that you have increased the miles.
Increasing running volume is also easier the more times you run in a week obviously. 5 days a week gives plenty of time for recovery so if you are doing less then you can certainly add a day. best not to do this when you have just added 10%. of volume, do it a week you are holding steady. Keep the volume the same but spread over an extra run. Each run wll thus be shorter and easier but you have given yourself less recovery days so your body must learn to cope with that. Eventually you can hit 6 days without concern. 7 day, and beyond (e.g., running twice a day) needs a lot of care to recover and watch out for injuries. It still requires rest days but you don;t think of 7 day period but e.g.,2 weeks of running and then a weekend off because you are on vacation, and the acceptance that sometimes you will just have to cancel running plans and take it easy.
Do this until you have basically maxed out your time commitment to running. You can break it into cycles though., so do the above for 3 months and then for 1 month throw in some quality training runs likes 800m repeats on a track, then another 2 months of building your volume.
While building your volume you can cycle and swim, work on core and leg strength. You can do very hard intervals/VO2Max session swimming or on a bike without interfering with the base building you are doing running.
