5K Training Plan
🗓️ 4 Weeks
Your four weeks will include interval training, tempo training, and strength training. You’ll also have easy runs and long runs, which you should complete at a conversational pace. Of course, you’ll also have rest days throughout.
For all these reasons, we teamed up with Lindsey Clayton, a certified run coach, cofounder of the Brave Body Project, and chief instructor at Barry’s in New York City to create this 5K treadmill workout plan.
To do a timed mile: “After your warmup, your first timed mile should be at an effort level of 8 out of 10. Start off at 5K pace and gradually increase after you hit a half mile. After you finish and recover, reassess if you could have pushed harder at the beginning or if you pushed too hard. Try to progress your speed in your second timed mile, even if it’s just a second or two faster!”
If you’re not sure of your race paces, use your rate of perceived exertion (RPE). RPE is scale of 1 to 10 to judge effort level, says Clayton. A jog is a 5 out of 10, easy running is a 6, moderate running is a 7, hard running is an 8, and an all-out effort is a 9 or 10. From there, you can figure out what effort level corresponds to a specific treadmill speed for you.
10K Training Plan
🗓️ 6 Weeks
Feel free to shift this plan forward a day or back a day depending on what works best for your schedule. As it’s written, you’ll rest every Monday. (The option to do cross-training or rest instead of running is also baked into every Friday.) Wednesdays are for speed workouts, and Saturdays are your long runs—which are mostly easy effort but also work in some intensity via various intervals. Along with these two key workout days, relaxed sessions with strides round out the rest of your week.
David Roche, three-time member of Team USA, run coach based in Boulder, Colorado, and host of the Some Work, All Play podcast:
“The pace your treadmill says could be 30 seconds off from how fast you’re actually moving, and even if it’s perfectly calibrated, the way it feels on the treadmill doesn’t translate exactly to how that pace will feel outdoors,” says Roche. “All you’re doing when you’re focused on pace on the machine is finding out your 10K treadmill pace. So instead, think about your effort.”
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