ARTICLES
How to run a sub 15 minute 5k - Armagh 2019
This document details my progression from being in around 16:30 minute 5k pace to running 14:46 for 5k in the space of about 18 weeks. My previous 5k best before the race was 15:19 from 1 year before. During the period, I averaged 110 kilometres per week and separated my training into 3 phases, base build, introduction of speed and then sharpening. I firmly believe that any runner in 16:30 shape could take this plan and replicate its outcome.
Overview
This document is basically a brain dump of what I did in training from October in 2018 to February 2019, ending in the Armagh 5k road race on the 14th of February where I ran 14:46. It consists of 18 weeks of training. I am based in Dublin, Ireland. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments on this doc (comment directly on the doc or drop me an email, contact details are in the header of this doc).
Running a sub 15 minute 5k has been a goal of mine for the last 2 years. My best time up to now had been 15:18 in the Jingle Bells 5k 2017 (which is a net downhill PB course).
While I didn’t originally set out to focus specifically towards this race (I consider myself a marathon runner primarily, I had thought about doing Seville marathon which was on 3 days after Armagh), I felt that my fitness over short distances was in a good place at Christmas and since I had the time to qualify for Armagh entry I might as well go for a fast time in Armagh instead (I ran 15:29 in Dec 2018 during this training block, sub 16 minute time is required for qualification to Armagh).
I will try to highlight in the training what I think worked or what I would possibly leave out /change if I were to do it again. All of my runs are publicly viewable on Strava here. For this block I was self coached. Last year, I was working with Stephen Scullion as my coach from April until July 2018 when I was injured.
Armagh 5k History
A little bit about the Armagh international 5k for those unfamiliar, from the Armagh 5k website:
“The 2019 edition of the Brooks Armagh 5K International Road Race celebrates the 29th anniversary of this iconic event now ranked as the best and most popular road race in the world.
This has come about through the incredible in-depth, consistent standard of the Men’s 5K over many years. This has been highlighted by the fact that no other race brings together so many athletes running under 15 minutes – in the 2018 race there were 95 runners who recorded sub-15 times!
The event is organised by Armagh Athletic Club and attracts athletes of the highest elite standards from all over the world – last time out no fewer than 195 of the 264 runners in the Men’s 5k were from outside the island of Ireland.”
Here is a video of the finish Armagh 5k 2019, its something else to watch:
Training History 2018
I started 2018 injured with an injury in my lower left foot. I was able to get back training at the end of January and then run 2:30:48 in Seville marathon at the end of February. I then started to focus on 5k distance with the aim to break 15 minutes in the summer. To do this, I started using Stephen Scullion as a coach. Training was going very well and at the end of June 2018 I ran 9:02 on the track for 3km but got injured during the race (lower left foot ligament issue). Multiple attempts to rest and come back failed which meant I had to also drop out of Berlin marathon in September (for July to September I was not able to put together more than 10 days of consecutive training). While starting to come back mid September I came off my bike cycling to work which caused a back issue and a number of other leg issues forcing me to rest again for a number of weeks. This brings us up to October 2018 where after some weeks of rest I was able to resume training.
Training patterns
I made some very conscious decisions in this training block after studying a number of runners on Strava and reading Jack Daniels’ Running Formula a number of times:
I would attempt to get my easy running pace down to the low 4 minute per km mark. I would prioritise consistency and aim to be consistent in my running and running volume. I would not exceed more than two quality sessions in a week. I would always hit my long run on the weekend. I would aim to run at the same time of day every day. Based on experience, I always run better in the earlier part of the day between 10am-1pm. I would take rest days whenever my body needed them. I would hit strength and conditioning classes at least once per week.
To facilitate this (and since I tend to have to do oncall for my job which requires me to be at my keyboard within 5 minutes of being paged, I cannot leave the house for a run while on call. Oncall runs from 7am to 7pm), I bought a treadmill which allows me to run at home while on call.
Training Anti-patterns
In the past I have hit off 2 anti-patterns while training. I attempted to avoid these in this training block:
I execute training and get results. Rather than then continuing with the same training which is working and getting results, I increase training load, over train or over adjust (for example, switch to 3 hard sessions a week) and then get injured. I execute training and don’t get results. I then execute the same training again and expect different results. This is probably more common than the first item. We tend to gravitate towards what we know.
The Importance of Consistency
This is a word that comes up constantly whenever you read articles about running. It’s been in my face for years but I feel like this is the first training block I have prioritised it. In this block I aimed to focus on being consistent with a number of things:
Mileage - Aim for a consistent mileage throughout the training block. This ended up being around 110 km per week. Max of 2 quality sessions per week, Tuesday and Friday. Always doing long run on a Sunday, 10am in the Phoenix park (unless I am oncall) Consistency in my diet and snacking. Consistency in how I layout my week (e.g. always 10 miles on a Monday easy at lunch).
You obviously need to be flexible if you have plans for a weekend but should still aim to get the same mileage and runs in every week. It will then become routine.
The Importance of Strength & Conditioning
One of my favorite pieces of text on why a strong core is important:
”’ To understand why strength training betters running form it is helpful to think of running form as a chassis on a race car. For example, Formula 1 race cars hold themselves together by being built of lightweight and super-strong carbon fiber frames that hold form even at maximum speeds around 215 mph and forces five times the weight of gravity.
By rigidly holding their form, F1 race cars efficiently move energy from their engine through wheels into forward motion. Without such strength, F1 race cars would lose power and speed to flex in their frames and wobble in their misaligned wheels. A strong chassis is key to F1 race car’s performance.
Similar to a race car’s chassis, good running form also translates power into efficient forward motion. Running with good biomechanics transfer most of your effort into forward motion. Running with a wobbly axle (see hips) or sagging frame (see core) wastes forward motion and energy is lost in excess body movement. Having the strength to maintain good form makes a huge difference in forward momentum. “’
For the last 2 years I have put a big emphasis on strength and conditioning. Throughout this phase I have maintained one class a week with Peter Matthews in Dublin Sports Clinic. I would prefer to be getting two classes in but that tends to be a challenge for me with oncall lately. These classes are run on Wednesday and Friday mornings from 8am to 9am and focused towards runners.
Working with Peter and also Dr. Joe Conway, I have also gotten to the bottom of an injury which has plagued my training for years causing multiple issues on my left side. New Garmin heart rate monitors and watches support measuring ground contact time balance. Ground Contact Time Balance measures your symmetry as you run by monitoring the balance between your left and right foot ground contact time (GCT). It is always displayed as a percentage greater than 50% with an arrow to the left or right, to show which foot is on the ground longer. My tendency to spend more time on my left than my right results in lots of injuries on my left side.
By working with Peter and Joe and focusing on exercises to counteract this (exercises which can help with alignment such as knee rolls with yoga block, kettlebell cross body swing), I have been able to reduce my GCT imbalance over the block. From the graph below you can see the trend going down over time from over to 51 to closer to 50. This has been the single biggest factor in getting my running consistent and avoiding injury.
Training Layout
I broke the training up into 3 different sections which are fairly standard:
- Base building - I had been out for a while so decided to use 4 weeks of base building to get used to mileage again.
- Introduction of speed - I introduced 1 quality session into the week along with the long run initially, I then switched to two. I put one race in this phase to see whereabouts my fitness is at. Every 4 weeks or so, I then added another race to see where my fitness was.
- Sharpening - This phase was to do some very specific workouts focused on sharpening and practicing race pace for the 5k. This only last 3 weeks. I followed Ben Barrow’s layout for this final phase (see section later on resources used).
Base Period
The base period involved no quality sessions. By no quality I mean no short or long reps, or any tempo sessions. These sessions put a lot of stress on the body and are not necessary during the base period. However, it doesn’t mean everything in the base period should be run easy. The way I approached this was to alternate days paces so you alternate easier and harder paces. This for me involves alternating between around 140 bpm and 150 bpm heart rate. This means one day feels like you are pushing a bit harder and the next day you feel like you are running easier. At the start of this phase the pace is about 4:21 for harder 150 bpm and 4:30 for easier 140bpm.
The base period still has a long run and it can sometimes be on the faster side of things. An example base period week is shown below:
Day | Distance | Heart Rate | Pace |
---|---|---|---|
Mon | 13.5 | 150 | 4:10 |
Tue | 16 | 140 | 4:20 |
Wed | 10.5 | 150 | 4:10 |
Thu | 16 | 140 | 4:20 |
Fri | 15 | 140 | 4:20 |
Sat | 13 | 150 | 4:10 |
Sun | 22 | 156 | 4:05 |
The volumes for the 4 weeks is shown below:
The idea here is to get easy heart rate pace down. About 4 weeks in my 140 bpm heart rate pace had gone down from 4:20/km to ~4:12/km. Main things to note here:
I aimed to still have some days off sprinkled into the weeks, there were 3 days off over the 4 weeks. I started off with 2 days off in the first week. One long run a week of at least 20 km. The long runs can contain some progressive work (starting slow and finishing faster), I started to do this even from the first week (but with very little progression). For this you start slow and comfy and finish the last 3-4km close to a tempo pace. It gets you to touch off a bit speed.
I would say at the very start of this phase (Oct 15th) I would have been capable of running a 16:35 5k (vo2max of 62). Note that I was in not too bad shape starting the base period (intermittent weeks of running with a long running injury meant I kept some level of fitness). The final 27 km long run of this phase averaged 3:56/km with a HR of 160 vs 4:07/km pace for the first 20 km long run with a HR of 156 so a good bit of a jump in fitness.
Introduction of Speed
I decided to start to introduce speed slowly. After 4 weeks of base (really this should have been longer) I started to add 1 session per week. Sessions are marked in orange, races in red and long runs in dark green. A circle represents a different run (for example on orange days you will typically see 2 smaller green circles, 1 for warm up and 1 for cool down).
The first quality session I added in was a 6 x 1km rep session on the 14th of Nov (Reps in 3:15, 3:16, 3:13, 3:12, 3:11, 3:11 with 60 sec recovery, so a very honest effort given the short recovery). My plan was to go for Jingle Bells 5k to see where I was at in a few weeks so I wanted to cover at least 5 km distance in reps. Long run of 26k was then done at 3:46/km with a HR of 162 so already another big jump that week.
The following week I only was able to fit in 3 x 1k (24th of Nov) as I was jetlagged (so its marked as a 0.5 session). I did manage to fit in a solid effort on the 29 km long run that week.
The following week then I did a speed mix session (2 x 1k, 5 x 400m, 1 x 2k) on the Tuesday. It was a weird session as the wind was tough so I decided to mix it up (I also find 1km reps tough and boring). I then raced on the following Saturday. I was able to run 15:29 chip time in the Jingle Bells 5k. This was a good speed session to understand where I was.
I was very happy with getting 11 seconds away from my PB (15:18) by doing only 2.5 speed sessions and a 7 week build up. I found this the biggest eye opener of the whole training period, you don’t need to be doing quality sessions to actually get a decent base level of fitness.
A week in this period as an example had the following layout:
Day | Type | Distance | Heart Rate | Pace |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mon | Easy | 16 | 145 | 4:10 |
Tue | Quality | 6 x 1km | ||
Wed | Steady | 14 | 150 | 4:10 |
Thu | Easy | 12.8 | 142 | 4:16 |
Fri | Easy | 12 + strides | 148 | 4:09 |
Sat | Race | Jingle Bells 5k | ||
Sun | Long | 26 | 154 | 4:04 |
Note that the easy pace days are still fast (and throughout remain so). I want my HR to be in the 140s, for me this is about 75% of my max HR (my max is 186). I see little to no value in running slow KMs with my HR in the 120s, I believe you would be better off resting for the day than bothering to run so slow. I believe this is the reason for me getting my fitness into the shape it is in (and it’s the same approach I see dozens of other sub 15 5k runners on Strava take).
The way the weeks were laid out here was normally:
- Monday - Easy 10 miles
- Tuesday - Quality session
- Wednesday - Steady 8-10 miles (means slightly faster than easy pace)
- Thursday - Easy 9 miles
- Friday - Easy 9 miles or day off
- Saturday - Steady or Easy (if tomorrows run is progressive)
- Sunday - Long run (progressive or steady)
For 3 weeks I only used 1 quality session. I also used 2 rest days during this period. In the next period I reduce the days off and increase to 2 x Q.
Moving then to 2 x Quality Sessions
The way I laid this out was like the following, with Friday getting the second quality session:
- Monday - Easy 10 miles (16km)
- Tuesday - Quality session
- Wednesday - Steady 8-10 miles (12.8-16 km)
- Thursday - Easy 9 miles (14.4km)
- Friday - Quality session
- Saturday - Steady or Easy (if tomorrows run is progressive) (14.4km)
- Sunday - 23-29 km, Long run (progressive or steady)
Doing the quality on Tuesday and Friday gives the body time to recover. Some people like to do Tue/Thu/Sat sessions (and then a long run Sunday!!!!). I find this insane, and the quickest way to injure yourself for some very, very short term gains.
The 5 weeks up to the fields of Athenry 10km and the Tom Brennan 5k are shown below:
Doing two races here so close was not ideal (26th of Dec, 1st of Jan). I would not do this again. I definitely had not recovered enough between them. The quality sessions were the following:
- Dec 6th - 3 x 10 min tempo (3:21 pace, 2 min recovery)
- Dec 9th - 26 km long, 3:53 pace
- Dec 12th - 8 x 1km, 3:10 pace (moved this one day out due to weather)
- Dec 15th - 10km straight tempo, 33:58 total time
- Dec 16th - 26 km, 3:56 pace
- Dec 18th - Lumberjack (see below)
- Dec 22nd - 20 km long, 4:00 pace (done on a Sat to keep more rest between race day)
Lumberjack workout is one that should be used sparingly. It basically consists of a tempo and interval session combined (4 miles of tempo and 12 x 400m). It consists of:
- 4 x 400m (~74 sec) with 30 sec rest
- 2min rest
- 2 mile tempo (~3:18/km)
- 2 min rest
- 4 x 400 (~72 sec) with 45 sec rest
- 2 min rest
- 2 mile tempo (~3:16/km)
- 2 min rest
- 4 x 400 (<70 sec) with 1 min rest
Some things to note as part of this:
- If weather is bad, move the session (or do on treadmill, only for tempo)
- If you are feeling tired, move sessions out by a day. It’s better to do a good quality session a day late than a bad quality session just because you want days to line up.
- Always hit your long run, never sacrifice this run.
Raheny 5 Mile Buildup
Next phase was the build up to the Raheny 5 miler, the approach is identical to the previous 2 quality session approach. If you have a race on a week, drop a quality session:
The 3 weeks included the following workouts and one rest day (I really didn’t need a rest day here but I ended up away on the drink in Galway for the day so decided to skip the run in favor of letting off a bit of steam):
- Jan 8th - 7 x 1km @3:07 pace, w/ 90 sec rec, 3:04, 3:04, 3:01, 3:02, 3:06, 3:05, 3:05
- Jan 11th - Tempo, 3 x 2 mile 90 sec recovery, 3:17
- Jan 13th - 28 km long run, 3:58 pace
- Jan 15th - 8 x 1km w/ 80 sec rec, 3:05, 3:03, 3:04, 3:06, 3:05, 3:05, 3:04, 3:02
- Jan 18th - Tempo, 10k straight 32:30 (Massive confidence booster)
- Jan 20th - 24km, 3:58 pace
- Jan 23rd - 16 x 400 (30 rest and 2m between each set of 4)
- Jan 27th - Race Raheny 5 miler, I ran 24:59 in this.
Raheny was a bit of a disaster, I experienced a good few hiccups in this race. The wind wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but my hr monitor fell off and I had to go back and pick it up around 3k. Then my lace came undone. I then dropped the hr monitor a second time and decided to just leave it, luckily a Crusader picked it up for me. I was really happy with this all things considered. Plugging this race into Jack Daniels gives me a 15:06 5km even with all the disasters (having to turn back and run to pick up HR monitor meant losing at least 13 seconds). This was a real confidence booster, I knew now to break 15 I just needed to maintain course.
Note my average pace in December over all runs was 4:08/km, my average pace for January was 4:03/km.
Sharpening - Armagh 5k Final BuildUp
The final build up to the Armagh 5k is shown below. In this phase I added some race specific workouts, there were 4 main workouts with one final tuneup:
- Jan 30th - 8km tempo (3:16/km)
- Feb 2nd - Lumberjack workout (see earlier description)
- Feb 3rd - 24 km long run, 4:01 pace
- Feb 5th - Stepdown ladder (see below)
- Feb 8th - Tempo 4 x 2 km w/ 90 sec recovery (3:20/km pace)
- Feb 9th - 19 km long run, 4:03 pace (shorter and on Sat to keep recovery longer for race)
- Feb 11th - Final tuneup, 4 x (400m 72s 1 min rest 300m 51s 1 min rest 200m 33s 3 min rest)
The Stepdown ladder consists of the following, this was another big confidence booster. I felt so comfy on the 1600m, this was a very easy session:
- 1600m (Time: 4:44) 2:30 min rest
- 1200m (Time: 3:32) 2:30 min rest
- 800m (Time: 2:19) 2:30 min rest
- 600m (Time: 1:42) 2:30 min rest
- 400m (Time: 66s) 2:30 min rest
- 300m (Time: 46s) 1:30 min rest
- 100m (Time: 15s)
I didn’t taper much before the race, I just kept my long run 5 days away from the race to give my body sufficient time to recover. Even easy runs up to the day were at 4:05 pace.
Race Day
I took the day off work and got a good night’s sleep before. I did a shake out a few hours before (5km run to get the blood flowing in the body and get all systems working, ideally this is done 3 hours before but with a night race I guess it doesn’t make too much difference and so I did it about 8 hours before).
For the race, you need to be up to collect the number before 7pm (race starts at 8.30pm so you will have some waiting around to do). We left Dublin at 16:30 to give ourselves plenty of time with traffic on the N1 (and only got there at 18:35). Below is a map of the layout of everything, we drove in the A3 and were able to get down the Mall W road easily and then drive up and park on college hill.
My Garmin logs are here for the run (for Strava, go here). I clocked in at 14:45 on my watch and 14:46 by the gun time (there is no chip time in this race, only gun). Note also the distance shown in Garmin/Strava, it recorded 140 metres over.
To avoid the congested bends in the race I ran a wide arc on the bends and so you do end up travelling quite a bit further than 5k (140 metres according to Garmin, I see many others on Strava talking about the same issue). My suggestion here is to not train for 14:59 but to train for 14:50 to give yourself a bit of buffer. Also the first bend our pace went from 2:50 to 3:20, it felt like we were queuing!
My average HR was 175 for this (while in all other 5ks my average is around 179-181) so I definitely feel like I left a bit of time out there. The goal here however was to break 15 minutes for the first time so I decided to run an ever so slightly more conservative pace to be sure to meet that goal.
All in all, it was the best running event I have ever taken part in. The sheer amount of people together running at that speed is something to experience if you get the chance (115 people broke 15 minutes in the race with 12 breaking 14 minutes, I came 79th!). I was very happy with my build up and kind of knew the sub 15 was coming with my Raheny performance and the quality sessions I hit in the final weeks feeling very comfortable.
Full results of the race can be found here.
Weight
A big thing which helped in this block was dropping my weight. I dropped my weight from 74kg (October 17th) to ~66.5kg. I believe this had a massive effect on my performance. To do this I basically cut out crisps, chocolate and severely reduced my alcohol intake from January onwards (how much was I eating and drinking before!!). In the final week I ate almost no meat also. In the last week I find I don’t need as much protein.
If you are wondering what all the peaks are, those are periods when I am injured and go completely off the rails with food and drink. Training Thanks A big thank you to fellow Crusaders Tim Francony (Strava) and Kieran Little (Strava) for all their help during this training block. We managed to get a nice few long runs and mid week runs in together.
Resources Used
Some of the resources I used for this race are listed below.
Ben Barrows Videos
I would definitely recommend checking out some of Ben’s videos on youtube. He has some specific videos on how to break 15 mins for 5k and documents all of his training. Of particular interest I would suggest are:
Stephen Scullion’s training
I used Stephen Scullion as a coach last year from April to July until I got injured. I found his advice fantastic and also his coaching. He really eats his own dogfood and the training structure he provides is what he uses himself. This was a serious eye opener for me in terms of how to structure training and the value of consistency. His Strava is public and you can follow his sessions here.
Kevin Dooney’s Strava
As mentioned earlier, Stephen Scullion was very useful to follow however his training is currently focused on marathon training. I structured most of this training off of Kevin Dooney’s training which is publicly available on Strava (here) and of which I am very grateful for him to have shared.