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Winter generally isn’t considered racing season—not that you can’t find great races to beat the winter blues! But this off-season is still the ideal time to a) build your aerobic base and b) work on your speed. Nope, you don’t need a track (or even to venture outside) to train to run faster. The treadmill can be a runner’s best friend when it comes to tapping into your pace potential—especially for a 5K.
The beauty of the tread? It’s a controlled environment. “Training for 5Ks generally includes speed and tempo runs, and the treadmill allows you to precisely set the paces, inclines, and interval lengths you want to run at,” says Lindsey Clayton, a certified run coach, cofounder of the Brave Body Project, and founding digital instructor at Barrys in New York City. That way, you’re not wasting mental energy constantly looking at your running watch.
And before you knock the “dreadmill,” know that science supports running indoors (sometimes, at least). Your biomechanical patterns don’t change when you run on a treadmill versus outside, according to older research published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, and your VO2 max stays the same in both scenarios, another study in the same journal found. (To better simulate outdoor running, you can set the treadmill to a 1 percent grade, older research from the Journal of Sports Sciences suggests.)
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How to Figure Out Treadmill Pacing
If you’ve ever taken a treadmill class, you’ve probably heard an instructor tell you to run at your race pace, whether that’s mile, 5K, 10K, half marathon, or even marathon pace. You don’t actually need to have raced those distances to know how fast to go; those reference points are just an easy way to cue multiple people to run at their own specific speeds.
In actuality, it’s more about effort level than speed—you run shorter distances at a more intense effort and quicker speed than you would longer distances. On a treadmill, “a jog is typically between 5.0-7.0,” says Clayton. “Half marathon pace is 6.0-8.0, 10K pace is 7.0-9.0, 5K pace is 8.0-11.0, and mile or sprint pace is 9.0-12.5.” Of course, these can change depending on your speed, but these numbers serve as a good guideline.
If you’re really not sure where to start, use your rate of perceived exertion. In that case, you’d use a scale of 1-10 to judge your 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 9-10. From there, you can figure out what effort level corresponds to a specific treadmill speed for you.
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How This Plan Works
To get faster, you have to run faster—so this four-week 5K training plan was specifically developed by Clayton to help you develop the speed and power you need to PR.
The first week, you’ll do a mile time trial, which is a great way to gauge where you’re at in terms of speed, says Clayton. “This data will help you create goals that are realistic with your current level of fitness,” she explains. “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!”
Once you’ve established that mile baseline, the weekly programming is pretty straightforward: Mondays are for interval training, a.k.a. running fast for short increments of time with recovery breaks in between. “You'll be running faster than your 5K pace at some points to work on your speed and power,” says Clayton. Getting accustomed to running really fast for a quarter-mile or half-mile will actually eventually translate to running faster at longer distances.
Tempo Thursdays are designed to help you maintain a “comfortably hard” pace for 20 to 25 minutes, says Clayton. These sustained efforts help you run faster for longer periods of time—even though you’re running slower than your goal 5K pace, holding on to that speed helps you build slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers, which leads to gains in speed and endurance. You’ll finish these workouts with sprints, which are the treadmill version of strides. “The sprints should be done at mile pace or 85 to 95 percent of your max effort,” she explains. “You should really be focusing on good running form during them!
You’ll also incorporate strength into the program, with a lower body workout on Tuesdays and an upper body-focused routine on Thursdays, sometime after your tempo run. You can incorporate core exercises into either or both days. Strength training will help you build power and propel your runs, while helping you sidestep injury.
Depending on how often you prefer to run, you can incorporate two to three easy running days—including a long run. Yes, you should run long while training for a 5K! Even though your 5K will likely be over in about 30 minutes, running nearly twice that amount of time (or longer) helps develop your aerobic system—and “the 5K is still a primarily aerobic activity,” says Clayton. That time on feet at a conversational pace trains your body to become more efficient, so you can run harder over shorter distances. And that’s the whole point of this training plan, right?
Week 1:
- Monday: 0.5-mile warmup, 2 x mile time trial progression with 2-3 minutes rest after each mile effort, 0.5-mile cooldown
- Tuesday: strength train, lower body focus (squats/deadlifts/lunges/glute bridges/core)
- Wednesday: easy run (beginners: 20-30 minutes; intermediate runners: 30-40 minutes; advanced runners: 40-50 minutes)
- Thursday: 0.5-mile warmup, 20 minutes @ 10K pace (alternating incline between 0%, 2%, 0%, 3%, 0%, 2%, 0%, 3% every minute), recover for 2-3 minutes, then do 4 x 30-second sprints with 45 seconds of recovery between each effort; strength train, upper body/core focus
- Friday: rest day
- Saturday: long run (beginners: 30-40 minutes; intermediate runners: 45-55 minutes; advanced runners: 60-70 minutes)
- Sunday: rest day (or 30-minute easy run)
Week 2:
- Monday: 0.5-mile warm up, 4 x .050-mile repeat progression @ 5K pace (each effort gets 0.2-0.5 faster) with 1-2 minutes recovery between each effort, then do 5 x 30-second sprints with 45-second recovery in between
- Tuesday: strength train, lower body focus (squats/deadlifts/lunges/glute bridges/core)
- Wednesday: easy run (beginners: 20-30 minutes; intermediate runners: 30-40 minutes; advanced runners: 40-50 minutes)
- Thursday: 0.5-mile warmup, 20 minutes tempo progression starting @ 10K pace (increase speed by 0.2 every 3-4 minutes), recover for 2-3 minutes, then do 4 x 60 second sprints with 60 seconds of recovery between each effort; strength train, upper body/core focus
- Friday: rest day
- Saturday: long run (beginners: 35-45 minutes; intermediate runners: 50-60 minutes; advanced runners: 65-75 minutes)
- Sunday: rest day (or 30-minute easy run)
Week 3:
- Monday: 0.5-mile warm up, 10 x 0.25 mile repeat progression (5 efforts @ 5K pace, 5 efforts @ mile pace) with 90 seconds to 2 minutes recovery between each effort, then do 5 x 30-second sprints with 45-second recovery in between
- Tuesday: strength train, lower body focus (squats/deadlifts/lunges/glute bridges/core)
- Wednesday: easy run (beginners: 20-30 minutes; intermediate runners: 30-40 minutes; advanced runners: 40-50 minutes)
- Thursday: 0.5-mile warmup, 1 mile @ half marathon pace, 1-2 minutes recovery, 1 mile @ 10K pace, 1-2 minutes recovery, 1 mile @ 5K pace; strength train, upper body/core focus
- Friday: rest day
- Saturday: long run (beginners: 40-50 minutes; intermediate runners: 55-65 minutes; advanced runners: 70-80 minutes)
- Sunday: rest day (or 30-minute easy run)
Week 4:
- Monday: 0.5-mile warm up, 2 x mile time trial progression with 2-3 minutes rest after each mile effort, then do 5 x 30-second sprints with 60-second recovery in between
- Tuesday: strength train, lower body focus (squats/deadlifts/lunges/glute bridges/core)
- Wednesday: easy run (beginners: 20-30 minutes; intermediate runners: 30-40 minutes; advanced runners: 40-50 minutes)
- Thursday: 0.5-mile warmup, 5 minutes @ 10K pace, 5 minutes @ 5K pace, 5 minutes @ 10K pace, 5 minutes @ 5K pace, 2.5 minutes @ mile pace, recovery walk/jog for 3-4 minutes; strength train, upper body/core focus
- Friday: rest day (or 30-minute easy run)
- Saturday: rest day (or 30-minute easy run)
- Sunday: RACE DAY!
