HOW TO RUN A FASTER 5K- 5 EASY TIPS!

welcome back to the channel if you're new around here i'm ben and this is my youtube channel where i share all things running if you are new consider leaving a like and subscribing to the channel to follow my running [Music] journey in this video i'm going to share with you how i progressed in the 5k after running a 22 minute 5k in early 2019 to a sub 16 minute 5k in 2021 [Music] so i'll split this video into five sections and the first is consistency now unfortunately i'd like to sit here and tell you a secret that will knock you two minutes off your pb but in the last two years of my running journey if you like i've not found that secret yet however the beauty of the 5k is that as you become a more consistent runner so somebody who runs two or three times a week a week in week out you will slowly see an improvement in your 5k time so one of the big takeaways from my training over the last two years is there's no one session there's no one run that will make or break you it's the string of weeks and weeks of consistent training that will make you a better runner so it's getting out there week after week putting your shoes on getting out the door and putting the miles in and consistently consistently building weeks of running that will slowly improve you over time and you'll become a much better runner so that is first point consistency so my next point is to build your mileage slowly increase the amount of time you spend running a week and the distance you run a week so when i first set the goal of running a faster 5k the thought of running further than 5k in training seemed a little bit strange but this is all part of building the mileage now when building your mileage there's a 10 rule that you may or may not have heard of which basically means say if you run 20 kilometers one week your body should be able to handle a 10 increase in the next week so running 22 kilometers without getting injured um now this is something i tried to follow throughout my training but in hindsight i was a little bit uh overconfident in the sort of distance i could run and i increased my running um a bit too quickly so i wish i'd listened more to the 10 rule because i got shin splints and it meant i couldn't run for about a month or two months without pain um so it took me a little while to recover whereas had i slowly increased my mileage i may not have got injured so my top tip to building your mileage which is something you will need to do if you want to get faster over the 5k from my experience is to do it slowly and to follow that 10 rule so to give you an example of how i built my mileage when i was running 22 minutes for the 5k i was running around that 20 kilometers a week maybe two runs a week two or three runs a week whereas when i ran 15 minutes 46 i had slowly built my mileage up over the over the years over two years to that 140 kilometers mark which became the peak of my mileage during my training around about 100 to 120 was where i was hitting on a weekly basis but it peaked at 140 before two or three weeks before i ran that 15 minute 5k and then i came down to around i think 60 kilometers in the week when i ran 15 46 the key with building mileage is to do it slowly um and to listen to your body that would be my main tips for building your mileage and just don't try and do it too quickly it takes time for your body to get used to it if you have weeks where your body's really tired the next week considering reducing the amount of mileage for them to then be able to to build it up the next week now these lock down periods in the uk have been a really good opportunity for me to build my mileage so i know for everyone it may not be um easy to run i think i've been running around eight to ten hours a week so there's a lot of time to put into running and i understand a lot of people have um other commitments in their lives so it may not be um feasible to run those sort of distances this sort of time each week so my advice would be if you haven't got the time to be running 100 kilometers a week and then just to prioritize your quality runs which brings me which brings me on to my next point which is speed work [Music] so after you've built up your mileage you've started to run more you start to feel fitter it can um there can be a plateau and you're running now this happened for me around 20 minutes before the 5k i think i probably spent around five or six weeks trying to break sub 20 minutes i would run 20 minutes 10 one week 20 minutes 30 the next then 20 minutes so nine so i sort of plateaued around that 20 minute mark and this is when i suggest introducing speed work into your training a good way of doing this is through interval training some of my favorite intervals for the 5k are like kilometer repeats so you run for you run a kilometer at your desired 5k race pace so if it's for 20 minute 5k then you want to be running at four minute kilometers and then after that kilometer you rest for one minute 30 you can either do a standing rest or you can do a jog recovery rest i recommend around that two minute mark when you're starting when you've not done intervals before and then as you get fitter and more used to the speed work try and reduce that um recovery period uh down to around a minute mark so a good workout for me for the 5k is six times a kilometer with a minute rest and now i try and hit these kilometers at my target race pace or just below um in training you're not as super fresh as you would be on race day because if you if you haven't tapered for example or your legs are a bit tired from the previous run you did another day so around that 5k race pace yeah so speed work it gets your body used to running at faster speed in your training so when it comes to your race day your legs are used to it your body's become more efficient and yeah it shouldn't be too much of a shock to run at that pace having run it in training so i'd recommend doing a sort of speed training workout once a week to start with and then slowly building up to two possibly even three speed works a week in order to stay consistent to build your mileage and to incorporate speed work into your training you need to stay injury-free and this is where recovery techniques come in so the recovery techniques i use is foam rolling and stretching which i do after my runs after hard workouts i have ice buffs um i fill up the dustbin with water put loads of ice in it and just stand in it for around that two three minute mark or i just take a regular hot bath after my hard runs um i try to eat well so diet with protein and a good amount of carbohydrate to replenish and the calories that you burn on the run probably the most important part of the recovery is making sure you get that sleep so i find getting that seven eight nine hours of sleep the more you sleep the longer the longer your body has has time to recover um and you wake up a lot fresher than if you've had three or four hours sleep so try and prioritize getting a good amount of sleep which i know could be hard now i'm sure i could make a whole separate video on recovery um but just to say if you don't start prioritizing recovery then don't expect to say injury-free sounds a bit dramatic but um running is a quite a high impact sport it can be quite um demanding on the body so you need to start prioritizing your recovery just as much as you prioritize the speed work building the mileage the consistency in order to stay injury-free and to keep you running basically [Music] [Applause] so the last point point number five is hard work now this is a bit of a cheesy point um but it's definitely something that i would say has it helped improve me as a 5k runner over the last two years it's constantly getting out there when you're knackered when you've had a hard day at work when it's chuckling down with rain and you really don't want to go outside and do your run it's when these are the times where you've got to put the hard work in get out there get it done um if you want to see the results and trust me when you run a pb on race day you look back at all the hard work you put in it really is worth it and finally if you're still here and watching the video i presume you are looking to pb in the 5k this year on your next race so all the best with that i hope you've got something from this video um some of my top tips over the last two years of running and yeah just use a combination of the five tips i've talked about so consistency build your mileage try some speed work prioritize recovery and finally put in the hard work on the days where it's chugging it down with rain you're knackered those are the days when it really counts um thanks for watching if you've liked the video please leave a like it helps boost the video improve the algorithm blindly bloody blah and but yeah consider subscribing and i'll see you with another video soon [Music] goodbye

Channel: Ben Is Running

Views: 168,484

Rating: 4.9646816 out of 5

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Id: iK1kGq7pdR4

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021