With a first 5K race done and discussed, a new runner brings experience of racing and commitment to a regular training schedule to their second 5k race. The first 5K race time will stand as your Personal Best or Record (PB or PB) for now.
Beginners keen to improve their PB/PR in a second 5K can influence this in several ways:
- enter a race with a flatter course
- select a time of year for a preferred hotter or cooler climate
- find out if the race organisers use electronic chip for race-times instead of pen and paper
- add a tempo run to 5K training schedule
Tempo Running
After his Kenyan training in 1995, US-based coach Toby Tanser has championed the tempo run for improving race times. To guarantee the benefits to performance of tempo running, Tanser and other coaching experts agree that a run needs to be long enough and hard enough. If the goal is to smash a 5k race time, beginning to work up to a 20 minute tempo run in four weeks is feasible. A new runner may ask "How hard is hard?". “Comfortably hard” is a commonly used phrase by coaches which means hard enough to feel like pushing a body to run but not racing pace yet hard enough that a slower pace is preferred.
Running a tempo run teaches a runner’s body to improve metabolic fitness and brings a performance dimension to a beginner’s running schedule which possibly concentrates only on cardiovascular fitness by training a body to get oxygen to muscles over a sustained period of time.
Gale Bernhardt’s Four-Week Progression For New Tempo Runners
Improving a current personal best for 5K road running can be achieved in four weeks by including a classic tempo run in a training schedule. In ‘Perfect Tempo’ (Runners’ World, October 2007), John Hanc reports on coach Gale Bernhardt’s four week progression to getting started in tempo running (after a warm up and with a 10 to 15 minutes cool down after the session).
- “Week 1: 5 x 3 minutes at tempo pace, 60-second easy jog after each one
- Week 2: 5 x 4 minutes at tempo pace, 60-second easy jog recovery
- Week 3: 4 x 5minutes at tempo pace, 90-second easy jog recovery
- Week 4: 20 minutes steady tempo pace”
If a new runner’s goal is to improve upon their PR or PB for a 5K, the next step following the four week plan is to run longer distance at the faster paces with some recovery – run three miles at a steady pace and then one mile at 5K pace and then run at a steady pace again as a cool down.
In Training Plans for Multisport Athletes (Velo Press, 2000), Gale Bernhardt says that “Everyone who does tempo runs diligently will improve”. Runners should invest in a multi-function sports watch that can be readily started and stopped to record the times for tempo runs. Repeat on a route of known distance to log their pace and progression during training. With the right equipment and the determination to train, a second 5K can bring a record race time. Runners will keenly estimate a 5K finishing time.
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