How to Half Your 5k Time in Four Months
Here’s my secret to improving 42:48 to 22:19 in 117 days
Despite its reputation as a fallback sport running is not easy. Runners experience soreness, stress fractures, and exhaustion as they log mile after mile. Race times are also extremely competitive. Runners compete to cut mere seconds from their previous personal record (PR).
While I am no expert in running, I do have some worthwhile practical advice for lowering one’s pace that has worked well for me. I offer it to other novice runners who may be struggling.
New Athlete
When I began running early last year, athletics were entirely novel to me. I spent the better part of the previous year focusing on health, shrinking down from 255 pounds to a healthy weight of 165 pounds. But I had never tried competing in any sport (beyond flag football and pee wee soccer in fifth grade). I thought I’d give running a try.
It changed my life.
When I first started running I hated it. I felt extremely out of shape when running and could only consistently run in sets of 60 seconds on and 60 seconds off.
Being bad at running fostered a negative feedback loop that made it harder to run, but with the help of supportive friends and family, I stuck to it.
Five months of this paradigm dragged on when finally, in late October, my girlfriend and I ran a 5-kilometer race, my first!
The time? An embarrassingly slow 42:48. What changed? I altered my training by focusing on distance rather than timed sets.
I knew that my 13-minute, 10-second mile pace was sluggish at best, only a few minutes faster than an average speed walker. But I had proven to myself that I could go the distance, so to speak, and that was all the encouragement I needed to keep going.
I had endured the five months of slog to go from couch to 5k, and now I was ready to start working on my speed.
This speed training has been the paradigm for four months now, and in that time I cut my time almost in half from 42:48 in late October to 22:19 today.
It really kicked off in November when I ran my first official race, scoring my first sub-30 minute 5k with a time of 29:26. I then continued to set PR after PR in training and races culminating in December when I ran a 25:44. In 2024, I ran even better!
In February, I set a new PR: 22:17 at a local 5k race.
So what did I do to improve and nearly cut my 5k time in half in four months?
Of Miles and Zen
First, I found some evidence that running slower can make you faster. Sound counterintuitive? Well, you’re not alone. I thought this advice was crazy until I tried it myself.
It turns out that running at Zone 2, or when your heart rate is between 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, can boost your cardiovascular system’s efficiency.
According to Marathon Handbook:
“If you look at the training logs of any elite athletes or professional distance runners, you’ll find that the fastest runners are doing a significant percentage of their volume at paces that are slower than mid-pack finishers.”
Research suggests that varying one’s workout intensity more efficiently increases one’s ability to run more than sticking to one intense pace for every exercise.
I found that the more I stick to this variable training regimen, the faster my race day times become.
Isn't it amazing that we live in a world where running around town and sightseeing at a leisurely pace is an integral part of an athlete’s training regimen?
More Miles Make Milestones
Seems obvious, right? Since Aristotle, we’ve understood that every art aims at some good, and the good running aims at is speed. The more you run, the better you get at running, the better you are at running the faster you run.
But it isn't that simple.
Logging miles is important but you can't become an elite athlete by going from 0 miles to 100 in one week (unless your name is David Goggins). You have to build your mileage.
Start with what feels good. Feeling too sore? You might be running too much. Start with what you can do and increase your weekly mileage by no more than 10%.
According to Meghan Kita in her 2018 book How To Make Yourself Poop, most elite runners aren't training at significantly higher paces, they’re just logging many more miles per week.
So, combine this with the last piece of advice for double effectiveness: run slower, more often, while slowly increasing your weekly mileage. You’ll be shocked on race day by how much you can shave off your times.
Strength Training Matters
Finally, don't be like many runners who ignore lifting weights because they think they don't need it. Strength training helps runners in more ways than you might initially think.
According to Runner’s World:
“Strength work accomplishes three big goals for runners…it prevents injuries by strengthening muscles and connective tissues; it helps you run faster by improving neuromuscular coordination and power; and it improves running economy by encouraging coordination and stride efficiency.”
All this paints a clear picture: skipping gym days hurts your race-day times. I know that for those runners like me who do not enjoy lifting weights nearly as much as we love hitting the open road, this advice isn't fun, but the results speak for themselves.
When you’re stronger you can simply do more. You can push off of the ground with more force, you can prevent injuries to vulnerable parts of your body, and when you’re in a pinch you can run farther. As my running friend Melissa often says “Run from your core, run some more.”
So, What Are You Waiting For?
All the previous advice notwithstanding, I did one thing that helped me to succeed most of all. I gave credence to the age-old wisdom of ‘trust the process.” Every day I got up, laced up, and nutted up. I hit the pavement when sick, when it rained, and when I was tired.
The truth is that no matter what an online article says about improving your running, the best way to get results is to actually try different plans. Get out there and separate the wheat from the chaff by trying everything. That's how improvement happens.
So what are you waiting for? Get running!
“We are that which we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
Thanks for reading my story. For another story like this one about how I went from being obese to running 5ks, check out the link here!
