Max workouts per week to achieve top speed (training, runner, lose weight)

[Mcdman88]

In high school we had a guy running in the 20s at the start of the year. By years end he was at 23 5k. He ran 7 days a week. He didn't understand rest. I know there's a fine line but how many days per week of running to optimize the best 5k time you can get? 5 or 6 days? I was sub 20. Right now I could run 26 with no training and 30 lbs over weight. Thoughts?

[Luckyd609]

You could have incorporated this into your other thread. No need to make multiple threads on the same topic.

You seem obsessed with speed where you should be obsessed with your diet. As you lose weight you will continue to improve your time. This will take time.
I suggest incorporating interval training. It will help get your speed up.

[Lucy_C]

My understanding is 3x per week, and not two days in a row, is a decent plan. Cross train on the other 2-3 days per week, and take a rest day. And there's nothing wrong with a 26 minute 5k -- that's actually pretty good.

As for weight loss -- that's usually a diet issue.

[villageidiot1]

The answer is, it depends. It will depend on your age, your weight, your running efficiency, your inclination to get injured, and the type of running you do. Check out this list: https://www.runeveryday.com/usa-active-streaks.php

I've met two of the people in the top 30. The one guy has a race timing company. He would get the race set up and then jump in an run it. He would win many of the races or at a minimum would win his age group. He is now 62 and still doing it.

These people are obsessed with their streaks but it goes to show you that it is possible to never take a rest day and be a top competitive runner. For most people, one rest day a week is probably optimum, and more as you get older. There is also the idea of easy/hard days. Never run hard two days in a row. You can get very scientific about this where your easy days are based on a formula that uses your actual maximum heart rate and you actual lowest resting heart rate. Obviously you need a heart rate monitor to do this.

[Malloric]

Originally Posted by Mcdman88

In high school we had a guy running in the 20s at the start of the year. By years end he was at 23 5k. He ran 7 days a week. He didn't understand rest. I know there's a fine line but how many days per week of running to optimize the best 5k time you can get? 5 or 6 days? I was sub 20. Right now I could run 26 with no training and 30 lbs over weight. Thoughts?

5-7 days.

A day or two off is more important for mental health and avoiding burnout than recovery. If you're specifically training for a 5K the distance is so short you don't need to do very long runs. That is to say, your long runs are so short compared with someone training for a marathon runner you really don't need to recover after them.

Early on when you're in bad condition you might alternate long/short days, Zone 3 (~80% of max HR, above conversational pace) for 5-10K one day and then even slower for 3-5K the next day for a recovery run keeping heart rate in Zone 1 or low Zone 2 (50-65%). Really you're just doing a warm-up/cool-down pace on the recovery days. A long day might be a 10 minute warmup, 10K at 80% max HR, and then a 10 minute cooldown, so just do 30-45 minutes at warm-up/cool down tempo. Later on once your more comfortable with doing 10K at 80%, you can string those days together and do 4-5 long days and then a recovery day or two. Maybe Monday to Thursday 10K tempo runs, Friday recovery, Saturday 15K tempo, Sunday recovery (or 10K tempo). That would probably be too difficult right away more what a competitive 5K runner would do towards the end of base training.

The point of early season (base conditioning) isn't to get fast. It's just to develop a base. You don't need much for 5K so depending where you're starting from that might be a month or might be the whole year for a new runner. You might see improvements if you're new to running but if you've been doing it for a few years, just running for 5-10K at Zone 3 isn't going to get you faster.

As you get closer to race season, then you start doing intervals which means you need more recovery time. You might take your regular end of base season and add fartleks in on Monday and Thursday and ease up on Wednesday and Friday so they're semi-recovery days. Then replace with fartleks with intervals, 4x880 (2 laps at 5K pace), then 6x880, mile intevals. Usually you're around 2x on, 1x recovery on the intervals. So if you're on for 4 minutes, recover for 2 and repeat. First interval shouldn't be hard, the last few should. It helps to do them on a track as it's easier to tell if you're going too hard. Eg, if your first 4x880 is 3:00 and your last one is 3:50 you went too hard. Then really start working and doing 440 and 880 intervals above 5K pace and 220s at mile pace around 6-8 weeks before race. Taper the week before, take a couple easy weeks and start the intervals over for the next target race.