Workout of the Day: 3 x 2,000m, 1,000m
3 x 2,000m, 1,000m
Intensity — 2K @ 5K pace, 1K @ 3K pace
Recovery — 2.5 minutes after 2Ks, 5 minutes after 1Ks
Exertion — 8/10
Context & Details
Five-thousand meter and 3,000m race paces are very closely related intensities. The tolerance of difference between the two race paces is narrow, I ballpark it at a 1-1.5 seconds per 400m differential. Meaning if a runner can run 9:00 for 3,000m, then provided the direction of training is managed well, they should be capable of producing around 15:12 - 15:20 for 5K in the same season.
This may or may not agree with various running workout pacing charts. I don’t know. I stopped looking at pacing charts about 15 years ago.
Why?
I found when I wrote workouts using pacing charts they were either way too hard or easy for my runners. It made workouts more of an exercise in compliance to “hit the pace” rather than an exploration and a challenge to see what someone was capable of doing.
Pacing charts can be useful, they provide a ballpark of sorts to orient coaches for workouts. But they’re generic and without nuance. And they foster a false sense of control and predictability. Workout splits can quickly go out the window when the weather conditions are poor or a runner is dehydrated, tired, upset, etc.
A lot of people like and use pacing charts, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I found they weren’t useful in accounting for unforeseen or planned conditions, both external and internal. And using them made me a worse coach. It made my coaching too formulaic and rigid. My runners suffered because of it, not seeing much improvement on race day for their training efforts. Charts didn’t work for me. So I stopped using them.
On the other hand, I’ve used this session — 3 x 2K, 1K — or a variation of it, for years to successfully upgrade 3K race ability and simultaneously lay the foundation for advancing 5K ability.
Both 3K and 5K speeds stress and advance VO2 Max very effectively. They also condition the runner’s resistance to fatigue at those paces, promote better running economy, and stress significant upgrades in lactate-threshold velocities.
I introduce this session during the preparation period immediately before the indoor racing season begins. My 3K/5K runners typically revisit it once about every 2-3 weeks until the championship period in the outdoor season.
Frequent exposures to manageable bouts of roughly 3 - 6 minutes of VO2 Max effort has an overall callousing effect as well.
“The 5K always stings,” as Chris Solinsky says. Translation: No matter how fit or fast you get, the 3K and 5K will always be tough running events.
In honest 3K/5K races, the runner is redlining the entire way after 200m in. A high physiological fitness alone won’t produce high performance in these events, the runner also needs to be mentally confident they’re capable of redlining for 7.5-12.5 laps without “the wheels coming off” (aka rapid slowing down due to acidosis saturation by way of excessive lactate/pyruvate leaking into the bloodstream and triggering short-term irreversible fatigue and impaired coordination). Frequent employment of this session gives the athlete a lot of exposure to that redlining sensation, building confidence they’ll be able to sustain it on race day.
This session won’t lessen “the sting,” simply make it more familiar and, hopefully, somewhat tolerable.