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November 28, 2023 16 mins
Ready to crush a fast 5K? Brace yourself for a deep dive as seasoned runner and coach, Lucie Beatrix, unveils her top strategies for achieving that lightning-fast 5K you've been dreaming of. From steadily building a solid running base and hitting your mileage consistently to mastering the art of interval training, she's got you covered. Drawing from her own journey to achieving a  16:59 personal best in a 5K race, Lucie dishes out practical advice that could just be the game-changer in your running journey.

Coach Beatrix takes us on a journey through the race day, demonstrating when to unleash your full power and when to conserve energy. Peering into the running plans she offers her athletes, she shares how these strategies have led them to success. 

If you can do it in a workout, you can absolutely do it in a race. So, tune in, get your running shoes ready and let's hit the ground running!

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Whether you're new to running or an advanced runner
who's run several marathons, Ithink everyone can benefit from
running a strong 5k yes, 3.1miles and this episode is about
exactly that or the kinds ofspeed workouts, weekly mileage
and pacing strategy that Irecommend for athletes that I

(00:38):
coach that can help you to run afast 5k.
Who am I?
I'm Lucy Beatrix.
This is my podcast, and if youdon't know a little bit about my
story, I was not an athletegrowing up, but I got into the
sport and I started chasing somepretty competitive times and
when it comes to the 5k, I thinkit's highly underrated how much

(01:02):
you can do with this distanceand I honestly think that even
if you are a marathoner and yougo after these longer distances
or even had the half marathon, a5k can give you that speed and
that extra kick to help you inthe longer distances.
So if you're between marathonsor between half marathons, I
would suggest to you if I wascoaching you and you were one of

(01:25):
my athletes that you work onyour 5k, and this is a really
great time of year to do that,because it's the end of the year
, it's cold, it's when a lot ofpeople are taking an off season
and that's when I like to pushpeople to chase after 5k PRs and
try to surprise themselves.
So hopefully this can give yousome some helpful tips and

(01:46):
tricks that I've used for my own5k and my 5k PR is a 16.59.
So that means that I snuckunder the 17 minute mark, which
was a really big victory for mebecause I had been training on
the track.
I wasn't really trainingspecifically for a 5k but
looking back I see certainworkouts that have worked for me

(02:09):
that helped me get that 5kspeed that I think you can use
to, and it's actually not thatcomplicated.
One of the things I love aboutrunning is running is kind of
like math.
It's literally do this, youwill get this.
It is usually foolproof.
If you can do it in a workout,you can do it in a race, granted

(02:30):
the environment allows you to.
So I'm going to kind of giveyou a little insight on what I
know about that.
But the first step to getting inshape for 5k is having a base,
having a running base, and to methis means consistent mileage.
For a few months you could berunning every other day or every

(02:51):
two or three days, but justgetting that time on feet for 20
to 30 minutes, easy running, nospecific workouts, no care
about speed or pace, but insteadjust getting out there and just
logging the miles.
And that can be really the funpart of just like training, with
no end goal or no pressure tohit certain times.

(03:13):
And so if you're in that basephase, I encourage you to enjoy
it and just listen to music,listen to podcasts or audiobooks
and just know that you'rebuilding the mitochondria or the
density in your legs to be ableto go after the speed and the
faster stuff later on.
But so the first step is to getthat consistent mileage under

(03:33):
your belt and then, once you'vereached a weekly mileage, that
is, either, I would suggest, 30to 45 miles per week that's my
suggestion for getting gettingin shape for a 5k Once you've
hit that amount, which couldmean that you're running several
three to five mile runsthroughout the week, and then
maybe a long seven to 10 milerun on the weekends.

(03:56):
That then you can be a littlebit more deliberate.
So you check off the weeklymileage.
You've got your base.
Then you can start to attacksome of these workouts Now my
rule of thumb thumb is to runthe distance or about three
miles, which a five case, 3.1miles.
Run that distance during aninterval speed workout, and so

(04:20):
that means you're taking breaks,you're not running 3.1 miles
within this speed specificworkout, but you're running
three miles of that speed.
So this could be a workout likesix by 800 meters at goal 5K
pace, 12 by 400 meters at goal5K pace, or maybe even a little
bit faster, and then the bestworkout is 5 by 1K at goal 5K

(04:45):
pace, and so what I wouldsuggest an athlete to do is
start with the six by 800s thefirst week.
The second week run 12 by 400.
And then the third week do fiveby 1K and then, based on what
you could run the five by 1K at,set a goal for what you want
that goal 5K to be.

(05:06):
If the pace that you're runningthose Ks at for the five by 1K
ends up leading you to a 20minute or predicting about a 20
minute 5K, start to do yourworkouts a little bit faster
than that.
It's kind of like a way for me,when I'm working with other
athletes and I'm trying todetermine for them what their
goal should be Like, if youdon't know if you're going for a

(05:28):
21 minute 5K or a 19 minute 5K.
You just get started and startto do these workouts and it'll
start to even out, or you'll beable to then determine okay, I'm
able to hold this pace forthree miles within a workout.
This should be my goal, or evenmaybe set it a little bit
faster than that so that you cankeep chipping down and see if

(05:51):
you can surprise yourself.
I look at my workouts leading upto my 5K PR and I was running
most of my workouts just a hairfaster than what my 1659 5K
ended up being.
So I was training towardssomething that was maybe more in
the 1645 range, but I ended uprunning just under 17, which

(06:11):
still was a really big win forme.
But I at least had an idea ofwhat to be trying to hit in
workouts, if that makes anysense.
So the first step would be dothose three workouts in three
consecutive weeks and get asense of where you are fitness
wise.
That's a great check for, likechecking yourself to see where
am I fitness wise, what can Irealistically go after?

(06:33):
Because I think it's reallyimportant to set realistic
expectations.
Like don't try to immediatelygo out the gates trying to break
16 minutes if you're really inthe range of trying to break 17
minutes.
It can be tempting though,especially if you're training
with other people, that youwanna be in the same level as
them, and so you're pushingyourself a little too hard to

(06:55):
see soon.
That can actually set you back.
You wanna be within your rangeand not try to run too hard,
especially in the beginning.
Another beautiful thing aboutfitness is that it can improve
as the workouts go on.
So it means that when you doyour first six by 800 meter
workout, you might blow yourselfout of the water.

(07:16):
The second time you do it fourweeks later or about a month
later, where the next time youdo six by 800 meters, you end up
shaving several seconds off ofeach rep, and that's when you
start to see the fitness improve.
And so, ultimately, what you'lldo is the six by 800, the 12 by
400 and then the five by one K,and then you take a week where

(07:39):
you don't do any speed workout,you just run easy, and then you
do that again.
And so the next time you do sixby 800 a little bit faster, the
next 12 by 400 a little bitfaster.
You're probably having a senseof what you can realistically
hit or like you're clear withwhat your goal is.
And then the last workout youdo before your five K time trial

(08:01):
is that five by one K, with allof these are with 90 seconds
rest.
So it's so simple and easy toremember that you just do these
three solid workouts twice andthat last five by one K will
determine what you're able torun a five K in.

(08:21):
I know that that's worked for me.
It's totally foolproof for me.
If I can run five by one K at asub 17 minute mile or sub 17
five K pace, that's what I cando on race day and with my
athletes that I coach it's thesame thing.
So, yeah, so you do those threeworkouts twice and you do a

(08:41):
speed workout on either aTuesday or a Wednesday,
preferably on the track, andthen a tempo progression workout
on the weekend.
So you're doing two hardworkouts a week with the tempo
progression Um, that, that pace,the paces that you're going to
be hitting in that workout,where typically for me it was a

(09:02):
10 mile progression where Istarted super easy, and then
around the second or third mileI just started to shave 15
seconds off per mile, negativelysplitting, to finish the last
mile fast, but not 5k fast.
So you're running 10 miles, twoeasy miles, and then, uh, 15
seconds faster, 15 secondsfaster, 15 seconds faster, which

(09:25):
means you're startingsignificantly slower than you're
finishing and, um, that couldlook very different for you.
You might want to start alittle bit faster and not cut
down so severely, but that was aworkout that worked really well
for me.
And to do that once a week,mixed with the track day um,
those are the two really, reallyhard workouts that you get into

(09:47):
your legs, um that yousupplement with easy runs, and
what I mean by that is um thatyou have two hard days a week,
but every other day of the weekthat you're on your feet running
, you're running extremely easy.
I'm talking Kenyon shuffle easyor several minutes per mile
slower than your goal race space.

(10:08):
So if your goal 5k pace is a 530, this means running at an eight
or nine 30 minute mile um justin between these really, really
hard efforts, and the reason forthat is that you want to be
able to hit the paces, thereally hard, aggressive 5k pace
workout pieces on your hard dayand your progression tempo run

(10:29):
paces on your progression day.
So the days in between are justabout kind of like fluff,
mileage and um, keeping thatbase and keeping your your body
moving, but they're not aboutpace at all.
And that's really invaluable,because I feel like I see time
and time again, people runningjust too hard on their easy days
, or what should be their easydays, and they're cutting into

(10:52):
what they could do on theworkout days and they're not
able to hit those paces.
So, um, so keeping your harddays hard and your easy days
easy is crucial to being able toget in shape for a 5k.
It's also a good practice forwhen you're getting ready for
the race itself, because on theweek of the race you want to be

(11:12):
running extremely easy the daysleading up to it and and like,
truly like, dialing back.
And I would also say thatthere's something about taking
one of those easy days everyweek, or Taking an easy day to
do strength or cross training,and for me, what I would do when
I was getting in serious 5kshape Would be spending a day on

(11:34):
the stair climber or doing anincline walk or a different kind
of activity.
It could be a bike for somepeople, doing something else to
flush out the legs, but still belike working hard, like you're
still sweating a lot, but it'sfinding a different way to use
other groups of muscles that youdon't use when you're running

(11:55):
and strengthen them.
So doing a hard stair climberfor an hour was something that I
I swore by because I it made mestronger from the inside out.
I could feel the activation inmy glutes and in my quads and
that seemed to give me thatextra Burst or that extra boost
when I would then go try totackle a fast 5k.

(12:16):
So when it comes to the actualrace the actual 12.5 laps around
a track or out on the course ofyour 5k that you're entering,
or if you're just doing a timetrial somewhere, that you find a
flat 3.1 miles my biggestsuggestion is to try to
negatively split your race.

(12:38):
So with 3.1 miles, that meansstarting five, maybe seven
seconds per mile, or five, fiveseconds, five to seven seconds
slower per mile than your goalaverage mile time and that seems
slow.
It might even feel like whenyou start that 5k the adrenaline
everything's gonna make youwant to have that First mile be

(13:00):
fast out the gates.
But in my experience the themost valuable thing you can do
is to hold back and if you'reracing with other people, that
means staying in the caboose ofa track or like try to be behind
people and just like, let themdo that hard work for you,
especially early on and and so.

(13:20):
And another thing to rememberabout that feeling is sometimes
it doesn't feel easy, like youknow.
You're running five to sevenseconds slower per mile.
Then you you want to be goingbecause you're trying to
negatively split and it feelslike you're going all out.
It can feel harder than it'ssupposed to if you're.
You know when you're like wait,this isn't even my goal, 5k
pace for this first mile, but itfeels really, really hard.

(13:42):
But that can change.
And once you start to warm upand you realize that other
people are settling into a moreconsistent Piece maybe they went
a little fast that alwayshappens at races Then you start
to get a little bit of anadrenaline of wait.
Okay, I'm starting to feel goodand I noticed that that I've
had that exact feeling Inseveral races where I've started

(14:05):
a little behind everybody.
And then the beauty of the raceis just holding on for that
middle mile, running that one atyour goal, five came pace mile,
and then off the last 1.1 milenegatively split, and the best
part about that last mile isthat you can use it as an
opportunity to chip down andpass people, and every single

(14:28):
person you pass because you weresmart and started slow gives
you a boost of adrenaline, andthat's the best feeling when you
know you still have more in thetank and you can pass people.
That gives you so much moreenergy than you could have ever
trained for.
So strategy is a big tip likethat.
That is something that I can'temphasize enough of, like having

(14:51):
the race day strategy for your5k, but so I hope that this
gives you a little bit ofinsight of how I think you can
run a fast 5k.
This is coach Beatrix sayinglike I really do think that you
can run a fast 5k and fasterthan you think you can If you
just follow that like simple,simple guideline of getting the
base mileage in there,incorporating the speed workouts

(15:13):
they're simple and then on theday, knowing when to hold back
and then when to kick.
So I hope this was helpful.
Please let me know if you gotany value from this 5k pep talk
from me, and you can always findme on Instagram.
I'd love to know your resultsfor any 5k's that you happen to

(15:34):
do this season.
My name on Instagram I is atLucy Beatrix
L-U-C-I-E-B-E-A-T-R-I-X.
And until next time, just befast, just win.
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