You’ve put in the winter miles. Cold mornings. Treadmill runs. Long base-building weekends.

Now spring race season is here, and you don’t just want to run a 5K… you want to run your fastest one yet. With Spring 5ks right around the corner, now is the perfect time to structure your runs and workouts to reach that new PR you’ve been wanting. In this article, we are going to break down the key workouts you need to boost your speed.

Consistency Before Intensity

Make sure you’ve been running consistently for at least 4 to 6 weeks before adding in speed work. This could be your off season running, or building up a base after some time off. Focus on easy paced aerobic runs 4 to 6 days a week. You can add some strides after one or two of your easy runs to help prepare you for more intense speed work. If you need help building a base, we offer free base training plans for 3 different levels of running. Grab your free plan here:

Intervals: Where Speed Is Built

Once you have good base training under your belt, it’s time to start working on some speed intervals. Interval training will help Improve your vo2 max, improve running economy, and help you learn how your race pace will feel.

To improve your 5k time, most speed intervals should be run at or slightly below 5k pace. (Use a pace calculator online to estimate your current 5k and 3k race pace). Start with your current 5k race pace, and as you improve over training, this may drop slightly. Interval pace should feel hard, about an 8 – 9 out of 10.

Here are a few sample interval workouts that are geared towards improving 5k time:

• 10 – 12 400 meter repeats at 3k pace with 60 – 90 sec rest
• 4 – 6 1000 meter repeats at 3k – 5k pace with 90-120 sec rest
• 3 – 4 x 1 mile at 5k pace with 2-3 minutes rest

Run the intervals as evenly as possible. You want to be able to finish strong at the same pace as your first few reps were. Your goal isn’t to survive the workout. It’s to finish strong.

Threshold Work: The Bridge Between Speed and Endurance

Another component to a fast 5k is improving your lactate threshold through tempo and threshold runs. Improving your lactate threshold will build endurance and teach you to run faster at longer sustained efforts. Typically threshold pace is the pace you could race at for around one hour. This is somewhere between 15k and half marathon pace depending on your current speed.

The key to tempo and threshold is to not “race” your workout. The pace should feel challenging, but it is not all out, and should feel controlled, about a 7 out of 10. Add these threshold workouts into your training to help improve your 5k race time:

• 3 x 1 mile at Threshold pace with 1 min rest in between
• 2 x 2 mile at Threshold pace with 2 min rest in between
• 3 to 4 miles continuous at Threshold pace

Putting It All Together on Race Day

If you’ve been able to run these types of workouts and stay consistent with your training, it’s time to test yourself at a 5k. If you feel that training has gone well at your current paces, you can set a pace for a little faster than your current pace on race day.

A few race day tips: Make sure you warm up with 10 – 20 minutes of easy running, then do 3- 5 strides (100 meter accelerations) about 15 minutes before the race. This helps prime your body to be able to get on pace right away.

Challenging yourself to run a faster 5k is a great way to give yourself focus to your training, and improve your overall fitness. Structure builds confidence. Confidence builds speed. And speed shows up on race day.

Need a more detailed plan that’s customized to you? We create custom training plans based on your fitness and lifestyle to help you reach your goals. Learn more about our custom plans at Fast Pack Running.

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