Update Mar 13: Pain wins this time. 2010 event awaited.
The 5K run at my place of work is an annual event. It started off a couple of years ago as a charity run for various causes, and has been an out and out success. To put it into perspective, more than half the employees take part in the various runs on the day, including a competitive 5K, a non-competitive 5K, and for the first time this year, a competitive 5*1K relay.
Preparing for an event like the 5K takes quite some time, to be fair about 2 months of dedicated training. However, with the recent Gurgaon marathon, there is only about 10 days of training days left to prepare for this one, and so, one can push it by only so much as to not get into an injury situation. Last year, I ran at just about a 5 min/km pace, and I hope to cut it down this year. By how much, remains to be seen… though I have my targets.
Below are some of the 5K training plans I refer to.
- Hal Higdon: 5K Training [8 weeks]
- Runners World: The Beginner 5-K Plan [5 weeks]
- Runners World: The Intermediate 5-K Plan [5 weeks]
- Runners World: The Ultimate 5-K Plan [6 weeks]
- Jeff Galloway’s 5K Training [15 weeks]
- Furman Institute FIRST 5K (pdf) [12 weeks]
The run is on the 18th of March, I am sure it will be hot with the way the temperature has been rising in the recent days.
Just read a few articles on proper warming up before a 5K run. All of them essentially advise 3 things:
1. Doing 1-2 miles of slow running
2. Doing 3 to 4 strides on 50-100 meters
3. Doing a bit of in-place jogging while waiting for the race to start
Here is an article from Running Times magazine on 5K warmup. Will try to stick to this and see how it goes.