breaking 25 minutes for a 5k is a great
milestone it's challenging but doable
for most so if you're hoping for a pv in
your local park run or upcoming 5k event
we're here with some tips on how you can
go sub 25 for 5k
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now 5k race or event is a great distance
to target really it's short enough that
you could do one every week should you
wish i mean maybe you already do with
your local park run but also long enough
that it's going to take some effort to
complete and by time you've completed a
few of these you're likely going to want
to start hitting some sort of target and
a nice round number such as 30 minutes
25 minutes or 20 minutes for 5k seems
quite appealing yeah but for this video
we'll assume that you could already run
30 minutes for 5k and that 20 minutes
for 5k is a little out of reach 25
minutes is a nice round number and a
great goal so how do you get there yeah
well let's take a look at what 25
minutes for 5k looks like so that
equates to 12 kilometers an hour or five
minutes per kilometer or eight minutes
per mile well actually 803 per mile but
obviously we want to play it safe and go
sub 25 right yeah it's a significant
milestone though because somewhere
between six minutes okay which is a 30
minute 5k and five minutes okay which is
a 25 minute 5k most people would argue
that you're changing from jogging to
running we actually made a whole video
about jogging versus running and you can
decide where the difference is or where
the threshold is but i don't think
anyone would assume that under 25
minutes for 5k is jogging yeah and that
is going to take some good training
planning and obviously good execution
and that's what makes it such a good
challenge so let's discuss what it's
going to take
breaking 25 minutes is going to take
some training if you've just been doing
your weekly park run and hoping that
your times are going to keep dropping
i've got some bad news for you you're
going to need to do some additional
training unless you're young or very
talented you're just not going to get to
25 minutes on a weekly park run
we suggest three runs a week you can
still do your weekly park run but then
add two or three more runs during the
week to get that fitness if you do two
more runs that gives you a recovery day
between each run
if you have only been running 5k on the
weekends don't suddenly do 5k every
other day start these other runs at two
or three kilometers and then you can
build them up slowly until you're
running a fair distance in each run now
forgive us for making assumptions but
we're going to hazard a guess that until
now you have simply been running heading
out the door and going for a run and
there's nothing wrong with that but if
you want to go faster you need to
practice running faster now that doesn't
mean you now start heading out doing
every single run at a faster pace or the
entire run at a faster pace what you
actually want to be doing is short
sections of that run at a faster pace
with short recoveries between what we
call intervals or interval training and
that is a far more manageable way of
getting your body used to running faster
right
you don't want your form to fall apart
towards the end of your 5k you want to
be able to run well all the way until
the finish line and to do this you need
to build the strength to cover the whole
distance you can build this strength by
doing strength work this can either be
hill running or over distance work
hill running as the name suggests is
running up hills you can do this
naturally by simply choosing a hilly
route or you can run hill repeats that
is fine in a hill and running up it and
down it multiple times to build that
strength when you're doing hill running
you will be running quite slow it will
feel really slow when you're running up
hills but don't worry you will be
building the strength you need to run
fast on the flats
over distance also as the name suggests
is running further than the distance you
will run on race day so running 8 or
even 10ks as a long run will build that
strength and endurance that you need to
run that 5ks fast and hold your form all
the way to the end
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now once you've built up your fitness
and you're feeling ready to give that
sub 25 minute 5k a crack there's a few
things that you want to consider for the
day and notice how i say the day because
whilst you may be able to do a 5k every
single weekend or part run every weekend
it doesn't necessarily mean you should
be trying to best yourself every weekend
in fact we would say try and use a few
weeks to prepare and then pick out a
particular date where you really try and
smash it and get that pb yeah and you
want to pick a flat root for this pb
because it may be tempting to choose a
hilly root so that you can recover a
little bit on the downhills but the
truth is when running you actually lose
more on the uphills than you gain on the
downhills so a flat route is the fastest
warm up with a short jog and then a few
strides at all near race pace about 10
minutes before your event starts yeah
possibly one of the most important
things when going after a pb is
our pacing we want to start at or as
close to our target goal pace so for a
sub 25 minute 5k
we want to be targeting 455 to 457 per
kilometer and we want to start at that
pace and stay at that pace throughout
one of the traps that many of us fall
into myself included is starting out a
bit fast because it feels good right and
we think oh we're gonna get a bit of a
buffer in the bag for the second half of
the event in reality what often ends up
happening is we end up tiring far more
on that second half because we're so
exhausted and end up losing far more
time so far better tact is to go for an
evenly paced race that's right how you
pace yourself is up to you these days
it's quite easy to use a gps watch
that's going to give you live and
accurate pacing but remember even with
the gps watch there will be some
fluctuations in your pace as you go in
you can also use a heart rate monitor to
set an upper limit make sure you don't
start out too fast just setting up the
limits and if your watch starts beeping
at you you can ease right up also don't
worry about other runners around you
even if they've promised that they're
also going for a sub 25 rather run your
own race do it at your own pace and let
other runners pull ahead or drop the
drop behind depending on their race and
you stick to your own race plan yeah we
also have hydration and nutrition to
consider as well now of course for a 5k
and well we're going after a sub 25
minute 5k pretty speedy we're probably
not going to need to consider nutrition
and hydration too much unless of course
it's a really warm day may want to
consider taking on fluid on course we
want to consider more actually our
nutrition and hydration before the race
so make sure we're not having too big a
meal directly before the event and maybe
having a slightly smaller breakfast on
the day of the event in terms of
hydration we actually want to be making
sure that we're staying on top of
hydration the days leading up to the
event and then on the morning or the day
of just topping up those levels rather
than gugging down a massive bottle of
water on the start line
luck for your first attempt at going
under 25 minutes for 5k we hope it goes
well and you hit that barrier and
hopefully soon you'll be clicking on our
video on how to go sub 20 for 5k before
i imagine that well do make sure you let
us know how you get on in the comment
section down below and don't forget to
give this video a like and subscribe to
the channel for that sub 20 minute 5k
video