Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexB
I use a Garmin, and realised over the weekend that it has a 5k PB on my front page set when I was rehabbing at 3.5minute walks and 1.5 minute walks. Turns out my 5k PB was only a minute or so slower than my 4 mile time as the continuous 5k run kinda got skipped in my programme.
So decided to drop distance down to 5k today just to erase this anomaly: 21:41 later I'm very happy.
Was thinking that I can get back to increasing distance a mile or so a month (I usually only run an average of 1.5 times a week, biking at least that on average), but reading stuff on here by people who clearly have looked into this, it appears I should vary distance and speed a bit more rather than just increasing distance every now and again for maximum benefit?
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I despise that about Garmin connect. It does not do what some of the others (such as strava) do by looking for the best 5k in your run. It just says, was your run more than 5k and what was the total time. I pretty much ignore the Personal records page on Garmin Connect.
As for your question on running plan.. Probably something better for a coach, as your situation is clearly not the same as mine. Running a 21:41 5k indicates you clearly have a good aerobic base from whatever activities (your biking or whatever). Most people if they are running only once a week and are newer runners, they should just run an aerobic pace "easy run", but you obviously have a base.
As example, I was pretty sedentary before I started running, and way overweight. I have had to spend months working on my aerobic base just to get under a 30 minute 5k. (When I started, i couldn't even run 1 minute without running out of breath). Frogman has been pretty active with his martial arts and other stuff longer, and he conquered his weight loss issues before me, so it has taken him much less to get to a better performance thanks to already having a good base.
So, hard to say since I am no running coach, my guess though is if you are running only once a week, you probably would do well with an easy run of whatever distance that you end with strides to work in some speed work which is usually fun. I honestly don't know in your case if throwing in a tempo run would also be as beneficial or more. Maybe one of our more experienced runners such as digamma or those who have run longer might have some better suggestions based on experience.