Training paces from a race time: easy to intervals
A 25:00 5K puts your easy runs at 9:44 to 11:38 per mile. Five training paces from one race, and the days to ignore them.
Updated
The slow paces are the hardest ones to respect. Run a 25:00 5K and your easy days belong somewhere between 9:44 and 11:38 per mile, which will feel like jogging.
All five come from one race. The race gives an estimated VO2max (Daniels-Gilbert), easy, threshold and interval paces are each a share of that VO2max, and marathon and repetition paces are simply the race times it predicts for the marathon and the mile. Two runners, per mile:
| Pace | Used for | 25:00 5K | 22:00 5K |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Most of your miles, long runs | 11:38 to 9:44 | 10:21 to 8:38 |
| Marathon | Goal-pace miles in a long run | 9:04 | 8:01 |
| Threshold | Tempo runs, cruise intervals | 8:53 to 8:29 | 7:53 to 7:31 |
| Interval | 3 to 5 min reps, VO2max work | 7:59 to 7:39 | 7:04 to 6:47 |
| Repetition | 200 to 400 m, about mile race pace | 7:24 | 6:28 |
The 25:00 runner’s easy range is 7:14 to 6:03 per km, if your watch is set that way. A 1:55 half gives the same paces as that 25:00 5K, within a second.
Easy days
Easy sits at 59 to 74% of VO2max. For the 25:00 runner, 9:44 a mile is the fast end, not the target.
Esteve-Lanao split 12 well-trained runners into two groups for five months, with the same amount of hard work in each, and the group that kept about 80% of its training below the first threshold took 157 seconds off a 10.4 km cross-country course while the group at 67% took off 122. Twelve runners is a small sample. Coaches still see it every season, though: runners who turn easy days into medium days are too tired for the hard ones.
Heart rate drifting out of zone 2? Slow down more.
Tempo and cruise intervals
Threshold is 83 to 88% of VO2max, about the pace you could race for an hour. Run it as a 20-minute tempo after a warm-up, or as cruise intervals: 3 to 5 × 1 mile with a minute’s jog between. For the 25:00 runner that’s each mile in 8:29 to 8:53. Leave one in the tank.
Intervals and reps on the track
Interval pace is 95 to 100% of VO2max. Billat timed eight subelite men at the slowest speed that gets them to VO2max, and they lasted 404 seconds on average before giving up; her later review puts the typical value at about 6 minutes, give or take 25% from one runner to the next. Six minutes isn’t long. Reps of 3 to 5 minutes with nearly as much jog recovery keep you there without blowing up, so try 5 × 3 minutes with 2 to 3 minutes of jogging. On a 400 m track, the 25:00 runner’s interval pace is a lap in 1:54 to 1:59. Run them faster than that and you’ll usually fade before the last rep.
Repetitions are faster and shorter, at about mile race pace, with full recovery: 400s in 1:50 or 200s in 55 seconds for the same runner. They train form and leg speed more than breathing.
Which race to use
Your most recent all-out race on a flat course, from the last six weeks or so, between a 5K and a half if you can. A PR from two years ago sets paces you can’t run today. Every workout turns into a race.
A 5K says more about speed than endurance, so its marathon pace is usually optimistic. If you have a recent 5K and a recent half, use the half for easy and marathon paces and the 5K for the track. When the two disagree and you’re not sure, use the slower one.
No recent race? Twelve minutes all-out on a track, the Cooper test, works too. The Cooper test calculator turns your distance into an estimated VO2max.
When to stop looking at the watch
When it’s hot or the route climbs, run by effort and let the pace go. In Minetti’s runners, a meter up a 10% grade cost 5.77 J/kg against 3.40 on the flat, 70% more. A meter down the same grade cost 1.93.
Recalculate after a race, or every four to six weeks if a time trial shows you’ve improved. Not because one run felt good. The training pace calculator handles any race from the mile to the marathon.
Sources
- Race time and VO2max equations: Daniels and Gilbert, Oxygen Power, 1979.
- Training paces as a share of VO2max: Daniels, Daniels’ Running Formula, 3rd ed., Human Kinetics, 2014.
- Easy running below the first threshold: Esteve-Lanao et al., J Strength Cond Res 2007;21(3):943–949.
- Time to exhaustion at VO2max speed: Billat et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc 1994;26(2):254–257.
- Energy cost of running uphill and downhill: Minetti et al., J Appl Physiol 2002;93(3):1039–1046.
- Typical time to exhaustion and its spread between runners: Billat and Koralsztein, Sports Med 1996;22(2):90–108.