Okay, you want to run a sub20minute 5K. I'm going to show you the quickest and easiest way to do that. And if you think it sounds impossible, I've got good news for you. It's not. You don't need to be a genetic freak. You don't need to have a super high V2 max or have been running since you were a kid. You need a strategy, structure, determination, but most of all, you need to decide that this is happening and you're going to get to work and do it. This plan will show you exactly how to run 5 km in 20 minutes. and give you the exact training sessions to get you there in the simplest way. I'm Lee Grantham, a coach and professional ultrarunner. And I don't just say this because it sounds good. I went from not being able to run 400 m. Within 5 months, I could run 5K in 18 minutes and 20 seconds. I then realized that I wanted to run full-time. I wanted to do this for a living. And so, my thinking was very simple. If I can run a sub 20minut 5k, then it's only a matter of training before I can run a marathon in 4 minutes per kilometer pace or 626 per mile. And it's only a matter of training and time before I can run 100k at 4 minutes per kilometer. And that's exactly what I did. And I went on to run 4 minutes and 1 second per kilometer and run the 100k in 6 hours and 42 minutes. And so if you've decided and you've already got the work ethic and the discipline and you now want to do the right things consistently well so that you can progress way further with your running and run way faster times, then please get in contact by booking a call in the description. Okay, let's dive in. I'm going to give you four steps that will help make this way more achievable for you. And then I'm going to give you eight key sessions that I would do where you can see the nice progressions along the way to get you to that sub 20 minute 5K. Step one, make yourself accountable. Put a date in the diary and book a race 13 weeks from now. And if you're not yet fit and you're not yet consistently running, I'd use a four to five week block to just insert that habit again, get it working for you, strengthen the tendons and ligaments, and get the body ready to be able to run faster in the midweek interval session and longer in the weekend long run. What that's going to do for you is not just hold you accountable, it's going to get you out of bed because you know you've got an event in the diary that you want to perform at. And so it's going to raise your game in terms of discipline and the dedication. It's going to mean that we're going for drinks tonight after work at 8:00. Do you want to come? You've got a solid answer why you're not going for those drinks. Step two, understanding the target. We're trying to run 5K in 20 minutes or less. That means 4 minutes per kilometer or 626 per mile. It means that every 250 m, we've got to run that in 1 minute. Step three, we want this to be a gradual build and we want to remove as much risk as possible. So, you got to be honest with your starting point. Where are you currently at? What can you run 5K in and what can you run 3K in? If you're not used to consistently running an interval session, consistently running faster. A great way to start is 12* 1 minute. And ideally, we're aiming for that 12* 250 m with 60 seconds rest in between. And how hard or easy that is is a good indication of where you're at right now. And so if that average pace comes out at 415 or 430 per kilometer, that's where you start and build from. Remember, if this takes us one training block of 13 weeks, brilliant. But if it takes three training blocks and we've got to gradually get there, there lots of PBS along the way. And more importantly, you're becoming a better trainer. And a good trainer is a good runner. And a good runner is a good racer. What we're trying to do here is become as comfortable and efficient as possible at moving over the ground at 4 minutes per kilometer or 626 per mile. Step four, this will massively help all of your running, but especially your faster interval training. All you're going to do is insert a warm-up routine and give the warm-up the respect it deserves and understand its value of how it primes the body for you to get ready to run fast. And what that will look like if you've done it properly is consistency in terms of effort and pace over the reps that you're going to do within the interval session. And for me, what that would look like is if the session is five times four minutes with 60 seconds rest in between, I want to be warming up by walking first, checking out the body. Are we okay? Is there any soreness or stiffness, any tightness that we need to stop and stretch? and then gradually getting into a light jog, accelerating slightly, some dynamic stretching, and then getting to a point in the warm-up where I'm doing two times 50% of the first reps. So, I'm doing two times 2 minute. I'm getting the effort level, my heart rate up to the point that I want to be hitting those first two reps. That's helping you do so many things. It's helping you to judge the pace. It's helping you to understand what's capable for those five times four minutes. What it's also doing is it's then not a shock to the system when you do that first 4-minute rep. If we can do that in all our running, but especially the faster running and the longer running, it's going to improve your entire running game. Now, on to the specific sessions. Week one, 20 * 1 minute with 60 seconds rest in between. So, we're aiming at 20 * 250 m. And we've progressed on if we needed to from 12 reps to 15 reps to maybe 18 reps and then to 20 reps. Remember, we want this to be under our control. We want it to be manageable. And a good indication of that is we can get to that 20th rep and feel like we can do one or two more reps. This is all about you getting comfortable, becoming efficient at running over the ground at the pace that we're trying to hold for the entire 5k. So that 4 minute per kilometer pace, 626 per mile. Session two, and this can be the very next week, 13 * 90 seconds with 60 seconds rest in between. And again, we're aiming for that 4-minute pace of 626 per mile. The interval is longer, but we've only got 13 reps. And I promise you, 20 * 1 minute and for elite runners, 20 * 400 m, essentially the same thing. It's one of the hardest sessions that a runner can do, whether they're training for 5K or marathon. So, for us aiming for 20 minutes, again, it's all about keeping these reps, these sessions under your control. Session three, we've only got 10 reps. Now, we're going to do 10 * 2 minutes with 60 seconds rest in between. So, we're keeping that 60 seconds rest as a constant. Before I get asked in the comments, I like to walk in between intervals if I'm doing the reps outside. If you're on a treadmill, I hop off the treadmill. Just keep it running. Just stand there. It's all about getting your breathing under control and returning your heart rate from high during the rep to low in the recovery. What we get to see from that heart rate recovery is fitness. And initially, if your heart rate graph looks like this, and it's trending upwards in terms of the peaks, but also upwards in terms of the heart rate recovery. So, the heart rate is not recovering to the same point it was at the end of the session as the start of the session. And that tells us a story and it tells us the session is unsustainable for much longer. So we couldn't do an extra one or two reps. What we're aiming at and this is 12* 2 minutes is we're warming up properly. So there's a walk there. Then there's light jogging gradually accelerating up to 2 * 50% of the first rep. So in this case two times 1 minute. 60 seconds after that warm up to get the heart rate down. And then in this case we're doing 12* 2 minutes. and we're watching the heart rate climb during the rep and the heart rate recover in between the reps. We can pretty much see that it's the same at the end of the session as at the start of the session. And then what we're doing on the back end is we're gradually letting the heart rate recover. So we're not going from high intensity during the rep to all of a sudden zone two. We're gradually letting the heart rate recover by bringing the pace gradually down in exactly the same way but in reverse as we did the warm-up. What that's going to do is help you clear lactate. So if you think about the extreme, we're not doing a heavy interval session and then immediately jumping in the car and driving home. That's when your legs seize up. We don't want that. We want the consistency and high quality sessions over the weeks and months and over the training schedule. Session four, 8 * 2 minutes 30 with 60 seconds rest in between. So again, we're dealing with that volume of 20 minutes, exactly the time that we want to be running for the 5k. And by this point, those 60 seconds rest, maybe initially they felt short and they were over very quickly. Now, we're feeling like we're getting used to that and we're watching the heart rate recover very quickly. So, we're looking down at our watch and it's only 45 seconds. We still got 15 seconds to recover and that's making the whole session more manageable. Remember, it's about pacing each rep and keeping it under your control. It's about pacing the interval session. It's also about pacing the week, the training week, and the training schedule. Session five, 7* 3 minutes with 60 seconds rest in between. So, we gradually nudging that rep length up. You're going to 3 minutes now, not 2 minutes 30. But it's all manageable because you gradually increase the rep length over the weeks. This is a really sensible way to be able to run further at the same pace, at that pace you want to run for the entire 5K. Session six, five * 4 minutes with 60 seconds rest in between. So again, 20 minutes of volume split up only into five reps, but these are 4-minute intervals. Usually people would start to feel the difference between a 3minut rep and a 4-minute rep. It's only a minute. It's quite a big jump based on the previous weeks of going from 1 minute to 1 and 1/2 minutes to 2 minutes to 2 and 1/2 minutes to 3 minutes. So again, let it all be in your control. And if that has to be slightly slower and again the warm-up will dictate what you can actually hold. You'll be doing two * 2 minutes before this session starts. And then the question is how am I feeling in those two times 2 minutes. Could I hold this for a 4-minute rep? I know I've only got five of these reps. Maybe it feels quite a bit more than those 3 minute reps. It's our job to become comfortable at running these 4-minute reps and being efficient at moving over the ground at exactly the pace we want to hit for that 5k. Session seven. four times five minutes. So, we've just flipped that previous week and we're only doing four reps, four times five minutes with 60 seconds rest in between. So, think about it. Session six and session seven. What we're aiming to do is run that like the 5k 5* 4 minutes the previous week. And if you get to rep three and four and it's not under your control, you're going to feel that in the final fourth and fifth kilometer. Exactly the same with session 7. Four * 5 minutes. to four times 1,250 m. And again, we're treating it like the quarters of a 5k race. So, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. And where are we in the third rep when it's starting to get tough? When we need to dig in because the perceived effort is higher than that first and second rep. Remember, we're not just improving you physically and physiologically, also mentally. You're learning how to pace that 5k. and you're learning over these interval sessions. If you go out too quick, you're going to pay for it in the end. And you're probably going to realize along the way that if you start conservatively and gradually get into it within reason, then just like the race itself, that's a better way to pace it. Session eight. All we're going to do is three times 2 km with 60 seconds rest in between. Now, if you think about it, this should be 3* 8 minutes with 60 seconds rest in between. So, it's a nice gradual progression from where we've come. You will notice that these are longer intervals and if it needs to take you okay two times 2 km and then one time 1 kilometer and then the nice progression onto 3 * 2 km at our 5k intended race pace. It's a great progression and you could play around with that. It might be that you want to do 3 * 1.5k so 3 * 6 minutes with 60 seconds and then gradually nudge that rep up to 2 km. This is a great session and a great indication of where you're at versus your goal because essentially you're going to be doing six kilometers at your target race pace for 5K. Now, a bonus session, so session 9 would be I would want to do this because you're on fatigued legs. You're not freshened up yet with a short taper. But if you can do 2 * 10 minutes, so 2 * 2.5k at that 20 minute 5k pace of 4 minutes per kilometer or 626 per mile, you're in a really good place. Remember, you're on fatigue legs. You've not yet got that magic of the taper. And you're able to go out there alone and do 2 * 2.5K or two times 10 minutes at that pace that you want to run the entire 5K at. So there's your interval sessions and I would be doing those consistently on a weekly basis every Wednesday. And we want to pace that session so that you can recover it in time to do a Sunday long run. Those are the two big sessions in the week that we're going to get the most super compensation, the most improvement from. And in an ideal world, in addition to those two runs, I'd want to be doing two recovery runs and two easy runs. And I'd always give myself a rest day the day after the interval session on the Thursday. Now, you want to get to the 5k start line fresh. You've got all this fitness that you've built up over the weeks. So, the question is, how long should the taper be? For me, my final interval session, so that two times 10 minutes or 3 * 2k would be exactly 10 days before. And then in that remaining 10 days, I'd reduce the volume but keep the intensity the same. So what that might look like in the final week is an interval session that looks something like 12* 1 minute with 60 seconds rest in between. So 40% less than what you're used to doing. The sole purpose there is to help you freshen up, reduce that volume, but keep the zip in the legs. I'd bring the long run back in volume and I even bring the recovery runs and easy runs back by 5 10 minutes depending on what you're doing. Then for race day, set yourself up well so nothing changes. your fueling is exactly the same as it has been for those interval sessions. You want that 5k race to feel exactly like an interval session and it really is and that's exactly what you've been building over the weeks and months. So you want to go out at a pace that you feel is pretty conservative. You're in control. Of course the first kilometer is going to feel easier perceived effort than the final two kilometers. And if you keep that in mind, set off conservatively. We're holding that 4m minute pace, but we're using as little energy as possible to maintain that pace. And then once you get to the 2.5 3K mark, you can start to accelerate and then really bury yourself in the final 1 to 1.5K. Really is a brilliant race. It's the 5K is perfect because you can race often. You can get that feedback. you can implement those changes into your training and become a way better, smarter trainer. Many people focus only on the marathon. So, they only get an opportunity once a year or once every six months to race, figure out what they're doing right and wrong, and then implement that in the training. And if you think about the difference in terms of how often can you race a 5K, every 3 weeks, four weeks? How often can you race a marathon? Every 3 months, 6 months, 12 months. And so over a fiveyear period, how much better a trainer are you going to be if you're becoming a much better racer in the 5K and the shorter distances and then maybe once or twice a year you also run the marathon? And as I said at the start of the video, as soon as I could run that sub 20minut 5k, I knew it was just a matter of training and time before I could run 248, exactly the same pace for the entire marathon. Certainly sub three. And what actually happened was of course you become faster at the 5k and the 10k and that then gives you a good indication of what you're capable for holding for the entire distance of the marathon. Pushes your entire game forward. In my next marathon I ended up running 2 hours 37 and it felt pretty much immediately when I finished like I could have gone quicker in the first half. I hope that you're able to follow the same journey. And if you want help with that journey and you want to go way faster by training in a much more smart methodical way, then please get in contact by booking a call in the link in the description. And if you want some specific long runs to attach to those interval sessions, here you go. [Music]