How to Develop Speed for a Fast 5K

5Ks like the Carlsbad 5000 allow for a good blend of speed and endurance.

The 5K is a complex—but thrilling—race. It’s short enough to require a lot of speed, but long enough to certainly be a distance runner’s event.

Ignore the speed necessary to run well and you won’t have that “higher gear” to finish strong.

Skip the foundational endurance during training and you’ll crash and burn in the final mile.

So what does sound training look like for runners targeting a fast 5K? There are three main ingredients:

Endurance (but more specifically, high-end endurance)
Speed development (5K pace, but also faster paces to stimulate muscular strength and the central nervous system)
Race-specific fitness (can you run about 3 miles worth of intervals at goal 5K pace during training?)

When you start planning a season, the focus must be on opposite ends of the speed spectrum: endurance and speed development.

As you get closer to the goal race, workouts start to look more similar to the 5K itself. In other words, they get more “specific” to the demands of the race.

Let’s discuss each element of training.

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