The Need For Speed

By Cedric Jaggers/Running Journal/December 2008

20:40 and 22:52. 17:34 and 20:50. 19:09 and 26:50. 18:21 and 20:53. 18:05 and 20:45. 17:34 and 21:51. 19:12 and 21:47. 19:23 and 23:52. 18:39 and 25:12. 19:34 and 22:53. What are we looking at here? We are looking at a severe need for speed because these are the male and female winning times of 5K races held in South Carolina in the last few months. . Don’t believe it? Go to the running.net site, click on results and check out some of the races yourself.

Ouch. I say ouch because these times are slower than my 5K PR and my wife Kathy’s 5K PR (Our PRs are slower than our ‘best times’ which of course were run on uncertified courses. Uncertified courses have to be counted as short since they are approximate distances, so we do not count them as PR times.) The times that begin this article are too slow to be winning times.

Maybe I’m just too old fashioned, but when I ran my PR I finished third in my age group and 13th in the race. I think Kathy’s placement was about the same among the females when she ran her PR. I still believe that winning times for 5K races should be under 17 minutes (preferably under 16) for males and under 20 (preferably under 19) minutes for females. So when I see people regularly winning races with slow times it makes me wish I could still run as fast as I did when I was in my 30s or 40s or even my 50s -- I’d be going home with overall winner trophies way too often.

I thought about how winning times have slowed down through the years while Kathy and I were on vacation in Georgia and I was running the “Mission Hills Road loop” very slowly in Cartersville. When I started up the long nasty hill that goes on for more than half a mile and started huffing and puffing and slowing way down, my need for speed became obvious to me.

If you are feeling a need for speed, what can you do to get some? Here are some tips from a longtime, though never very fast runner.
Be consistent in your running. You are never going to be able to run a fast 5K if you do not run regularly. Going out for a run a couple of times a week just will not get you there.

Build a mileage base. If you are only running 10 or so miles per week (as I am now unfortunately) you will discover that even if you can start out fast, you cannot hold a pace. You need to be running enough miles to give you the strength to maintain your speed. When we were running our fastest, Kathy and I regularly ran nine miles on Tuesday (which included a speed workout), five on Wednesday, nine on Thursday, three on Friday if we had a race the next day or five otherwise, race on Saturday or six miles, then 13 to 18 on Sunday. This gave us the mileage base to run fast (for us).

Speedwork. Track workouts or fartlek. There is really no substitute. He may not remember it, but Coach Benson had a suggested training program that appeared in this magazine many years ago. With a few minor changes, Kathy and I used it to run all of our PRs (and yes, they were on certified courses). Since I am not a coach, I will tell you that there are lots of good programs in books and elsewhere which will give you ideas of how you can do speedwork. I always preferred quarters on the track at a faster than race pace so that race pace would feel comfortable, but you might prefer ladders or other exotic speedwork schemes. But this is a guarantee: if you do not do speedwork, you will never run as fast as you are capable of running.

Don’t over race. Kathy and I were guilty of this. Remember it takes one day of recovery for every mile you run at race pace. Oh you can race every weekend, though we ‘only’ ran 30 to 32 races per year. But it will prevent you from running as fast as you are capable. Personal testimony: I ran my 5K PR the week after I ran my 15K PR. There was a friend whom I always outran. We ran the first mile together and I could feel the fatigue in my legs but I wasn’t going to let him go. By a mile and a half he started pulling away and I know if I had not still been recovering he would never have outrun me. But he did that day. Are you over racing?

Don’t start your race too fast. The pundits say you can only safely run 10 seconds faster than you are in shape to average for the distance. So if you are in shape to run a sixminute pace i.e. 18:39 and you run the first mile in 5:50 you should be okay. But if you run it in 5:30 you are going to slow down, and down and down and probably run the last mile in 6:20 or slower. Starting too fast will catch up with you, and I should know since I usually did it about 25 times a year when I was racing regularly. It is easier to know what you should do than to do it.
Control your weight. You need to be reasonably thin to run fast. I do not mean anorexic thin, though when you are in shape some people will tell you that you are too thin. Everybody has an ideal running weight, but you have to find it for yourself. For me, my ideal weight was 30 pounds lighter than I am now. The pundits also tell us that every pound over your ideal weight means you will run two seconds per mile slower with the same amount of effort and training. That means I am running a minute per mile slower just because of my weight, and even slower since I am not doing much training. In a 5K that means more than minutes slower just due to the extra weight.
We all have a need for more speed. More speed for ourselves and more speed for overall winning race times.

Are you feeling a need for speed? Maybe these tips will help you find it or get it back. I still think I could get in shape and run faster than 20:40 and maybe win that first race I listed in this article next year. I want to see some faster male and female winning times at 5K races. How about you?