I just finished my first 5K!! I'm in cross country so it was manditory for all high school cross country runners. I It was a JDRF sponsored run so all you diabetic people will be happy.

What was your time? Took me about a 5 races before I was able to break 18:00

41 mins and somethin secs placed 275

Glad you finished Luke but you're going to have to pick up that pace a little. 41 minutes is a fast walking pace

I did build-ups all the way through the race

Please excuse my ignorance but what are build ups?

I have not heard that term in athletics/running circles here in New Zealand.

Regards

Sean

you start slow you build up speed and the you slow back down again

Hi

Thanks for educating me on the term "build ups".

This sounds more like Fartlek training to me or a variation of the same which was developed in the 1930's, and comes from the Swedish word for 'Speed Play' and combines continuous and interval training. Fartlek allows the athlete to run whatever distance and speed they wish, varying the intensity, and occasionally running at high intensity levels. This type of training stresses both the aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways.

This was a form of training the great New Zealand running coach Arthur Lydiard was a great advocate for.

Regards

Sean

OK, but if build-ups are just another word for Fartleks (which I remember less than fondly from long, long ago **) then one should still complete 5K in much less than 41 minutes ... so I must be missing something ... ?

John

** our HS X-Country coach thought it was neat, on the first big Saturday football scrimmage, to put the X-country team on the track around running endless 440's & Fartleks the entire length of the game just to show what wimps the FB guys were ....

I was inbetween the middle and the back of the pack

FYI

For comparison stakes.

I pushed this old 43 year old body in the weekend and did a 5k bush, cross country, hill climbing run in 27 minutes which aint to bad.

Mind you when I was young (17) and did the same distance type run man it was a a mission and took much longer than this. It would have been in a time probably much like Lukes.

Regards

Sean