On running strategies...
So I've been enjoying my running again after getting back into it properly after my last minor injury....
The goal is to nudge my Park Run time to ideally under 20 mins, but at my age I am aware that is pushing it!
I'm in no massive rush which helps!
My current recent best is just over 23 mins, and if I can get this down to under 22 mins, so 21 mins something by EOS - in my mind that's end October then I'd be pretty happy with that - as a sort of holding pace rather than peak pace!
The question that's been on my mind is how much to workout...
I am a little bit restricted by work and family duties, but it's rare that I'd have to skip more than a couple of days....
I had been doing this...
Mon - 400 intervals
Weds or Thurs - 1K intervals
Sat - Park Run - which I normally can't help but treat as a tempo run!
And ideally I'd do a gentle 5K on the Thursday...
I can just feel the above is too much....
Also sticking to the same weekdays is tricky and maybe a hindrance so I've accepted the fact that I need a general plan and then be prepared to flex as life and my body demand, I don't need to be doing 2 intervals and one tempo run a week - I think I want to aim for 2 every 5 to 7 days that'd be much better and also getting in a slow longer run would be good too every 8-10 days...
So...
Principle 1 = hard - easy - hard.
Principle 2 = easy day after hard if it feels OK but then always at least 1 day off!
Principle 3 - if in doubt another easy or rest!
Principle 4 - swap any hard run for a Park Run!
Cycle =
Run 1 - 400 M/ 1K Intervals
Run 2 - easy
Run 3 - five - six K tempo (A1 park run!)
Run 4 - easy
Rum 5 - long or tempo (B2 Park)
Run 6 - easy
So this should be as intense as it gets!
M - Intervals
T - Easy
Th - tempo
Fr - easy
Sun - long or tempo
Mon - easy
In the past I would run for 2.4Km to 3Km, then walked lol... then ran again for 2.4km, then walked lol.
I could not run right now, I have left knee injury due to playing football on January 2026. Hopefully I could take some joggings again next month.
I've been looking more into what sort of training is recommended and there is a lot about doing mostly really easy runs as these may make your body adapt better to running. You still need some workouts for speed and strength though. Some of the routines I've seen are about improving your 5k, but so far I've not seen one that actually includes doing a weekly parkrun. I feel I need an intervals run as well so that would leave a couple of easy runs (zone 2 heart) with one of them being long. I am going to try that for a few weeks. I'll fit in some strength work at home too.
That said, I'm interested in how your training goes. 20 minutes would be amazing.
I'm also interested in those easy run strategies, I think you just have to go with feel a lot of the time! Let me know how it goes!
I have a similar goal. My parkrun time this morning was 24:54. I think my best last year was in the 23s. I am going to try just one interval run mid week, parkrun as a hard weekly run then every else easy zone 2 including a Sunday longer run.
Really similar to my own strategy, I am tempted to try out the easier runs and try to gain with a less is more approach.....
I have so slow my longer run down to what feels like walking pace sometimes to maintain zone 2 heart rate. It is so frustrating, progress is so slow. but it might be what I need as l get older.