Warmup
- 10 minutes easy jogging
- Dynamic drills: leg swings, high knees, butt kicks, A-skips
- 4 x 100m strides building into 5K effort
- 2 minutes rest before the first rep
Main Set
6 x 1000m at 5K effort, 2 minutes jog recovery between reps.
5K effort means the pace you could race a 5K at today, not the time on your PR certificate from two years ago. If someone asked you a yes-or-no question mid-rep, you could answer it. Anything more than two words and you’re going too hard.
Jog the recovery, don’t walk it. Two minutes is enough to bring your breathing back down but not enough to fully recharge. By rep 4 you’ll feel that.
Target consistency. The first three should feel controlled. Reps four through six are where the workout actually happens.
Cooldown
- 10 minutes easy jogging
- Stretch: calves, hamstrings, hip flexors, quads
Coach’s Notes
A kilometer at 5K effort is the canonical VO2max rep. Long enough that you can’t fake it with raw speed, short enough that you stay above the threshold and stress the aerobic ceiling. Six of them with two-minute jog is a session that has produced fast 5Ks for a hundred years. There’s nothing clever here — just the work.
Two common ways to blow this one. First: starting rep 1 at 3K effort because you feel fresh. You will pay for it on rep 4. Second: easing rep 6 because you’re tired. Rep 6 is the most important rep — it’s the one that tells your body the stimulus was real.
If reps 5 and 6 are within 5 seconds of rep 1, you nailed it. If rep 6 is faster than rep 1, you held back too much in the middle.
Scaling
Newer runners: 4 x 1000m, 3 minutes jog recovery. Or 5 x 800m at the same effort with 2 minutes rest. Same stimulus, less total quality work.
Advanced runners: 8 x 1000m, or tighten recovery to 90 seconds. Another option: progressive — start at 5K effort and finish the last two at 3K effort, holding the 2-minute jog throughout.