The marathon season has about six more weeks before the summer 5K and 10K races start to fill the weekends. The runners that compete in marathons will need a few weeks to rest up after that last marathon before trying for a fast 5K. After running long runs of 20 miles for training runs for the marathons the legs are tired. The hard part of this is that runners don’t realize how tired the muscles of the legs are after a series of long runs. I have seen slides of muscle tissue after a runner finished a marathon and the muscle fibers look like they were shot with a scatter gun. The fiber was literally shredded. It takes several weeks for the muscles to heal. If the muscles are not allowed to heal it will lead to an injury later in the summer.
For runners that have stayed away from the marathon can start training for the summer “sprints” that marathon runners tend to think of 5K and 10K races. It is always good to try for a new PR with the new race season. Runners that say “I only run for fun,” may feel that way but almost every runner, jogger, or walker, wants to know their time at the finish. It may be a slow time in the race, but for that individual participant it is a new PR. Even if it takes you an hour to finish a 5K, finishing in 58 minutes in a race is a new faster PR. That is all it takes to fire up the competitive juices to see if the next race can be in 57 minutes, or faster.
The best method to run a new PR is that your training has to include a series of “speed” workouts. Speed in this statement is taken in a sense that once a week, or at the most twice a week, are geared to moving slightly faster than the usual pace. The other point is that the increase in speed can be in small increments. A runner does not need to try faster runs that they are never going to use, or be able to sustain, in a race. Even a few seconds per mile can make a difference in the total time in a race.
