Mark: Now, with these rather testing and uncertain times upon us right now, it is understandable
to be losing or to maybe have already lost your training mojo and focus. After all, so
many events and races have been canceled, or are going to be canceled, or even just
postponed. That race season that you have been training so hard for is now totally up
in the air. What do you do now? Well, rather than just packing it all in together, we've
come up with a rather fun and alternative challenge here on GTN.
Heather: Yes. We thought that we would try and better our own five-kilometer personal
best in just two months. Anyway, we want you guys to come along for the ride. We're going
to be sharing our training, and hopefully our progression too, and maybe that will inspire
you guys to join us and aim for your own 5k personal best. We need a bit of motivation,
and hopefully we're going to motivate you as we go as well.
Mark: This is where things get interesting because we will both be following polar opposite
training methods. Heather: I'm going to be adopting the low
intensity, high volume training method. Mark: I will be doing the low volume, high-intensity
method, all of which we'll be sharing as we go. Now, let's see what we have signed ourselves
up for. [music]
Heather: Okay. I probably should start by sharing my personal best with you, and it's
currently a 17.55. I say currently, it's from 2009, so 11 years ago. I think that's the
only time I've actually gone under 18 minutes. I felt like it would be more than that, but
according to Power of 10, that is the only official time.
Although right now, I would dream of getting under 19 minutes. Yes, I have got my work
cut out. I'm not exactly sure where I'm at, but I know it's not good. I'm not fit. Although
saying that, I run 5k fairly regularly because I have two great local park runs, and I love
them for a Saturday morning. Good workout. Although I usually do it as part of a longer
run, so I have a good warm up and then run off the back, and sometimes even run it with
my friend and make it social. There are a few steps involved as well. However,
the quickest time I've managed this year, I think is just under 21 minutes. On the flats,
I don't know what I'd be, we'll find out a bit later on. It's fair to say I've got a
lot of work to do. 5k is a really tough distance, but in theory, it's one that I should be quite
well suited to because for modern pentathlon, I used to train for 3k, and now obviously
I much prefer the longer distance. I think it's going to be a shorter system as to how
fast 5k is going to feel. Actually I lied, I did do a 5k time trial
for the Zwift Academy not that long ago, and I think I was somewhere between 20 minutes
and 21 minutes. I'm probably less fit now. Anyway, there's going to be a lot of work,
and quite a lot of pain, I think, to get anywhere near a 17.55, but why not aim big.
[music] Mark: Well, my 5k PB is actually 15.08, although
unofficially, which I'm actually rather pleased about. You're referring to online records
actually states that my 5k PB is 15.17. Although I've gone under that a couple of times, clearly
not unverified courses, which I'm rather glad about because I am not in particularly great
shape, similarly to Heather. In fact, a one 30 minute run once a week or once every two
weeks has been quite big for me. We thought we would show this progression and show you
realistically where we are starting off from. We're going to get some benchmark times today.
We're going to do a 5k time trial each to really to get the scores on the door.
In light of the current crisis that we're all experiencing right now, we are training
responsibly. We are taking this really seriously. Heather is fortunate enough to have a treadmill
at her own home, so she's going to be performing hers indoors on the treadmill. I, unfortunately,
do not have a treadmill in my house, but I am very fortunate enough to live in a rather
rural setting. I have trails on my doorstep where I can pretty much guarantee I'm not
going to bump into anyone. However, if I do, I will literally turn around and run the other
way, and it's very safe on the [unintelligible 00:04:18], so hopefully I'm not going to go
twisting my ankle. Before we do get stuck into that, let us explain
our training methods in a little bit more detail.
[music] Heather: The high volume, low intensity is
often considered quite an old school method, but it has been proven to work for world-class
athletes in the past. Like the name on the 10 suggests, I'm going to be gradually building
up my distance and trying to have a consistently high volume, but I do just have two months
to do that in. I'm not however going to be putting in very much when it comes to high
intensity. The idea being that I'm going to be doing a lot of mileage in my legs, and
that's going to help with my fitness and improve my running efficiency because I will be doing
quite a lot of running tired. It's also going to take up quite a lot of time.
I think one of my biggest challenges is going to try to make sure that I stay injury-free
with this method. However, last year I did do quite a lot of high volume when I trained
for an ultra marathon, so I'm hoping my legs are slightly prepared or some sort of muscle
memory going on. Mark: Whereas my low volume, high-intensity
method is quite often regarded as a more efficient route to potentially the same result. Simply
put, it requires less hours or less miles of running, but being more specific in each
of those runs. I actually quite often will see some intensity or some quality within
each and every run, or at least most of those runs. That can result in a similar or the
same amount of stress as you would see in a high volume, low-intensity method, as Heather
is doing. It's also been shown that my method, the low
volume, high intensity, can get results quite quickly, but whether that will transfer to
a quick 5k time in a couple of months' time, we'll just have to wait and see.
Now, obviously, we have opted for polar opposite ends of the scale here just for a bit of fun.
In the elite world, you'll often see the elite runners opting for a mix of the two. They'll
do a lot of high-volume, high-intensity, as well as also a lot of low-intensity running,
but they do obviously have a lot more time to play with.
Without any further ado, I think it is time we cracked on and got our scores on the door.
It is time for 5k TT time. [music]
Mark: [unintelligible 00:06:37] [music]
Mark: 1k to go. I'm just going to pace a few seconds.
[music] Yes, 1k done. 16.55, from what I can see.
Just dipped under 17, better than I was expecting, to be honest. I hope there's a lot that I
can improve on there. That was tough. I had no idea how to pace that one. [unintelligible
00:07:22]. Heather: Well, I expected that to hurt, and
it did, and I'm a bit of a sweaty beetroot mess after that. I'm glad it's over. Obviously
with a treadmill, you know what pace you were on for, and I knew that I was not going to
be anywhere near my personal best. That was okay. I've dealt with that. I actually did
a 20 minutes, 16 seconds, which is about 30 seconds quicker than when I did the Zwift
Tri Academy 5k. I'll take that as a small win, even though that leaves me 2 minutes
and 20 seconds away from my personal best. Yes, it hurt. My heart rate was in the 190s
for the last 2k, and there wasn't much more left in the tank.
I've got a lot of work to do, and it's going to be interesting to see. I think it's more
a matter of how far I can get in two months rather than can I actually run a new personnel
best. Maybe I'll carry on into the summer afterwards, we'll see, but I've definitely
got my work cut out. I'm quite intrigued to see how Mark's got on actually.
Mark: Well, that felt pretty tough from the get-go there. I did, however, manage a pretty
respectable 16 minutes and 55 seconds. I just dipped under that 17 mark. That does leave
you somewhere in the region of 1 minute and 40 seconds if I want to better my current
5k PB. Quite a bit, but I'm actually pretty pleased with that, given my current fitness
level and the amount of training I've done today.
Something I did notice whilst I was running, which is quite interesting, is just my legs
really didn't feel that support. They really didn't feel in control. Off the back of that,
I've decided actually something I'm going to include into my training over the next
couple of months, is a bit more flexibility, mobility, and activation work on top of the
running training. [music]
Heather: Of course, please do join us because this is what it's all about. We're hoping
to get some motivation from you guys training with us, and hopefully we'll give you some
motivation whilst we go along at the moment, because there's obviously no racing, so we
need to think outside the box. I think any goal is a good goal, if you ask me. Yes, I'm
really lucky that I've got a treadmill so I can do quite a bit of my training indoors.
Whatever you guys have, if you have a treadmill, then use that. If government guidelines do
allow you to go outside, then just make sure you check those, but that train wisely.
Mark: Yes, and why not pick one of our training methods to follow. You've got Heather's high
volume, low-intensity method, and you've got my low volume, high-intensity method. To help
you out, we've actually created a PDF of both Heather and my training plan. You can find
that in the description below. Download that and you can follow it along nice and easily.
Why not get in touch with Heather or myself over social media, if you are doing it, and
just let us know how you're getting on. Of course, this is just part one of a series
of videos. You will be able to track Heather and my progress as we go to that 5k. That's
all for today. I hope you have enjoyed it. Make sure you give this video a like, and
why not follow us on our social media channels? [00:10:15] [END OF AUDIO]