Treadmill Workout Plan | Treadmill 5K Training Plan

Winter generally isn’t considered racing season—not that you can’t find great races to beat the winter blues! But this off-season is still the ideal time to a) build your aerobic base and b) work on your speed. Nope, you don’t need a track (or even to venture outside) to train to run faster. The treadmill can be a runner’s best friend when it comes to tapping into your pace potential—especially for a 5K.

The beauty of the tread? It’s a controlled environment. “Training for 5Ks generally includes speed and tempo runs, and the treadmill allows you to precisely set the paces, inclines, and interval lengths you want to run at,” says Lindsey Clayton, a certified run coach, cofounder of the Brave Body Project, and founding digital instructor at Barrys in New York City. That way, you’re not wasting mental energy constantly looking at your running watch.

And before you knock the “dreadmill,” know that science supports running indoors (sometimes, at least). Your biomechanical patterns don’t change when you run on a treadmill versus outside, according to older research published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, and your VO2 max stays the same in both scenarios, another study in the same journal found. (To better simulate outdoor running, you can set the treadmill to a 1 percent grade, older research from the Journal of Sports Sciences suggests.)

How to Figure Out Treadmill Pacing

If you’ve ever taken a treadmill class, you’ve probably heard an instructor tell you to run at your race pace, whether that’s mile, 5K, 10K, half marathon, or even marathon pace. You don’t actually need to have raced those distances to know how fast to go; those reference points are just an easy way to cue multiple people to run at their own specific speeds.

In actuality, it’s more about effort level than speed—you run shorter distances at a more intense effort and quicker speed than you would longer distances. On a treadmill, “a jog is typically between 5.0-7.0,” says Clayton. “Half marathon pace is 6.0-8.0, 10K pace is 7.0-9.0, 5K pace is 8.0-11.0, and mile or sprint pace is 9.0-12.5.” Of course, these can change depending on your speed, but these numbers serve as a good guideline.

If you’re really not sure where to start, use your rate of perceived exertion. In that case, you’d use a scale of 1-10 to judge your effort level, says Clayton. A jog is a 5 out of 10, easy running is a 6, moderate running is a 7, hard running is an 8, and an all-out effort is a 9-10. From there, you can figure out what effort level corresponds to a specific treadmill speed for you.

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How This Plan Works

To get faster, you have to run faster—so this four-week 5K training plan was specifically developed by Clayton to help you develop the speed and power you need to PR.

The first week, you’ll do a mile time trial, which is a great way to gauge where you’re at in terms of speed, says Clayton. “This data will help you create goals that are realistic with your current level of fitness,” she explains. “After your warmup, your first timed mile should be at an effort level of 8 out of 10. Start off at 5K pace and gradually increase after you hit a half mile. After you finish and recover, reassess if you could have pushed harder at the beginning or if you pushed too hard. Try to progress your speed in your second timed mile, even if it’s just a second or two faster!”