'WEEK' 5: 'ON TO THE NEW YEAR' 2018-19

​SHORT-WEEK FIVE ON TO THE NEW YEAR 2018-18 5K TRAINING PLAN    
Runners and walkers: these last two days are almost optional, as you are ready to go now.  If your holiday schedule is hectic and there’s no way to squeeze in training sessions, no pressure. You can get by without it.  The two plans were each designed to keep you in shape to easily complete a 5k distance walk or run without much risk of strain or injury.  
 
Additionally, the idea was to keep your focus on stretching, mobility, and foam rolling to maintain soft tissue (connective tissue) health and to continue to stress the benefits of strength training
 
Runners: Sunday’s and Monday’s respective walk and run, are short and you should pace them on the fast side with intensity, to ready yourself for the race. Of course, those who are running Dec31 will not be training! Many trainers and coaches say that during a taper, the idea is to decrease mileage but remind your body it will be going fast soon by keeping your shorter sessions at the level of intensity you have been training at in interval sessions (in this plan they are the run/walks) or tempo runs (performed at about 10 seconds/ mile slower pace than 5k race pace), not at the slower speed of easy long runs.  
 
Walkers: Today’s workout is a simple 20-minute walk at about 80% effort of race day, which will be tomorrow for some and New Year’s Day for others.  

HOW TO CALCULATE 80% EFFORT? See http://www.reuneker.nl/files/code/pace/
(only calculates to 10 minutes per mile race-pace or faster; most walkers will be slower). 
The formula seems to be: z minutes/mile = 5/4 x race-pace (or 120% x race-pace)
(essentially add 20% minutes/mile to your expected race-pace)
 
80% effort of 10 minutes /mile pace = 12 minutes 30 seconds/mile
80% effort of 12 minutes /mile pace = 15 minutes/mile
80% effort of 14 minutes /mile pace = 17 minutes 30 seconds/mile
80% effort of 15 minutes/mile pace = 18 minutes 45 seconds/mile
80% effort of 16 minutes/mile pace = 20 minutes/mile
 
Have a wonderful long, Pre-New Year holiday break. See you next year, when the 2019 'SAINTSs DAYS' 5k, 10k, and half marathon training plans will be rolled out.
 
RUN & MOVE HAPPY!

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