Treadmill Tempo 5K

It was time for a little speed work at the end of last week. We'd just received a 1/2" of snow, so the sidewalks, trails, and the track would not be fast, so I opted for the treadmill.

I came across a treadmill 5K from exactly a year ago where I wasn't trying to be super fast: I started at 10.1 mph, worked my way up to 10.8 mph, and finished with a 17:55 5K. I figured I'd start a little faster at 10.3 mph and work my way up in a similar fashion, aiming to finish around 11+ mph.

So I started at 10.3 mph, and cranked up the pace by 0.1 mph every half mile. I started speeding up a bit "earlier" at mile 2.3: I was at 10.8 mph, up to 10.9 shortly after, 11.0 around mile 2.8, and 11.1 for the last 0:45 or so. I was being worked, but it didn't feel too hard. I THOUGHT I was going to end up in the lower 17s for a finishing time, and I felt GREAT about that. But I actually finished at 17:33 - I had mis-calculated something in my head pre-run. Oh well.

After a 1.2 mile cool-down.


Pace and HR slowly climbing throughout.


Showing a quick step off the treadmill after the 5K effort, and my HR zones.

My half-mile splits looked like this:

2:54, 2:52, 2:51, 2:49, 2:47, 2:44, 0:32 = 17:33.7

I had my treadmill tempo 5K PR just over 2 years ago, and I ran 17:07 by starting at 10.5 mph, quickly getting it up to 10.7 mph, and then holding it at 10.8 mph for most of it before speeding up more as I got closer to the end. Next time I do a hard run like this, I start off faster!

Anyway, it was still a decent end to the week after starting the week with a long (and decently fast) treadmill run.