Written by: VIDA Fitness
If you’ve run a 5K before and want to tackle more challenging running workouts to set a personal best this October at our 10th Annual VIDA Thrive 5K, this is the plan for you. Runners will get moving between 30-45 minutes 4x/week with a combination of time and distance-based intervals. That means runners will need a way to measure their distance and track their time spent running. Fartlek is Swedish for ‘speed play’ and indicates runners’ choice of interval in this plan—it’s often time-based (ex. run fast for 1 minute, jog recovery for 2 minutes), but it can also be creative, based on your surroundings (ex. run fast to the next tree, jog recovery to the following tree).
| Week | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| 1 | Rest | 20-25min easy | Rest | 10min easy; 4x1min fast w/2min jog recovery; 10min easy | Rest | 20min easy | 30min easy |
| 2 | Rest | 20-25min easy | Rest | 10min easy; 5x90sec fast w/2.5min jog recovery; 10min easy | Rest | 20min easy | 35min easy |
| 3 | Rest | 20-25min easy | Rest | 10min easy; 20min fartlek | Rest | 25min easy | 40min easy |
| 4 | Rest | 10min easy; 1 mile fast, timed; 10 min easy | Rest | 10min easy; 20min fartlek; 10min easy | Rest | 20min easy | 45min easy |
| 5 | Rest | 25-30min easy | Rest | 10min easy; 3x3min fast w/3min jog recovery; 10min easy | Rest | 25min easy | 35min easy |
| 6 | Rest | 25 min easy w/6 x 20-40sec fast pace | Rest | 20-25min easy | Rest | 15min easy or rest | 5K Race! |
