Running: How to mentally get past 5k?

[DrNortherner]

I can run 5km fairly easily, cuold be quicker I guess, but I finish and i have more left in the tank. However, I can't seem to keep going past 5k, so I stop.

I run on a tredmill and outdoors and have an ipod.

Am thinking of a running club but don't want to be the slowby at the back.

i got stuck at 5k too for ages. got past it it by doing 20 mins running as fast as i could. then the next time it didn't seem as bad. and then i went on a completely different route which is much longer so not possible to give up early.

I did it by running for 5 minutes/1 song longer each week. The "American Idiot" album takes me 10K .

Join a club! Not all clubs are made up of superfit fast people. Our local club has a range of people from greyhounds to not so fast and always has someone on hand to guide the newbies - all good clubs should be like this. It'll be the best way of improving your performance. Not sure where you are, but if you can find a club locally they should be able to help.

Usually, there is quite a good social side to the clubs too - ours seem to feature the odd beverage after a training run as an essential!

I loathe and detest the treadmill so when I have to use it, I set it to 20 mins, then when I get to around 18 mins, increase it by 1 min, then the same at 19m etc I'm so busy fiddling with the controls and watching for the next 'increase' moment that I almost forget that I'm going further. The only times I've done a treadmill 10k was by doing this.

The other thing I try is to increase my speed by 0.5kph every few minutes until I'm going at a fairly tough pace, obviously this means I go further in a given time

How fast do you cover 5k ? Maybe you could try focusing on time run rather than distance - challenge yourself to see just how far you can go in your nominal 5k time if you put your mind to it. Then, once you've proved you can do more than 5k, you can try some variations.

HTH, come and join us here for some encouragement!

I also have a bit of a mental block about beyond 5km, I convince myself I'm knackered when I'm not. I do that 'one more song' on the ipod trick.

If I can stretch it to 4 more, that's another 4km.

Get the Nike+ thing and set it for 5.2k and do not give up till Lance or Paula tell you you have done your lobgest run - it counts down the last 400m so you know you only have a short way to go.

Definitely change your route if you are outdoors, I do a different route if doing a 10k run to a 5k run. I like the idea of an extra song on the ipod too, I think I may use that to get past 10k.

Find a better route that you can change around a little. You will find a favourite route and look forward to running it. I only manage a 7/8 mile route once a week. Rest of the time I'm probably around 5 miles. But I look forward to my long run all week.

You will become addicted to mapmyrun

Thanks for the suggesstions. Will check out local clubs I reckon. I'm in N Yorks, can run 5k betwen 25-30 mins depending on how I feel.

Find someone to run with -I go with a friend now - makes such a difference - we yabber, and i forget about my breathing and achy legs!