Please note: I am not a doctor, medical professional, health/wellness expert, physical therapist, running coach, or a sports psychologist. These are just my ramblings about my personal experiences with the Garmin Coach 5K Training Plan.

Don’t have money for a personal running coach? Me either.

But as a Garmin user (I have the Forerunner 245), I realized I already have access to a number of free training plans in the Garmin Connect app. While I was initially skeptical of how well the plans would work for my goals, I was happy I stuck it out for a 17 week plan!

How to Set Up a Garmin Coach 5K Training Plan

When you first set up a plan in the Garmin app under the Training & Planning tab, you can choose between a few different race distances: 5K, 10K, or a half marathon. You also get to choose your coach: Jeff Galloway, Greg McMillan or Amy Parkerson-Mitchell.

I’d highly recommend reading all of their bios and watching related videos, as the coach you pick can have a big impact on the recommended workouts. For example, Jeff Galloway is all about a run-walk method. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of this style, as I find myself just wanting to walk rather than resume running. That said, I’ve noticed some run-walkers do beat me in races. So, definitely personal preference!

During set up, you also get to choose your goal. Do you just want to finish the race? Are you trying to hit a certain time goal? This is where you need to be honest with yourself. You want a goal that’s challenging, but do-able.

My Experience Using a Garmin Coach 5K Training Plan

I’m hesitant to use numbers because I don’t like the comparison game, but my goal when setting up the training plan was to run a 5K in under 25 minutes. To give myself a buffer for race day, I set the official goal time as 24:30. This put my goal pace for race day around 7:50 per mile. This felt challenging, but within reach as I had previously run a 25:35.

I chose Amy Parkerson-Mitchell as my coach. I appreciated her physical therapy background and big focus on injury prevention. After over a year of dealing with a persistent calf strain, this is something I take very seriously now!

Despite being somewhat of an experienced runner, I found the training plan to be hard from the start! Coach Amy’s 5K plan had both intense speedwork and long runs as well. When setting up the plan, I set my easy pace around 11:00 min/mile, but the actual workouts seemed to think my easy pace was somewhere in the 9:00 min/mile range. I just ignored this. When it said run easy, I ran my true easy pace. This may have hurt my score in the confidence meter, but it worked out in the end.

Given it was summertime in Florida when I started the plan, I gave myself some grace. I didn’t always hit the paces during speed workouts and I had to cut quite a few of the longer runs, short. That said, I did my best to do most of the workouts, but I wasn’t perfect.

Race Day Results

So, the reason you’re probably here, did the coach plan help me hit my time goal?

The answer is YES! I didn’t know I was capable, but I finally cracked 25 minutes in a 5K.

I had anxiety leading up to race day as I was nervous about going all in, but I didn’t let that stop me. I ended up running a 24:28. It hurt, but I was so happy! (This led me to write this post about reaching running goals.)

It’s hard to pinpoint any one thing that led to success for the actual race, but I do think out of all the types of training runs that were recommended, I think the speed workouts were the most effective. As someone that enjoys running easy/slow, the Garmin coach gave me the motivation to really push myself. I also can’t rule out some benefits from strength training during this time. I was working through Caroline Girvan’s IRON Series on YouTube. (If you’ve never heard of her or the IRON Series, I’d recommend checking out my review here. Since writing that post, I’ve completed the series 4 times total!)

Final Thoughts on the Garmin Coach 5K Training Plan

In all, I am extremely happy with how the 5K training plan went and with the ultimate result! I hit the target goal almost exactly. Plus, I enjoyed having a variety of run workouts to challenge myself with. When it’s up to me, I have a tendency to do the same runs at the same pace over and over again, so I really enjoyed the switch-up.

What’s Next?

I’m currently working through another Garmin Coach training plan. This time, I chose a half marathon plan with Greg McMillan. I’m planning to do a 15K, but sadly they don’t have a dedicated plan for that distance, so I’ll let you know how this goes!

Have you tried out the Garmin Coach 5K Training Plan or any of the other distances? Leave a comment below with your experiences.