Sub 20 minute 5k on less than 2 hours a week? Possible?

If you are anything but a young male then, unless you can already do it, a sub 20 minute 5k is not trivial.

“I can do it. It’s easy. When I couldn’t do it; it wasn’t.”

How annoying was that last statement! Sorry. But hopefully you take the point I am trying to make.

Chances are that if you are not a young male then you are not pretty aerobically fit (of course some/many of you WILL be but MOST of you won’t be). So you are coming to do a non-trivial thing from a sub-optimal starting position. Problem number 1.

So compound that with only wanting to do 2 hours training a week and you are giving yourself a relatively hard goal to achieve with significant constraints on your training. Problem number 2.

6 hours a week would be a better amount of time to commit. And if you organise and plan those 6 hours well then sure enough most of you will achieve your sub 20 goal. This site has plenty of free plans and if you want I can coach you towards that goal.

Anyway. To answer the question; “yes!” it is possible. I know people who have done it. If you are better than them then you can do it on 2 hours a week as well. To gauge how difficult it will be for you then read this.

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Last Updated on 16 January 2026 by the5krunner

the5krunner

tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors.