Crush Your Next 10K With These Training Tips
Run your best race yet!
Have you run a 5K and are looking to take it to the next level with a 10K but you’re not sure what to do next?
A 10K can be hard if you are planning to run it for a PR. Almost every race from 5K to ultra marathons can vary in their levels of difficulty if you run the race at your best.
These are a few things you should incorporate in your next 10K.
Speed Training
When you are doing speed training, aim to do it about two days a week. Once upon a time, I tried to run hard every day and all that did was lead me to feel burnt out.
Do Exercises Like These:
400m repeats x 6 — when doing this, aim for a pace that is about 10–20% faster than the pace you are looking to run your 10K at.
Rest: Full recovery between intervals. This can be up to 5 minutes or until your heart rate gets below about 120 bpm.
800m repeats x 4 — same principle as the 400m repeats. Aim for a pace that is about 10–20% faster than the pace you are looking to run your 10K at.
Rest: Full recovery between intervals. This can be up to 5 minutes or until your heart rate gets below about 120 bpm.
Tempo runs — A tempo run is similar to interval training. It requires an effort that is slightly faster than what you are targeting to run at.
Easy Runs
You cannot underestimate the power of easy runs. The challenge of doing easy runs is we feel like we aren’t making any progress in our training.
Our training progress isn’t from any given training day but the accumulation of each day over time.
Easy runs help add miles to the legs without the burnout. Think of speed training as city miles and easy runs as highway miles.
The city miles add a lot more wear and tear.
How Do Gauge Easy Runs?
Often when people go out on easy runs, they go too fast. They think that running at a steady pace that is 00:30/sec — 01:00/min per mile pace less than their PR is an easy run.
When doing an easy run, you should be able to speak entire paragraphs. Your heart rate should be 125–135 bpm during the run.
If you have a running watch with a heart rate monitor, you should be able to set it up to send you alerts if your heart rate is in or out of range.
If you don’t have a running watch that has a heart rate monitor, then occasionally talk to yourself on your run. People might look at you like you’re crazy but if you have headphones in, they might just assume you are on a phone call.
It’s important to make sure that you do not go too hard on the easy runs.
How often should you do easy runs?
You can do easy runs as often as you want as long as your legs can handle the mileage. If you are doing an easy run truly easy, you should not feel any wear on your legs the next day.
Strength Training
If you’re a runner, you’re bound to have muscles that are overdeveloped and others that are underdeveloped. Commonly this occurs in:
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