I finished last year with a 49:16 over 10k after 18 months of training, is it realistic to aim for a 45 min 10k this year? my current training is as follows
mon:14k easy (6:00 per km)
wed: 10k tempo (5:14 per km)
fri: LSR 18k (6:15 per Km
Sat: 10k (5:30 per km)
I'm currently aiming to increase my LSR to 25k for a few halves i have in the summer, any suggestions on how to improve my times?
Comments
I absolutely believe that almost anyone who trains sensibly, avoids injury and keeps an eye on their weight can drop from a 49 min 10K to a 45 min 10K in one year.
There are other factors of course.....your age, how well you pace an event, the weather/wind conditions on the day, how well hydrated/fuelled you are.
The first thing to increase is your overall weekly mileage, I'd also consider reducing your tempo run to about four miles from 6.21 (10K) but do it rather faster.
Your training doesn't focus on 10K race pace, let alone anything faster. If you keep plodding out paces between 5:14 and 6:15 per Km, you won't magically perform a 10K race at a pace that you haven't experienced in training.
I'd log on to an online program called the Mcmillan running calculator. Bash in your current 10K time and it will give you a list of training paces. Some speedier 400m / 800m / 1200m and mile reps should see your times tumble quickly if you are prepared to make the effort. But allow a couple of easy running/recovery days after a quick, quality session.
I think you need some speed work -
You are doing 3 longer runs and a tempo run - I bet you have a solid base and feel strong but wondering why can't you go faster?
Switch Saturdays run to a shorter session - and do tempo every other week- doing a speedier session the other week
I would say the tempo could be pushed a little fast too as your not to much slower on the Saturday anyway...
Try building it up - keeping it smaller volume say 3-5 miles in volume
And speed things up - play around with reps keep recoveries consistent - focus on hitting good pace
So 10x400
5x 1 km
4x 1 mile
Anything less than race target volume should be ran fair bit quicker than race pace - the steady and long runs + tempo running will compliment this
cheers gents! any tips on how to do fast sessions without any track time? most of my runs include a series of hills which, although useful, dont really help reps
How do you measure runs now?
Work out measurements that way on decent bit of pavement? or grass? round local footy pitch ?
mostly via my garmin, although it seems obvious I'd never even thought about measuring the distance on my local park and figured out timings, well there's my plan for tomorrow sorted
Good luck!
Sometimes they do pacing events so you can stick with someone who will be going at the pace you need.
A diet of 3 or 4 running sessions per week of mile repeats, 1km intervals, 800s, 400s, and paced runs between 5 to 10km are needed.
Plodding along 5 to 6 minute km long runs 15 to 20km+ is unlikely to improve the speed needed to crack sub 45 minutes for 10km. Long runs help build endurance.
Sub 4 min 30 second km pace average over 10km must be practised in order to run sub 45 minutes for 10km.