Coach's Guide to Running a 10K

The Next Step

Moving from 5K to 10K

If you've recently completed your first 5K, the next logical step doesn't have to be immediately going out and attempting to run 10K.

You've already developed something important: the ability to run consistently for a meaningful period of time. The next stage is to gradually increase the amount of running you can tolerate, recover from and repeat.

That might involve gradually extending some of your running while other sessions remain relatively short and easy. How quickly that happens should depend on your current fitness, training history, recovery and how you're responding to the running you're already doing.

You may have heard that runners should increase their mileage by no more than 10% each week. It's a simple rule, but it shouldn't be treated as a scientifically established progression that works for everybody.

Training With Purpose

You Don't Need to Run 10K Every Time

One of the important changes as runners develop is understanding that individual training sessions don't have to replicate the goal.

If you're preparing for a 10K, every training run doesn't need to be 10K. Likewise, if you're trying to run a particular finishing time, repeatedly attempting to run the whole distance at goal pace isn't a complete training strategy.

Different sessions can provide different training stimuli. Some help develop aerobic endurance. Some allow you to accumulate running with relatively little fatigue. Others develop your ability to sustain stronger efforts or expose you to faster running.

It's how those different elements fit together over time that matters.

Training Intensity

Most of Your Running Doesn't Need to Be Hard

Once runners start thinking about performance, there's often a temptation to assume that running harder must mean training better.

It doesn't.

Research examining training-intensity distribution in middle- and long-distance runners consistently shows an important role for accumulating a large proportion of training at relatively low intensity, with a smaller amount performed at threshold and higher intensities.

That doesn't mean every recreational runner needs to calculate an exact percentage of easy and hard running. Research in this area includes trained and highly trained populations, and the appropriate balance will vary between runners.

The practical coaching message is more useful: you don't need to make every run hard to become a better 10K runner.

Building Endurance

The Longer Run

As you move from 5K towards 10K, developing the ability to spend longer running becomes increasingly useful.

A longer aerobic run can help develop endurance without needing to turn the session into a race. For somebody progressing from 5K, that might initially mean simply extending the amount of comfortable running they can manage.

It's also worth remembering that the term long run is relative.

Somebody currently running for 25 or 30 minutes and somebody who has trained consistently for several years shouldn't be given the same definition of a long run.

It doesn't have to be fast and it doesn't have to leave you exhausted. The aim is to create an appropriate endurance stimulus that you can recover from and build upon.

Developing Your Training

Different Sessions Have Different Jobs

As your running develops, your training can gradually become more varied. That doesn't mean immediately putting every type of session into the same week.

Aerobic Development

Easy Running Still Matters

Easy running can sometimes feel too simple once you become interested in running faster.

It isn't.

Lower-intensity running allows you to accumulate aerobic training while generally creating less fatigue than repeatedly training hard. This is one reason lower-intensity running makes up such a substantial proportion of training in well-trained distance runners.

For recreational runners, it also has a very practical advantage: it can make consistent training much easier to sustain.

Pace isn't always the best way to judge an easy run either. Hills, wind, temperature, fatigue, sleep and stress can all change the effort required to produce a particular pace.

That's where pace, heart rate and perceived effort can be considered together rather than treating one number as the answer to everything.

Stronger Aerobic Running

Threshold Training

Threshold is a term runners hear frequently, and it's also one that can become unnecessarily complicated.

In practical terms, threshold-oriented training allows you to accumulate controlled periods of stronger aerobic running without turning the session into an all-out effort.

This can be particularly relevant to 10K performance because the ability to sustain a relatively high aerobic intensity becomes increasingly important when you're trying to race the distance well.

The important word is controlled.

Threshold shouldn't simply mean running as hard as possible for as long as possible.

Faster Running

Intervals & Hills

Interval Training

Interval training allows periods of faster running to be accumulated with recovery between repetitions. Depending on how the session is structured, intervals can provide quite different training stimuli.

But adding intervals doesn't mean abandoning easy running or turning the week into a collection of hard workouts.

A session can look excellent on paper and still be inappropriate if it doesn't fit with the runner's current fitness, training history or the sessions surrounding it.

Hill Training

Hills provide another useful training option. Running uphill changes both the physiological and mechanical demands compared with level running and can be used to introduce stronger running without becoming overly focused on the pace displayed on your watch.

The photograph at the top of this page was taken during a Longford Striders hill-repetition session I coached. Sessions like this are a good example of why the purpose of the session matters more than simply labelling something as “hill training”.

Short hill repetitions, longer controlled uphill efforts and an easy run over an undulating route all involve hills, but they aren't the same session and shouldn't automatically be expected to produce the same training response.

Supporting Performance

Strength Training for 10K Runners

Strength training deserves more than being presented simply as something runners should do to prevent injuries.

Research indicates that appropriate strength training can improve running economy in middle- and long-distance runners. Evidence from systematic reviews suggests benefits particularly from high-load resistance training, plyometric training and some combined approaches.

That doesn't mean every recreational 10K runner suddenly needs an advanced heavy lifting or plyometric programme.

Strength work should reflect your training experience, physical capacity, available equipment and the demands of the running you're already doing.

Adaptation

Recovery Is Part of Training

Training provides the stimulus, but simply completing more difficult sessions doesn't guarantee better adaptation.

As training volume or intensity increases, recovery becomes increasingly important. That includes sleep, nutrition, sensible spacing of demanding sessions and recognising when fatigue is accumulating.

It also means accepting that changing a planned session isn't automatically a failure.

If your circumstances or response to training have changed, sometimes adapting the plan is the better training decision.

Understanding the Numbers

Pace, Heart Rate & RPE

As runners become more performance focused, training data usually becomes more prominent.

Pace, heart rate and RPE can all provide useful information, but they tell you slightly different things.

Pace tells you how quickly you're moving. Heart rate provides information about your cardiovascular response to the effort. RPE gives you a subjective measure of how difficult that effort feels.

None is perfect in isolation.

A strong headwind or hill can reduce pace while effort increases. Heart rate can change with temperature, fatigue, hydration and stress. RPE is subjective, but that's also part of its value.

Rather than asking which metric is best, consider what information each one adds.

The Distance

When Are You Ready to Run 10K?

There doesn't need to be a magic weekly mileage or a particular 5K finishing time before you're allowed to run a 10K.

If you've progressively developed your running, are coping well with your current training, recovering appropriately and have gradually extended your endurance, 10K can become an appropriate next challenge.

If you've only recently completed Couch to 5K, however, there's no need to rush.

You've already achieved something significant by reaching 5K. Spending some time consolidating that fitness before immediately trying to double the distance can be a perfectly sensible approach.

For an established runner, simply covering 10K may not be the challenge at all. The goal then changes from completion to performance.

Before Race Day

Preparing for Your 10K

The final days before an important 10K aren't the time to try to suddenly gain additional fitness.

The purpose of tapering is to reduce accumulated fatigue while retaining the fitness you've already developed.

Research across endurance athletes supports reducing training volume before competition while maintaining some training intensity. The exact taper required will depend on the runner, the preceding training and the importance of the race.

For the recreational 10K runner, this doesn't mean you need an elaborate multi-week taper. It means recognising that one final huge workout isn't going to create fitness that wasn't already there.

Race Day

Performance

Want to Run a Faster 10K?

Once completing 10K is no longer the challenge, the goal often becomes running it faster.

Perhaps that's your first sub-60-minute 10K. Maybe you're chasing 50 minutes, 45 minutes or another personal target.

Those numbers define the outcome. They don't tell you how to get there.

That's where the process becomes more important. Can you train consistently? Can you develop your aerobic endurance? Can you appropriately introduce stronger running? Can you recover from the training? Can you make sensible decisions when life interrupts the plan?

The Bigger Picture

Is There Such a Thing as the Perfect 10K?

Probably not.

You can prepare well, pace intelligently and make sensible decisions, but running still happens in the real world.

The weather changes. Courses have hills. Work affects sleep. Sometimes you feel fantastic. Sometimes you don't.

Good training isn't about trying to control every variable. It's about improving the things you can influence and developing enough fitness, experience and confidence to deal with the things you can't.

And that's ultimately the difference between having a collection of workouts and having a training process.