sub 1hr 10k - advice needed!

Hiya

My next running goal is to complete a 10k race in under 1 hour - even by a few seconds! I've been running for a while now and have completed several events but as I run so slowly I very much still feel like a beginner. I did a 10k 3 years ago and completed in 1:09, have done a half in 2:21 and completed VLM last year in 6:09 (!) so as you can see I am the tortoise rather than the hare. However, a few weeks ago I completed the National Lottery Olympic Park run (which ws 5 miles) in 50 mins so I think I do have a sub 1hr 10k in me if I train properly. The problem is I've only ever trained to go further and not to go faster and to be honest I'm completely clueless now!

Can anyone recommend any plans/give any tips or advice? Any comments would be greatly appreciated :)

xxx

Hey stephanielett,

It sounds like you're doing really well - i certainly couldn't do that much running! Congrats.

Re: trying to run faster rather than further, why don't you try some interval training?

There's an article on it here with some helpful tips and advice:

http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/improve-your-running-speed-through-interval-training-gb-en/

Good luck with it all and let me know how you do! xx

Hi there,

I've heard it's really good to strengthen your legs. Improved leg strength will enhance the return of energy when your foot pushes  off the ground.  Resistance training your body may also lead to your  neuromuscular system becoming better coordinated promoting efficiency in your  running.

Fast leg turnover! Advice offered so far is good, but this is well worth working on too. Count how many times your right foot touches the floor in a minute. Whatever it happens to be right now, aim to get that number ultimately to 85 - 90. If you are a long way off that leg speed right now, it will be difficult to achieve. Cycling regularly at that same leg speed will help your major muscles become accustomed to it, as well as providing some beneficial cross-training, and you can work gradually up to that leg speed with your running.

I completely agree with everything that has been said.  You don't have to do them all, but try each idea and see which one works for you.

Hill training can also help as it makes the legs stronger, which will translate into increased speed on the flat.  But whatever method you chose, you need to be prepared to work on it for weeks and to push yourself outside your comfort zone.

I'm also going to agree with all of the advice above and add something that worked for me.  I worked really hard to get my 10k time down to 50mins but for the life of me I couldn't break it.  A friend of mine told me I might have more luck if I strengthened my legs, so I added some squats to my training and started doing more hill work.  I got my squats (body weight only) up to 200 per session, three times a week (varying stance width each session), and added at least one hill session per week.  Only a short run, think it was 1.2 miles down the hill to warm up, then 1.2 back up as quickly as I could - the actual hill section was about 70% of the 1.2miles.  These were the only changes I made to my normal training of one long run and one short/fast run, for three months and completed the slightly-undulating Richmond Park 10k in a PB of 43.28 (though my weight dropped from 74 to 70kgs, which I'm sure also helped).

Anyway, best of luck and let us know how you get on and what worked for you!

James

That's a fantastic improvement James, 200 squats is a good old blast of the legs, I'm impressed.

Thanks, Rob.  In honesty they started as half-squats, but they are getting deeper!  Flexibility is top of the agenda for 2012 :)

Thank you so much for all your help! I've started doing interval sessions on a 1% gradient on the treadmill that are suggested in the article posted above. They're KILLING me! But I'm thinking that's a good thing :-)

The only thing I'm concerned about is the average speed overall of a session on the treadmill. In order to complete a 10k in under an hour I'd need to be able to run for an hour at 10.5k/hour. When I'm doing my intervals I'm running at 12-14k/hr on the speed bits and 6-7 k/hr for recovery, and sometimes my average speed is somewhere around 9km/hr - does that matter? Do i need to keep my average speed up or is it the fact that you're running faster in some sections the beneficial part?

Thanks

x

I did all my training for my last 10k (2nd one) on a treadmill as a challenge to see which was best road or treadmill. (the jury is still out on that one)

I set the treadmill to  a 1 in 12 gradient for a time of 50 minutes, I would then run has fast and as long as i could, then i would power-walk for a while and build the speed back up to a run and so on until i had completed the time (50mins) I never did complete 10k on the treadmill running/walking up hill, the nearest i got was 5.8 miles, just the fact i was working harder over the time helped build my stamina to keep a better race time average

Race time came for the 10k and i did it in just over 46 mins which was about 3 minutes faster than my first 10k

You don't need to complete 10k everytime you run 

maybe try shorter times but run  slightly out of your comfort zone.

My advice doesn't won't work for everyone.!