Training for 10K run

I've done sprint tri's the last 2 years and like you, also want to start doing 10k races. Since my last sprint of the season was in early September, I've started running more and biking/swimming a little less (running 4 days a week, biking 2x, swimming once) in order to be able to focus on 10k's.

You'll need to try to figure out a 10k pace to target, as well as training paces. There are a lot of good running calculators that can calculate a target pace based on the 5k part of your sprint, such as McMillan's Running Calculator and Jack Daniels Running Formula .

I ran my first 10k about 2 weeks ago and based on my 5k times, I was able to target and hit a 7:00 pace. The first half of the race felt like a faster paced warm up, but the second half of the race felt a lot like a 5k (it gets a lot harder in the 2nd half). I was targeting starting at about 10-15 seconds slower than my goal pace for the first mile and then picking it up from there, but that got thrown out the window when either I missed the first mile marker or there wasn't one and I figured out that I was going faster than my goal pace at mile 2 (but still felt pretty good). I slowed slightly until mile 5 and then gave it everything I had from there. The best piece of advice I read beforehand that applied was that you don't want to start out too fast if you can help it. If you're hurting at mile 2, it's going to be a very long race.

How many miles a week are you running and how far is your long run? I think the first thing is to make sure you're getting enough miles in. Training for the 10k is a little different than for the 5k part of a sprint tri. I think you should be up to 8-9 miles for your long run so you have the endurance. I was only up to 7 miles for my long run before my 10k, and while I was able to hit my target pace (based on 5k results), I was sore for 2 days afterwards. That was something new to me, because in the 5 sprint tri's I'd done to date, I was never really sore afterwards.


Edited by GBarrett 2008-10-03 8:36 AM

I'll use HalHigdon's 10K training plan - it's 8 weeks to 10K and calls for cross training.