Increasing My Speed for 10k Races

by Kelly
(Georgia)

I love to run and have recently gotten involved in races in the past 3 years: such as 10k races (usually) and just completed my first half marathon in 1 hr 45 min.

As I continue these 10k races, I am now getting competitive about it and jealous at the top dawgs finishing so fast!

My fastest 10k was 45:46.

I want to run a 10k in under 42 min. Thus far I have simply loved running and don't know the ins & outs and lingo associated with racing and such. So I have no clue how to work on my speed to get to this pace.

Any tips or advice on how to accomplish this?

My current run schedule: I run 70-80 miles per week (roughly 10-15 miles per day) at a moderate pace of about 6-7 mph. My 10k races range 45:46 - 49:48 min.

Thanks for your help!

Kelly

Answer by Dominique:
Hi Kelly,

Thanks for your question and thanks for adding the detail. That makes answering the question so much easier.

What I will cover here:

1. The benefits of high mileage
2. Hard / easy principle
3. Using the hard / easy principle in your training
4. Hard/easy principle and injury risk

The Benefits of High Mileage

The mileage you do per week and each day is very impressive. Much more than I can manage. Based on time I can make available, but also injury risk. With any type of endurance event, as the 10k definitely is, building a huge engine is super important. And you are doing that through your long runs and high weekly mileage.

Hard/Easy Principle

One important principle that is applied in training theory is that of the hard/easy principle. Basically, after a hard day, you need to have an easy day.

Why?

Well, the very simplistic way to describe it is that when you train hard, you are doing a bit of damage to your body. Your body then needs time to recover and get stronger while you give it a break. The actual benefits of tough exercise come to you AFTER you have done the exercise.

What concerns me a little is that you described your pace as moderate. And you only described one training pace.

This leaves me feeling that you are using a moderate/moderate approach, rather than a hard/easy approach. Currently, every run is more or less the same. I'd like your runs to be much more variable from day to day.

So, let's now move on to a few ways you could apply the hard / easy principle in your training.

Using the Hard / Easy Principle in Your Training

First of all, you need to get familiar with quality workouts like tempo runs and intervals.

Then, very simply put:

Hard days are days you do a tempo run, an interval run or a long run

Always follow a hard day with an easy day

An easy day can be an easy run / recovery run or rest or cross-training

So, an example of a training week using the hard/easy principle could be:

Mon - Easy 45 minutes
Tue - Tempo Run 10 miles - 3 x 10 minutes w 3 min hard (incl warm-up and cool-down)
Wed - Easy 45 Minutes
Thu - Intervals 10 miles - 15 x 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy (incl warm-up and cool-down)
Fri - Bike 45 minutes
Sat - Easy 45 minutes
Sun - Long Run 18 miles

This is a basic structure that can be reasonably effective. For appropriate tempo and interval paces, based on your recent race performance, check out the Running Pace Calculator.

Hard/Easy Principle and Injury Risk

When you start doing more intense, faster workouts than you are currently doing, your injury risk increases.

You can deal with this in two ways:

Introduce the quality work gradually. Start with short intervals and tempo sessions, then build up from there.

Reduce your mileage somewhat

You can of course also follow a combination of the two approaches.

In the end, running is a very simple sport. We do some runs slow and some runs fast. Then we combine it all in a good mix. I think you will benefit significantly from a more structured hard-easy approach in which you combine quality workouts like tempo runs, intervals and long runs with recovery workouts and/or cross-training.

If this all sounds rather complicated, I can also do the hard work for you... :) Check out my running coaching service in case you need further support.

Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Dominique