Is It Perhaps About Time You Ran Your First Ten Kilometer Race?

By Maria Polyzou (GRE)

You are already a runner … you’ve been training for a long time now and have managed to successfully complete your first 5000m.

You have repeatedly tried to lower your time and break the 30-minute barrier; something which filled you with so much joy and confidence.

Don’t think more about it … go ahead and start training for more kilometers. Training from 5km to 10km is no big deal.

Here below, I’m offering you advice on training for it so that you can go beyond your current achievement and run even farther.

If you have been training up to three times a week till now, I would advise you to increase it and train 4 times a week.
Ideally, your training should involve: interval training, tempo training and kilometer training.
Set your goal … it is vital that you know where you want to take it from here so that you know what you are going for. Once you have your goal ahead of you, it is easier to achieve it.
Let’s organize our training sessions: Starting from the kilometer or distance training (long run). This is usually done on a Saturday or Sunday.
Also, bear in mind that this training session takes up double the time we took when running 5km. So, once a week, you should choose this training session when you will have to slowly and gradually increase your mileage.
Ideally, I would suggest that you increase your mileage in this way … every second week, increase it by two to three kilometers.
Do not increase your speed at the same time though. Keep it slow so that you can manage the longer distance. Our aim is to reach the 10km mark and why not … even longer in the future.
The next training session should focus on intervals. What does this mean? Distances which begin from 200m and reach up to 1000m. Intervals in between depending on your distance.
Here’s a plan … during the first week, run a distance which includes 10 x 200m with intervals of 1:00 at 85% of your full capacity.
For the second week, run 8 x 400m with intervals of 1:30 at 80% of your full capacity.
The following week, run 5 x 1000m with intervals of 3:00 at 75% of your full capacity.
Do not forget to warm-up well – about 2km – and also do a lot of stretching afterwards. By doing this, you prepare your cardio-respiratory system in the best way along with your muscular system.
Tempo running. This is yet another type of training which you can implement in your weekly program. It entails training of 5000m at an 80% of your maximum effort that you are running a 5km distance during the given period.
Your next training session is yet another long run of 5km up to 8km at a very slow pace. (For this particular type of training, if you do not have the time to do it properly, rather leave it out of your weekly plan.)
Keep in mind that ideally; should you want to be able to run 10km, you will need 3 to 5 training sessions a week, depending on the goal you have set. Any good achievement requires training.
Don’t refrain from adding strength training twice a week and stretching.
It goes without saying that you should follow a healthy diet which includes more carbohydrates … but don’t overdo it!
I am certain that once you decide on something you want to succeed in … you can do it…
HAVE A GREAT FINISH!

Maria Polyzou holds the Greek record for the marathon for many consecutive years and is a Coach for long distance running and physical health.