Improving your 10km time

You do not get faster just by going out every time you run and trying to belt out a fast 10km doesn’t work. To improve over that distance you need to cut back your distances, and start to put the speed into the shorter distances

For Example- You want to run 10km in under an hour, and right now you are doing it in 63mins

The best approach is to half the time you want to run your 10km in so 30mins and set your goal at getting 5km in under 30mins. So once a week that is your challenge. Don’t drop your 10km run out of your week, but just run it as you normally would, it’s a good endurance run and reminds you of the distance you are looking to achieve. However put the speed into your shorter run. Once you master the 5km in under 30mins (and you can use some of the methods below) you have a new goal, 6km in 36mins…you will work on this once a week, alongside all your other running….when that is ticked off you are up to 7km in 40mins.

This is a far better way to aim for a PB than to continue failing at the 10km distance

This system will work for anyone of any running ability or fitness level, just put in your goal time and work towards it, follow the table below, you goal is on the top line, you need to tick off all the rows beneath to reach it

10km in 65min

10km in 60min

10km in 55min

10km in 50min

10km in 45min

10km in 40min

5km in 32.5min

5km in 30mins

5km in 27.5min

5km in 25mins

5km in 22.5min

5km in 20mins

6km in 39min

6km in 36mins

6km in 33mins

6km in 30mins

6km in 27mins

6km in 24mins

7km in 45.5min

7km in 40mins

7km in 37.5min

7km in 35mins

7km in 31.5min

7km in 28mins

8km in

52min

8km in 48mins

8km in 44mins

8km in 40mins

8km in 36min

8km in 32mins

9km in 58.5 min

9km in 54min

9km in 49.5min

9km in 45min

9km in 40.5min

9km in 36min

Or the other option is to make one of your 10km runs a fartlek or tempo session.

Fartlek- run normally for 10mins then pick a landmark up the road and run hard to it, once there run normally to the next landmark and repeat this until you have 10mins to run and then recovery pace to the end of your run

Tempo- run normal pace for 10mins and then pick up your pace for 20mins, not sprinting but running about 10-20% faster, once again recovery pace for the last 10 to 15minutes.

You have more of a chance of increasing speed by these methods than slogging it out for the whole 10km, and then still being disappointed with your efforts.

Important Points

Don’t try to improve your speed every time you run. If you are pushing yourself or trying to break PB’s every time you go for a run, you will soon start hating your runs and lose motivation. You only need to do this on one run a week or fortnight, just to make sure you are still capable of running your own PB.

You only need to make 10% of your running speed work, the majority of your running should be distance and your own pace stuff.

Don’t try doing any speed stuff over 10km. If you are running more than 10km, just worry about endurance and getting back! A good distance to try speed work is 5km

Remember we are talking about seconds here, not minutes. It takes a long time to get a minute off your time, once you are happy with taking maybe a minute off your 10km, enjoy that for a while and then when you feel you are ready to start increasing your speed again try to work on getting another 30 seconds or a minute off, as I said it takes time and you need to allow your body to recover in between.