A friend of mine must have caught me in a good mood at the weekend because he somehow persuaded me to sign up for a 10k run at the end of May!
I have never been much of a runner and always did shockingly bad at cross country in school. But I guess my recent return to excercise has been paying off as I went out for a first practice run on Monday night, just to see what kind of shape Iām in for this and how much work Iām going to have to do to get up to standard. Did 4.5k in 30 mins, which seems pretty good to me.
My aim is to run it around an hour, anything under would be great and weāll be raising money for a Scottish childrens charity so I want to make sure I do ok. Iāve got a good practice route worked out and my plan is to just do that a couple of times a week and add distance onto it every week, with maybe some longer runs at the weekend.
Anyone done anything like this before? Got any good tips?
I did a half marathon once, and juggled all the way.
I had only the vaguest notion of what was needed for training. Fortunately the local newspaper published a training schedule, which I adopted and stuck to. I had to estimate the distances, but it seems I didnāt do too badly. I was in on just under an hour. Or was it two hours? Honestly, I canāt remember.
For me the most worrying part was running for a quarter of a mile beside a stream. If I had dropped a bean-bag, it would have been gone, gone, gone.
As I remember it, you do a little extra one day, slacken off a bit the next, push a bit further the day after.
The tricky part is organising the schedule so you peak on the day of the run.
Too many years ago, we did a walk-a-thon with young friends. We kept holding them back and so we let them go and then we stopped at a restaurant along the route, had a nice little snack and break and continued the walk. Weāre no longer walk-a-thon people.
Pondering and working my inefficient memory muscle, I think the routine was, gentle, push, day off, gentle (but less gentle than previous one), push (a little more than last time), day off.
I have a few suggestions. Most important is build up slowly. The rule of thumb is to build up your weekly distance by about 10 % per week. I donāt really stick to that myself, but youāre less likely to get injured if you keep it in that ballpark. As IB said, two days on one off is also a good thing, especially if you get sore; it gives your muscles time to heal. You might think about doing 4-5k 3-4 times during the week and a longer run on the weekend initially.
Second thing Iād recommend is not to worry too much about pace on most of your runs.
Third thing is stretch, before and after you run. I find stretching before bed to be extremely beneficial, both for not waking up sore and for getting quality rest.
If you were able to go out and run 4.5 k at a pretty good pace on the spur of the moment, youāll be fine. Donāt forget you have several weeks to build up.
Well I did another 4.5k on Friday night but didnāt manage any more over the weekend (decided Saturday was going to be a rest day and a hangover interrupted Sundayās plans).
At the moment my plan is to run twice during the week and try a longer one at the weekend, while still turning up for Taekwon-do twice a week (on days I donāt run). Know all about the importance of stretching from martial arts, so thereās no way Iām going to miss that out. Still didnāt seem to prevent my calves from being sore as hell on Saturday though, guess itās just a shock to the system and theyāll get used to it. Running 4.5k twice and a tough sparring session on the Thursday night was a lot for them to take.
Someone has told me not to run 10k before the race, the idea being that I should peak on the day of the run. That doesnāt seem very logical to me. I think Iād rather do the full distance at least once in the build up to the race just to make sure I know what Iām in for.
Iāve got the sponsorship stuff through from a childrenās charity weāre running for. So I may post a link asking for money from UK chiffers at some point
Iād agree with your friend. Thereās no point in straining yourself just before the big one. It may sound canny to make the race āeasierā than your training, but it isnāt. Itās best to peak with the race.
I wouldnāt discourage you from running 10k before the race, but I wouldnāt urge it. If you feel like it, Iād suggest doing it a couple of weeks in advance of the race.
I just did a 10-miler this weekend. Iād run ten once or twice this spring, but wish Iād gotten in at least one longer run. The race was a lot of fun, but I was much slower this year than last.
Well the race was this morning. Got sore legs now but Iām pretty happy with how my run went. Ran a steady pace and didnāt stop once. Iāve got my time at either bang on an hour or just under, so exactly what I was aiming for. Just need to get the official time later.
