10km in 16 days...

My wife has signed up to do a run. Her first one. She does some walking and can jog a mile or so without stopping.

Have told her not to overanalyse it, try and see if she can build up to run a 6 or 7km at any speed at all without stopping between now and then. Maybe head out most nights this week for up to an hour or so of walking/jogging, trying to phase out the former, and then see.

Am I saying the right thing? Anything other pretty obvious stuff?

RayCun

In two weeks she's not going to get any fitter, so there's no point in her working too hard in any sessions and wearing herself out.
She should try to find a pace that's comfortably slow, be prepared for walk breaks and used to running again after those breaks. Maybe plan a run/walk strategy for herself - 10 minutes running, 2 minutes walking, that kind of thing.

seamus

It's a fairly tall order in sixteen days. A lot of the first days/weeks of training involve a lot of resting sore muscles and resting as well as doing the work. She could kill herself every night for the next week, but then leave herself so sore for the following week that she can't do any more work and is no stronger or better prepared on the day.

Unfortunately "she can run a mile without stopping" doesn't really give any indicator of her fitness level, as the distance you can run is a function of pace as much as anything. I could probably run 20k at an easy pace before I need to stop, but I could also run 1 mile at 5min/mile pace and then need to stop.

As Ray says, the best she can do in a short timeframe is come up with a good pacing strategy. In some cases this may mean finding a jogging pace which is slow enough that she can maintain it for the whole thing (it will probably be just slightly faster than a fast walk). In her case, it may be a matter of finding a good mix of walking and running.

Even when mixing running and walking, it's not a matter of running as hard as she can for X minutes, then walking for Y minutes. As the race progresses, she'll find that X gets smaller and Y gets bigger as her fatigue grows.
The number of minutes she runs should be enough that she's done good work, but still feels like she could have run a little more. The amount of time she spends walking should be enough time to feel refreshed, plus another 30 seconds or so. Towards the end of the race the runs will feel harder and the walks will feel less refreshing, but she won't feel like giving up.

She doesn't need to have done 10km beforehand. If she can manage 8km using a run/walk mix then she'll definitely be able to push it further on the day.

Rogue Runner

My wife ran the Mini Marathon, non stop with zero training. I reckon you're wife could do it.

ronn

I done the bay 10k in 14 days, Gave up smoking on the Sunday, Started training on the Monday, Picked tough mountain track to start on around 4k plenty of uphill, Ran as much as i could den walked till i caught my breath, then run again, Rested Tuesday. Trained again Wednesday same track, but tried to run it without stopping, Done better on the Wednesday, Rested Thursday. Then done about 7/8k on the Saturday. Rested Sunday and Monday, Done my orginal track on Tuesday Thursday and Saturday. Then done the bay 10k in 55mins,

Savage Tyrant

Rogue Runner wrote: »

My wife ran the Mini Marathon, non stop with zero training. I reckon you're wife could do it.

"ran" or "jog and walk intervals"? cause theres a big difference.

OP, I've been training with running program and soccer for the last 8/10 weeks and as yet the best I've managed without walking is 8.7k... She shouldn't push it with no training. A walk/jog strategy would be best from my POV (that of a relative noob anyway)