10km run- how to improve time?

Yorky

I'm hoping to do an organised 10km run in ten days and want to beat my current time.

I run 7-10km most days with my latest PR being 40m:34s this morning.

I'd like to do a sub-40m run on the day of the event.

I just run as quickly as I can on any given day - I've never had a pacing strategy.

Can anyone provide any advice?

Thanks in advance.

PáircLife

All you have to do is run quicker.

Your time should improve.

Itziger

Yorky wrote: »

I'm hoping to do an organised 10km run in ten days and want to beat my current time.

I run 7-10km most days with my latest PR being 40m:34s this morning.

I'd like to do a sub-40m run on the day of the event.

I just run as quickly as I can on any given day - I've never had a pacing strategy.

Can anyone provide any advice?

Thanks in advance.

Yorky, stop doing what you're doing!! First piece of advice.

Seriously though. No sportsperson in a sport like ours goes out and trains as hard as they can every time. You have to mix it up..... Some days a bit easier, some days harder. Some shorter and some longer. There's a science to all of this of course, although I'll be damned if I understand the half of it. There are thousands of plans around. Most will cover a 2 to 3 month stretch of time.

But if your 'target race' is in 10 days time....... Do another pacy run or two, but shorter than 10k and do a nice easy slightly longer one. Maybe try a few kms at faster than 4 min pace to see what they feel like. Give the body a bit of easier stuff coming up to the race. Few short runs of 5-7k with some strides at the end. That is, sprint for 50/80 metres and repeat after a bit, say 30 seconds or so. All this fast but controlled, keeping a good running form.

If you're rested on the day - don't try to run 39.59 the day before - you should be fine as most runners find they get a boost from the race and other runners and so on. Oh, and take the first few k handy. Settle into your target pace and bring her home fast.

seamus

If you did 40:34 this morning on a training run and you do 7-10km most days, then you'll easily break 40m in a race. Just make sure you're well rested the 2 days before the race and have a significantly large meal the night before.

Yorky

seamus wrote: »

If you did 40:34 this morning on a training run and you do 7-10km most days, then you'll easily break 40m in a race. Just make sure you're well rested the 2 days before the race and have a significantly large meal the night before.

Does that mean no running for the two days before?

Could you provide more details on food - I'm never sure when to eat / what quantity before a run.

Thank you

RuMan

pac_man wrote: »

Id seriously question the need to have a large meal the night before the run. It's probably more harm than good. It's only a 10k run!

Indeed, just eat what ever you normally eat.

Yorky

Thanks. What type of meal and at what time should I have it before the run?

adrian522

Don't worry too much about your meal, just eat what you normally eat. To be honest anything you do between now and race day wont make you any faster on the day.

Thee best that you can do is to get yourself to the startline as fresh as possible.

As above I'd stop running a 10K flatout every day. If you want to run say 5 days per week, maybe try something like

M: Easy Paced Run (Pace at which you could hold a conversation)
T: 3K Warmup/3K Faster Pace/2-3K Cooldown
W: Rest
F: Same as Monday, Easy Pace Run
S: Longer Run, maybe try to go 10-12K,
S: Rest.

Week of the race try to run easy pace 2 days before (but not too long), Just 3-5K the day before (or not at all if you feel tired).

Your body has enough Carbohydrate stored for about 2 hours of running so you don't need any special food the night before the race, just be hydrated and rested and you should go faster than your usual training runs.

joeprivate

adrian522 wrote: »

Don't worry too much about your meal, just eat what you normally eat. To be honest anything you do between now and race day wont make you any faster on the day.

Thee best that you can do is to get yourself to the startline as fresh as possible.

Your body has enough Carbohydrate stored for about 2 hours of running so you don't need any special food the night before the race, just be hydrated and rested and you should go faster than your usual training runs.

I would take a different view what you eat in the next week can affect your times here is some links that might help


If you’re taking on a challenge this year, be it a 5k or a marathon, getting your training diet spot on will help you go that extra mile. Sports nutritionist James Collins works with elite athletes from Team GB and Arsenal football team to hone their diets for sporting excellence. Here he shares an example training plan, which you can tweak and build on to help you reach your goals…

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/running-nutrition-typical-training-plan


http://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-for-runners/a-diet-plan-just-for-runners

And dont be afraid to reduce the amount of meat you eat over the next week read more at link below

I spent six months last year living and training with some of Kenya's greatest long-distance runners, for my book, Running With the Kenyans. The athletes (from the Rift Valley) were not strictly vegetarian, but ate very little meat, which is usually reserved for special occasions such as weddings or funerals. Although there were occasional non-vegetarian meals served in the athlete training camps, we lived mostly on a diet of rice, beans, ugali (a dough made of maize flour and water) and green vegetables. The list of gold medals the Kenyan athletes have won on the track is almost endless
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jul/30/lizzie-armitstead-vegetarian-athletes-olympics-2012

Best of luck on the day

adrian522

Any evidence that not eating meat will make you faster? Any evidence that any of this will have any affect with less than 1 week to go?

I'd be of the opinion that no major changes to diet should take place the week of a goal race for fear of something not agreeing with you and causing problems on the day.

joeprivate

adrian522 wrote: »

Any evidence that not eating meat will make you faster? Any evidence that any of this will have any affect with less than 1 week to go?



I'd be of the opinion that no major changes to diet should take place the week of a goal race for fear of something not agreeing with you and causing problems on the day.

The fuel you put into your body is a massive factor in determining the performance you get out of it

I do know eating the wrong food will make you sluggish even if your just watching TV so if your trying to improve your times perhaps your have to balance the risk of eating the optimal food that may give you better times from a change of diet that could also give you a upset stomach to sticking to what you know already works for you , but you should do the research and figure can you tweak what your eating to improve your performance without a total change at this late stage.

From what I have read the top runners eat less than 20%-25% of calories from meat (some eat no meat eg Carl-Lewis) the rest from whole plant food ,plenty of carbs that can be converted easily into glucose which is what you need.
I am not saying to try some totally new food that you have never eaten before what I am saying is reduce the meat if your are getting more than 25% of calories from meat and if eating meat try mince it first and up the carbs intake.
What starches do you currently eat and see if you could up the intake of them ,do you currently eat pasta , porridge, rice or potatoes if so perhaps you could up your intake of them if you know they agree with you.

What the Kenyans runners eat from google

Kenyans eat very few processed foods. The most highly processed food available in the kitchen of my host family in Nairobi was a jar of peanut butter. A typical Kenyan meal consists of ugali (a type of cornmeal porridge), sukuma wiki (collared greens), ndengu (stewed mung beans), and chapati (a tortilla-like bread made with wheat flour), all homemade. The most memorable meal I ate in Kenya consisted of six items, all of which had been grown or raised on the property owned by the people who prepared the meal for me.

Runners in the U.S. and elsewhere would do well to stock their kitchens as Kenyans do, with a full crisper and relatively bare cupboards.

Eat a starch with every meal.
Virtually all Kenyan meals are centered on a starchy whole food. Among the most popular breakfast foods is uji, a porridge made from fermented millet and often flavored with lemon juice. At Lornah Kiplagat’s High-Altitude Training Centre in Iten, where I spent a couple of nights, ugali, rice, potatoes, and pasta were in constant rotation at lunch and dinner. This is typical of the Kenyan diet.


Because it is starch-based, the Kenyan diet is very high in carbohydrate. A 2004 study by Onywera found that elite Kenyan runners get 76 percent of their daily calories from carbs. Although we have been taught to fear carbs here in America, it would behoove us to overcome this fear and learn the difference between cornmeal and corn syrup if we want to run more like the Kenyans. A diet centered on starchy whole foods provides a winning combination of high-octane fuel and satiety and thereby promotes high performance and a lean body composition.

Eat meat infrequently.
The typical Kenyan runner eats meat or fish three or four times per week. While in other countries a tedious argument rages between Paleo dieters, who believe people should eat more meat than anything else, and plant-based dieters, who believe that every bite of animal flesh takes a day off one’s life, Kenyans may have found the sweet spot between these extremes. Recent science, including a massive 2013 study involving more than 400,000 men and women, lends support to the idea that eating a small amount of meat is healthier than eating either none or a lot. The practice certainly agreed with me.


Read more at http://running.competitor.com/2015/07/nutrition/eat-like-a-kenyan-run-like-a-kenyan_132388#00etoqJli3qIkPxp.99

Best of luck on the day hope you make the right choice that works for you

adrian522

Your copy and paste skills are excellent.

Firstly just because Kenyans do something doesn't mean it will make you faster. Secondly you don't know a single thing about what the OP currrently eats or doesn't eat. Finally you shouldn't make any drastic changes to your diet the week of a goal race.