Improving speed over 10Km

Well, I think it's speed I need to be looking at!

I've been running for almost 10 months now and I've just run for fun rather than following any training plans and I'm wondering if that needs to change after this morning.

For the last couple of months I have been averaging about 10Km per run and running about three times per week and rather than pushing myself every time, I normally average between 5m 10s - 5m 20s per Km (sorry it's not in miles) and thats comfortable. However, the fastest 10Km I've run is 48mins 4 seconds but that did feel hard. However, this morning I did just under 22Km and averaged 5mins 13 seconds (cracked 1h50 for a HM distance with 1h49:43 ) and that got me thinking. If I can average over 22Km, what I can comfortably do over 10Km, should I not be able to comfortably go quicker over 10Km?

Am I thinking along the right lines and if so, should I be doing something to improve my fitness/speed over 10Km.

P.S. I run for fun rather than seriously, otherwise I would get no exercise as I have a desk job.

Have you entered any races? It's really surprising how much more you push yourself in a race environment, so you may well see your training PB smashed.

How many miles are you doing per week? Do you run all of your runs at the same speed?

Lauren is right, there is a difference between running in a race and training. I ran 5 k last week and smashed by PB by 1min 30. I'm looking at trying to get faster also but I am concentrating on doing some swimming first and see if that makes me any more toned and fitter

Thanks for the replies.

I haven't run in any races yet but I have entered the Brighton HM next year as well as the London marathon with Brighton as a backup. So although they are next year, I'm probably going to enter a corporate 10K in September.

I'm doing atleast 15 miles per week (that will pick up when I start marathon training) which is fitted around a full time job and a Masters degree but in the last week I've done 27. Out of those run's, when I'm doing 10Km or more I always seem to do them at the same pace but when I do 5Km then I do go quicker. Hopefully this will make sence, but it seems I've got the stamina to go quicker for 5Km, but not for 10Km!

I read something somewhere along along the lines of being able to run longer distances comfortably, but if you don't balance that out with other training, you will be slow and weak. Is that true?Apart from maybe entering some races, would it be worth thining about interval's and fartleks?

I found that I naturally got quicker as I increased my mileage. I went from struggling to crack the hour for 10k to 53 minutes in November last year, purely from increasing my weekly mileage. Take care not to run too fast - you'll notice the need for this when you start marathon training and your long runs get longer - you need enough energy to get you through all of your runs.

You could try some intervals to increase your pace a bit - have a look at the suggested speed sessions in the 10k plans on this site as a starting point.