Tips for 40 minute 10k

It's driving me nuts. My time for a 5k are between 19 mins and 19mins 30, however my fastest 10k is 42 minutes. Can anyone suggest a workout that may help? I run 4 times per week:

1x 10k (5k at max pace + 5k of speedwork)

1x 8k of longer intervals e.g 800m

1x long run of between 16k - 21k

1x 7k of hill reps.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Cheers 

Mark – more miles, miles, miles and keep them mostly slow or easy with one quality session per week. You are doing too much quality at the moment and not enough easy mileage. Easy pace should be 8:30 per mile at the top end, 9:00 per mile might be more like the pace you need.
As you struggle to convert your 5k speed up, forget intervals and do a weekly tempo run to help your speed endurance. Mix up the tempo run, one week do a longer run at marathon pace with a shorter tempo run at somewhere between threshold – half Marathon pace.
For you that range will be something like 7:10 per mile for marathon pace and 6:35 to 6:45 per mile for threshold to half marathon pace.
Do a set or two of strides through the week to keep in touch with speed without taking anything out of you. 

Those paces were off the top of my head, check out Mcmillan pace calculator for the correct paces.

Mark, are you severely hampered by time or something?

You're basically doing 3 quality sessions and a long run, which in your situation becomes semi quality.

It's the equivalent of trying to put the decorations on your house without building any foundations!

Put simply you don't have the base to back up the sharp stuff, and doing sessions like 5k flat out, combined then with 5k extra of speedwork, can only see you plateau!

I'd have a massive rethink, and work to a 3month or so plan, to build a base. Get the mileage progressively up from it's current 25 or so miles a week, up to 35-40, safely doing this by dropping the fast work.

Once you can handle that mileage, then add a speed session back in, making sure it's calculated to your current fitness.

I'd say that'd comfortably get you sub 40.

Not sure you'd ever really need to do more than 2 quality sessions a week, otherwise the recovery starts to become a problem, especially if you're doing big miles.

Yes I agree. Where are all your easy runs? Your "im going for a run back in a hour" runs. Your "put the washing in get back before it finishes" runs?

70-90% of your weekly runs should be just runs. Do stamina, speed, and hill work only once a week and only one type, and long runs every other week.Yes you heard right EVERY OTHER WEEK. Those long runs should be at least half your weekly milage, and never more than 20 miles. Your also basically knakering yourself over 4 days, spread it out over 5.

I got a sub  40 min in 10k in April. I got it on my first go. It was a windy, undulating course not fast at all ( the winner came in at 35minutes I got in at 39:21 ) but it was all those miles I had put in that got me the time i wanted. Hours of running just running within paces that improve my conditioning but which I can do forever, over any hill, slope,, grass trail, that took my fancy, in the rain in the wind in the snow.

Use that Macmillian calculator it gets me my times.

Good luck

If you only run 4 times a week than you can only fit one quality session a week, maybe two at a push, by quality i mean intervals,reps,hill reps,tempo and long runs. all the rest is just easy runs to recover and to reach weekly mileage. You long run should be 25-30% of weekly mileage, intervals at no more than 8%,reps/hill reps at 6%, tempo run of 20-45mins or 3-6miles or 10% of weekly mileage depending an what you want to achive.Going back to how many times you should run well try and run 5 times a week and include two quality runs with one should be a tempo/cruise tempo run. long run is not the main workout for a 10k runner, maybe for a Half marathon or marathon but not a 10k,

Stephen, i don't think it's at all wise to suggest a long run should be "at least half" of the weekly total, especially as we're advocating an increase of mileage to 30-40miles a week.

How would is week look? Surely you can see this looks horrendously unbalanced?

 2 x 6miles
1x5miles speedwork
Long run 15-20

Instead, i'd check this thread out for some general good practice for each distance

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/forum/training/training-for-the-right-distance/166480.html

What YD and Stevie G said!

Thanks for all the advice guys. Let me run this new weekly training schedule by you.

Tuesdays - 1 hour / 13k tempo run @ 4.46 slow to 4.00 fast in the middle (How far should the quick bit be?)

Wednesdays - Recovery run @ 5.23 for 10k

Thursdays - Easy run - 13k - 15k @ 4.46

Saturdays - Long Run - 21k @ 4.46

Sundays - Recovery run 10k

Every other week replace tempo with speed intervals @ sub 5k pace?

This is roughly 60 - 70km per week / roughly 42 miles.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Cheers

I would slow down the easy and long runs.McMillan IMHO gives paces a tad too fast for these.

Tempo Runs: A quick look at Mcmillan Calculator based on a 40min 10k gives a Lactate Threshold pace of around 4:08 - this should be 20-40 mins worth (start at 20 and build up). I like the 10 mile Marathon pace run (4:27). Or you could play with tempo intervals, building up to 5x1 mile at 10k pace with 1 in recovery.

This thread should be renamed the Middle Ground Thread Forumites Advice Clinic!

I had a right shock when i saw that 10k at 5.23 pace and called a recovery pace!

Then my monkey little brain worked out you deal in km.

Why do you deal in km by the way?

Mark,

I put up a similar thread a year or so ago. I was at 41:19 and thought it would be a lifetime acheivement to go sub 40. I'm now 38:05 and want more . If I could offer any advice it would be to trust consistency. Keep doing what you're being told here day in day out and IT WILL COME!

Hello,

I've always workes in kph. I have real difficulty converting to miles. Started the new regime today and avoided the speedwork. I really don't have much experience of tempo run but think I didit today. I ran 11k total. The first 4k at 12.5 - 13.5kph, next 3k at 15kph then eased right back to 12.5kph again and upped 4he pace again on the last kilometer. This is this is the only quality session I plan on this week and go for mileage. Please reassure  

Cheers again guys.

So, no-one advocates Furman? I'm 2-3 weeks into a variant of the RLRF plan for a HM in Sep. No idea whether it will "work" or not yet but worth considering as an alternative approach, no? 

The 40 mile a week plan seems to be going well apart from the 1 or 2 weeks when work gets in the way and it drops to about 30.

Haven't tested 10k time yet but my half marathon time are going well 1:28 on my last one. Hopefully that should equate to a sub 40 10k. I'm going for Kingston and Richmond 10k's soon and ill post the times.

Does anyone here advicate mile reps...if so how many in one session?

cheers for all the advice.