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Hi Mark - there are no good or bad sessions. Everything is relative and depends on context. How did it make you feel? Did you enjoy it? If you enjoyed it then anything else is a bonus.

The thing I would say, though - where is the progression? Have you done that session before? If yes, then the important thing is how does it compare? You need to be doing them faster, or doing more of them at the same pace (or taking a shorter recovery, but that is difficult with that type of session). The other way of measuring progress is by using a heart rate monitor and if you can do the same session but with less effort then that will tell you that you are getting fitter (you probably know that already!). But with that kind of session I would suggest that the best way to make progress and help with your 10k aims is to increase the number of reps (gradually) to 12 (and possibly even 16).

I would be tempted to forgo the tempo run - that would be three hard days in a row which is not normally a good idea and it could affect thursday's session. 3 x 2000 should be quite taxing without totally finishing you off. Try to keep the times within 5 seconds of each other - or try to get a little faster each time e.g 7.53 / 7.48 / 7.43.

Btw – just to slightly contradict everything I’ve written so far…

If I was advising someone right from the start I would probably suggest that for the first year, before even thinking about doing any speed work they just go for a run 5-6 times a week at a nice steady pace for anything between 30mins and an hour.

I think that you need some kind of reference point. If you line up to race, you may be capable of running X, but if your body hasn’t run at that pace enough times it won’t know what to do.

There is a school of thought that if you intervals at faster than your target race pace, then when comes to the race the slower pace will feel easy. However, in my experience it doesn’t often work like that. If you do intervals at 36min 10k pace then starting off at 39min pace in the actual event isn’t going to feel comfortable – it is going to feel UNcomfortable.

If you race very regularly and/or have been training and competing for many years you can get your pacing right but far too many runners (imho) get it wrong. This is particularly true of people that come into the sport later in life – if you start quite young and move up from 800m to 1500m to 5k etc you develop a good feel for the different requirements of different events

39mins for 10k is 6.16 per mile and at least one of your interval sessions per week should be based on that.

If you ran 4 x 1mile on a track at that pace – with possibly 200m walk between each one – the first rep would feel very easy. Just keeping the same will get increasingly difficult but if you can do that kind of session you want be far off doing it in a race. (Probably should be able to do 5x1mile at 10k pace eventually)

Other sessions could be

8-10 x 800m at 10k pace

20 x 400m at 10k pace

Again – the first few will feel very easy, but don’t go off too fast.

Tempo runs. 20 mins easy / 20mins at 10k pace / 20 mins easy (I used to do this most Saturday mornings if I wasn’t racing – I had a good, fairly flat and straight road nearby and I would run from one particular lamppost to another which took about 10mins then I would take a short breather (10-20 seconds) and turn around then try to run the returning bit slightly quicker.)

Hope that makes sense.

Ok, well of course we’ll different and what works for person A doesn’t necessarily work for person B, and I would take any advice off the internet with a pinch of salt…

However, I would suggest that you keep your easy runs easy and make sure your hard runs (or intervals) are hard. In particular, I think you should aim to make your intervals much more consistent - which for most people means running the first one much slower (this takes quite a bit of effort!). Not sure what recovery you are taking between efforts but I’m going to guess it’s too long! Better to slow the reps down a little and take a short recovery (preferably one during which you keep moving.)

Sample training:

Week 1

Mon: Steady run

Tue: long intervals at 10k pace

Wed: Steady run

Thu: shorter intervals at 5k pace

Fri: Rest or very easy run

Sat: Short fast run or tempo run or race

Sun: Long slow/steady run

Week 2 – as week 1 but swap the 5k reps for 3k pace reps

Week 3 – as week 1

Week 4 – as week 1 but swap the 10k pace reps for 5k efforts and swap the 5k reps for 1500m pace reps

If you do this long enough you should find you can race pretty well over anything from 1500m up to half marathon.

If you’re doing twice-a-day running or swimming or whatever it doesn’t really change the pattern, so that’s fine. Don’t be dogmatic about things. If you’re completely knackered, just take a day off. If you feel good, go for a run.

Of course, your winter, spring, summer, autumn training should be a little different but that’s a whole other story…

I don't think you're doing a lot wrong. I disagree with the others re: rest days. REST is important, but that doesn't automatically have to be a rest day. I ran my 10k PB 20 years ago (time flies...) during a 16-week period during which I ran every day. You need to consider your training in the context of your whole lifestyle - family and work commitments etc.

Something I've always been keen on - and which I think is a gap in many people's training - is race pace training. E.g a 39min 10k is 5.51 per 1500m / 3.54 per 1k / 3.07.2 per 800m / 93.6 per 400m. Does your interval work reflect that?