10km run - how to improve time?

Yorky1

*Please excuse the metric distances - I'm in Ireland*

I'm hoping to do an organised 10km (6.2 miles) 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.

SG27

Thats good pace already! My pb currently is 46 minutes.

Interval training is suppose to reapidly increase fitness levels. Might be worth a try

Moto2

One or two fartlek sessions per week increased my general pace

chunkytfg

You want to improve in 10 days? not going to happen! Not a long enough time for any training to have any real effect beyond over training and being tired come race day(I say overtraining but not in the usual sense more just fatigued).

If you want the best effort you can do you need to give yourself every chance to do well.

Learn the course. Go out and run sections or drive it. Get used to the undulations and character of it.

Taper! take the 4 or 5 days leading up to the race easy. maybe a couple of gentle(I mean SLOW!) runs of maybe 3 or 4 miles. turn up on race day having done very little!

Warm up prior to the race. the first mile of a 5/10km race should not be used for warm up, you should already be warmed up. go for a gentle 5-10 min building paced run finishing at race pace for 30 secs or so

Run to a proper pace schedule. you're looking to run at 4min/km. Make up a wrist band with the mile/km splits on them so you know exactly where you need to be and at what time.

Dont try and bank time in the early stages. the first 3/4 km will feel easyish but you want to have enough left in the bank to be able to push through the pain and not drop the pace at the end of the race.

Do not race anyone! Have a plan for your own race and stick to it. do not try and run someone else race of you will fail trying to chase there 38minute finish time!

Then when you've finished the race you need to look at a proper structure to your training. going out and just running will only get you so far. as suggested fartlek running is very good as are interval sessions and time spent in a gym building core strength and explosive muscle tissue is also very worthwhile.

TiredTrophy

This is really useful, clear and short . Thanks