If you guys are training for your first 10k

- it's humid at the minute. That means it's harder to run than normal, so go a little slower. Take a (small) bottle of water out with you and sip every so often (only take small sips, say one or two sips every couple of miles or so). You'd be amazed how much better you feel. Eat a banana when you're done (you need to replace the potassium you just lost).

- if you haven't already, get some proper running shoes. It's the only bit of kit you need, really, for running, but it's essential to have good shoes or you'll injure yourself

- warm up and cool down properly - dynamic stretches before you run, static stretches after, every run you do

- at least one day per week should be complete rest. You might consider conditioning work (core work is particularly useful) on non-running days but have at least one day completely off any exercise

- if your body feels like you're overtraining, listen to it and slow down - skip a run, run shorter or run slower. Everyone has bad runs during training. It doesn't mean you're failing, it means your body is adapting - give it time to do that. It's much easier to injure yourself than it is to get over an injury.

- Very very few people ever execute a given training plan perfectly and hit every single session - sometimes you'll feel like you've just been too easy on yourself and sometimes you won't really manage to do the run you had planned. Both are fine. It's the cumulative effect over a few weeks that counts, not any one individual run.

- never do two hard sessions on consecutive days. At my age and state I can only really manage two hard sessions a week, one some kind of speedwork (fartlek/tempo/intervals/hill sprints - I mix it up) and one long run. That's plenty, though, to see real improvements over time.

- on race day, run a negative split. Hold back a bit the first half of the race, speed up about half way through and again for the last mile if you feel up to it.

By the way, if you can run 10k, you can run a half...;-)

Posted By: Old Man, Jul 16, 10:57:47