How to smash a 10km this summer

There is something reassuringly achievable about a 10km. More challenging than a 5km, but not as intense as a half and nowhere near as extreme as a full-blown marathon. It’s the perfect middle ground.

It’s a distance in which you can show off both endurance and speed, and there’s an art to it. 

Whether you’re about to run your first ever race or are hell-bent on smashing your PB this year, we spoke to British 10km champion ​and Saucony ambassador Charlotte Arter along with GB running coach Nick Anderson for some top tips on crushing it. 

Feel your way

Arter says that in her own training she will often “run to feel”. By this Anderson says, it means learning to run by how you’re feeling rather than getting bogged down with clock watching.

“When I’m training athletes we’ll drop the GPS and not pay attention to it until afterwards,” says Anderson. “Instead of worrying about GPS, it’s best to think about heart rate and the rate of perceived exertion, it’s more honest and accurate. Use that as your main guide, paces will vary according to weather, terrain and more.

“Also take your resting heart rate each morning to assess health and recovery status. A high resting rate is usually a sign of fatigue, illness, dehydration or stress. A heart rate that lowers a little over the months shows a fitter athlete with better stroke volume and strength of heart,” he adds.

Get to know your threshold pace

One term you’ll probably hear a lot of if you start Googling “training for a 10km” is threshold, as in running at threshold pace – which should form an important basis of your 10km training, according to Anderson. 

“A ‘threshold run’ is hard, but you can continue it for a prolonged period of time,” he explains. “Your heart rate is at 75-85 per cent maximum effort (or 75-85 per cent of your maximum effort) and you’re really using your aerobic system – it’s the sweet spot.

“You finish it knowing you could have run some more,” he adds

Start doing interval training

It’s tempting to focus purely on distance, particularly if you’re a beginner but Arter says it’s crucial to mix up your training with both speed and endurance. 

“A lot of people just go out for easy runs and just plateau, they don’t really get that improvement, it’s a good idea to incorporate one or two runs a week which involve some speed work,” she says. “You might be on a 20-minute run and within that run you might do 10 x 1 minute sprints and you gradually build on that (up to 15 or 20 with 60 seconds of recovery in between).”

We put an athlete-worthy interval-style training method to the test in a 10km masterclass with them both for the launch of the new Saucony Ride ISO 2 running shoe.

Anderson instructs us to run at threshold for two minutes, then after a 90 second break we run for another two slightly above our threshold pace, “this is more like what you’d run in a 5km,” he explains. Then repeat – the idea being that you’d gradually increase how many times you did this in your training.

“When we talk about threshold and [running quicker] it can get complicated,” Arter says. “So just make sure you do one run a week which is hard but that you can keep going for a long period of time, something a little bit quicker and some easier runs in between.”

Over distance training

It’s also important to ensure that you can comfortably make the 10km, which requires over distance training, Arter explains.

“You need to be doing something longer than 10km in your training, it’s just over six miles, so I’d say you need to make sure you can run an 8-miler comfortably too. It’s all about gradually increasing your run, don’t do too much too soon,” she says, adding that when she’s training for a race, she’ll typically do a track session a Tuesday, a tempo-based session on a Friday then a long run, around 10-12 miles on a Sunday. 

Make it sociable

Arter, who broke a the world record for a Parkrun earlier this year, with her time of 15 minutes and 50 seconds, recommends joining a local running club or community, or getting into a routine of running with colleagues at work. Making your training more sociable will help to keep it consistent.

“Doing some Parkruns and 5kms, just getting used to understanding what sort of athlete you are and what pace you can hold makes a huge difference,” she says. “Find someone who’s the same pace or perhaps a little bit quicker and just get in as much easy running as possible.”

Don’t just sign up to one race

Thinking about your goals long-term will help with your pace setting, Arter adds: “If you’re doing your first 10km in a couple of months and another one maybe six months down the line, by the next one you might say ‘I want to be running a certain time’ and it gives you that bit more focus.”

Incorporate strength training into your regime

Arter incorporates two strength training sessions at the gym per week alongside her running schedule.

“I like to do lots of single leg stuff, like single leg RDLs with a dumbbell, single leg squats, deadlift squats and hip and glute strength exercises and I’ll do basic core and glute work on a daily basis,” she says.

Finally, both Arter and Anderson agree that it’s crucial to factor in rest days in between your training sessions to ensure your body has enough time to recover. Arter adds that she’ll often hit the gym on the same day as her sessions, “so a hard day is a hard day, but it’s not every day.”

Top tip for setting your pace using a treadmill

While road runs are crucial to a race training schedule, Kirsten Hoskisson, personal trainer at Virgin Active, points out how the treadmill can be a useful tool in increasing your speed and determining your pace. “There’s less impact on the joints than running on the road, plus you don’t have to travel to find hills, you can adjust the incline at the touch of a button,” she says. It’s also easy to fit in a treadmill session around your next gym class or weights session.

“If you haven’t raced before or it has been a while since your last one, then you can use a treadmill to estimate your pace,” she says. “Find a speed you can maintain for 20 minutes and see what distance you complete in that time, then extrapolate that to find your time for 10km (divide time by distance and multiply by 10). Factor in an improvement factor of 4-8% depending on the frequency of your training and your fitness level and there you have your target.”