How to Structure a Week of 10k Training (2024)

Audio Transcript

Michael: Our question today comes from Anna.

Anna: My name is Anna. I’m a female, aged 43 years old. I started running for the first time in my life in November, about five months ago.

I had never ran before. I used to take spin classes at the gym. Kickboxing, neck on the stuff cross training, but I never did any running at all.

I did a generic count to 5K and then I went on to the 10K.

I ran my first 10K about a month or so ago. Now, I’m working on making my 10K faster, but I’m not sure if I should still be running 10K during the week.

I know I’m doing speed drills one day a week, and I just don’t know what to do the other days.

I feel like I should be running every day because I love it, but then I know I’m not supposed to run every day.

I’m supposed to do some strength training in between and what not. So, that’s where I’m at. Thanks.

Michael: Thanks for your question, Anna and it’s great to hear you got into running.

It can be exciting getting into running later. I talked to Claire Bartholic about this, and she mentioned how it’s nice not to have anything to compare to.

Everything is new and you’re not constantly trying to compare your results to your 20-year-old self. Now, let’s dig into this question. Basically, we’ll talk about how to structure a training week.

We’re going to talk in very general terms geared toward 10K, but nonetheless, widely applicable.

Here at Runners Connect, we individualize things based on your past training, your mileage or workouts per week.

We look at your recent races, whether you are doing strength training, or cross training, what days you like to run, what days you want off, and we look at all of that to develop plans.

But there are basic guidelines for how to structure a week.

First thing we look at is, how many days per week you’re going to run. This really depends on your mileage and whether you cross train as well.

So, cross training means biking, swimming, elliptical, aqua jogging, all of that is in terms of cross training.

Also, a lot of people do yoga and kickboxing, weightlifting, and stuff like that.

We count all of that, but our essentials are biking, swimming, and elliptical. Now, your mileage isn’t quite as big of a factor in 10K training as it is in marathon training, but it’s still very important, as the 10K is still a 90% aerobic event.

That’s compared to about 97.5% for the marathon.

So the marathon is effectively a 100% completely aerobic event.

10K is heavily aerobic, 90%.

Still has a small anaerobic element to it, so you certainly need some high quality aerobic training. Now, again, your running days is going to depend on your mileage.

Our essential guidelines is about 15 to 20 miles a week. Let’s say you’re running about 15 to 20 miles a week, we’re going to look at about three to four running days.

For 25 to 30 miles per week, we’re going to look at four to five running days.

Once we get above that, that’s where we start working into five or six running days a week, maybe even seven, if we get above 40, 45 miles a week.

Now, the reason for the ranges is that cross training can replace a running day.

So, we’ve had people run three days a week, with two cross training days and be very successful, particularly at the shorter events.

Usually, for the marathon, we typically insist on four days running for a week.

But plenty of people at 5K, 10K have had success running three days a week, especially with a couple of cross training days.

For an example, let’s assume you’re running about 25 miles a week, I’d recommend running four days a week, with some cross training the other days.

So, an ideal training week would look something like this: one or two workouts, a long run, and one or two easy runs, plus a little bit of cross training.

Let’s look at an example week.

So, Monday we’re just going to have an easy run, just probably a short easy run that will gradually build over time.

Tuesday, you’re going to have your speed workout.

This is kind of your primary workout of the week; we’re really going to work on your 10K fitness.

Wednesday, it will just be a cross training day.

Thursday is going to be our tempo threshold steady-type session. So, some examples would be a three mile tempo at your tempo pace, which is roughly the pace you can hold for about an hour, total.

Maybe six times a thousand meters at your threshold pace, or perhaps a five mile steady run.

Friday’s then going to be another cross training day before Saturday, which is going to be a long run day. And then Sunday is another cross training day.

So, basically what we want is to make sure that we always have one easy rest or cross training day, between the harder workouts and the long runs.

Obviously, this can change based on your long run day, and that’s usually what we base everything on.

So, most people do the long run on either Saturday or Sunday, and from there, we kind of work out what other days the workouts will be on, what days your easy runs will be, and what days will be your rest or cross training days.

Now, I also mentioned cross training on three of those days.

Obviously, we would actually want one of those days to be a complete rest day, at least one. If you’re running four days a week, you can certainly handle one cross training day and then two rest days.

But basically, if you’re running three or four days a week, I would highly recommend having at least one cross training day and then one or two rest days in addition.

Now, one of the workouts we mentioned could easily be replaced with perhaps just an easy run in strides. A good idea is to alternate weeks.

So, one week you have two of those harder workouts in a week and then a long run.

And then the other week, you have one of those workouts and a long run, and then you replace the other workout with an easy run in strides.

You don’t want to have too many workouts in a week consistently, because that can be an injury risk and be an over training risk.

So, at Runners Connect, our general guideline is about 30 miles per week, because that’s where we feel people are typically ready to start adding in two workouts a week.

But even then we’ll add in down weeks, maybe every third week where you’ll only have one workout, lower mileage, and just a nice week to recover.
Now, on the topic of stride.

Strides are tremendous for any runner, but especially those running shorter races like 5Ks, 10Ks.

Basically, they’re short speed sessions. What we’re going to look for is about a 15 to 20 second stride at 90, 95% percent effort.

Not all out, not 100%, but pretty close, like 90, 95%, and you’re going to take full rest between each one.

So, an example would be five strides at, again, 15 to 20 seconds each, about 90, 95% effort, and you’re going to take 100% full rest.

That might be a minute, might be two minutes. Basically, however long you need to be completely recovered between each one.

And you’re going to really focus on your forms. You have your knees up, really good arm drive, slight forward lean, really focusing on your form on each stride. That’s going to help your speed and your form in the race.

In terms of particular workouts for the 10K, we don’t want to focus too much on VO2 max workouts; that’s a very common mistake.

VO2 max workouts are extremely difficult and they’re very, very taxing on your body, so they’re actually difficult to recover from.

Plus, VO2 max workouts only work on the speed component.

For the 10K, you need what we call speed endurance. So, instead of five times 800 meters at 3K race pace with three minutes rest, which is a pure VO2 workout, you know that gives you full rest in between each interval, we’re going to do something like eight times 400 meters at 10K pace, with about 30 seconds rest .

So, it’s very little rest.

You’re working both your speed and your endurance. Some other examples would be two times one mile at 10K pace, with a minute rest, and then two times 800 meters at 5K pace, with a minute rest.

So, kind of work in 10K and 5K pace combined in one workout, but nonetheless with that real short recovery between each interval. Another example would be perhaps five times 1,000 meters at 10K pace, with 30 or 45 seconds rest.

That’s obviously really short, so it’s essentially continuous but it’s basically a broken up interval.

5,000 meters or so, broken up at your 10K pace with very, very short recoveries. Basically, any workout that’s going to work right around 10K pace, with very little rest is going to help here. Remember to get a quality warm up and cool down before and after the workout, at least a mile for each; real nice and easy.

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