20 Seconds Off The Pace
One of my goals this year is to run 10k in 40 minutes. Of all the things I’ve set myself to do, this is the one that’s most daunting. My PB for this distance is somewhere around 44 minutes, so I’m looking to make a 10% or so improvement.
This is going to be even harder, as this year I’ve concentrated on swimming and cycling - weakest and most fun triathlon disciplines. Because I’m only doing sprint distance this year, I’m just using my cycling fitness to carry me through the run. Oh, and I don’t yet have a race picked out to try for my PB either.
Anyway, this morning, I set out for a run along to Tynemouth, relieved to see that it wasn’t raining today either (I remember when the weather forecasting used to be accurate - it’s all over the place this year). I hadn’t really planned the route, and didn’t intend to go out especially hard. This was just one of those “I suppose I’d better go for a run” runs.
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 07/18/2007
- Total Time: 00:23:44.00
- Distance: 3.5 miles
- Average Pace: 6:46.78/mile
The funny thing is that I didn’t try too hard. I mean, this wasn’t a walk in the park / jog to the pub / amble along the promenade, but it wasn’t full-on “OMG I’m going to die if this doesn’t end soon” race pace either. So I’m quite pleased to be clocking a pace of 6:46 per mile.
According to the calculations I’ve done based on the predictor table in Hal Higdon’s “How to Train”, I should expect around a 4% decrease in my pace in going from 3.5 miles to 10k, which would give me a 10k time now of about 43:30 - roughly at the level of my current PB, which was clocked two years back after six months of hard running training.
There’s still lots of work to do on this, but considering how I felt today, I’m starting to think that maybe that 40 minute goal is starting to come within reach.
