12 months to a sub 40:00 10km?

Progression of 10km and 5km times over the past year or so

Well not quite!

The last 12 months have been great, and I have been really pleased with the progress I have made, particularly in 2012 with a more focused and structured approach to training. The last six months of 2011 when really just foundational, getting some miles and setting some benchmarks. This year has been about taking big strides, really massive ones.

Improving my 10km has been a big feature of my first year as a commited runner, starting way back in August last year when I ran the Vodacom Country Challenge in 51:19. I knew I would get faster, but how much faster was what I didn't know.

This past weekend I got to find out. Post Wally Hayward, even though I have bee technically just base building, the increasing intensity of my training has meant that my times have been tumbling both in what I can sustain in training and come race day. Thus with the promise and flat fast route at the Hope Starts in Hatfield event, I knew that my PB of 42:38 was barring some disaster was going to tumble. It was not a case of if, but by how much!

The venue was The Fields shopping centre in the heart of Hatfield. I love shopping mall races. Most of the shops open their doors early to take advantaged of of the hundreds of runners and of course after the race, breakfast is there on offer. But I have  a theory with the races. The constraint of having a fixed start and end point perhaps affects the distance measurement. Nothing worse that expecting weary runners to walk a long way back to the start. At an earlier event at the Jakaranda Shopping Centere in early May, I ran a sedate 64, having done is a training, but curiously my official time was a somewhat quicker 61:10. I didn't think much of it then but after Saturday's race I have an idea as to where that discrepancy may have come from.

I have been training hard and to be honest I am a bit tired but I gave this event everything. Almost too much. I set off at a very unsustainable pace, hitting the first km mark in 3:40, with 2km and 3km coming up on a downhill, that pace never relented and I went through 3km in 11:10. With that being 37:13 pace I was literally laughing at myself knowing that I was never going to keep that up. I consoled myself with that I was banking time. Something I always swear I am never going to do.

At this point we had gone past Loftus Versveld, that mighty rugby stadium, and were nowing climbing to had back towards Hatfield. This climb as shallow as it was put the brakes on that early pace as I slowed to a little of 4:00min/km pace. Four kilometres disappeared at  15:15, and went through 5km in 19:25. This is where things got a little fishy. The finish had been clearly marked at the mall and with both 5km and 10km following the same route, this point was still quite a long way from the end. Hmmm. I minded my own business as we split from the 5km runners.

The second loop was a little different around the stadium but with the same downhill portion, 4:05 pace reverted back to sub 4 min pace and I cruised through to 8km in 31:10 and then hit the 9km point in 35:10. With a little under 5min to get to 40:00 and 1km to go, a PB and a sub 40 was surely in the bag. In the first lap I had seen a 10 painted on the road close to the finish. At the start, a few of the faster looking runners, talking about running 32s were saying how they had the route was closer to 10.6km. Indeed I went past that curious 10 in 39:30! My legs were starting to give in and the end was not in sight. Clock ticked over 40, the 41 and I did the unthinkable and walked for about 10 seconds out of exasperation. Then got my legs ticking over again and finished in 42:08 on my clock but with an official time of 42:24.

So two possibilities exist here. The route was 10km and the boards were placed incorrectly. But each and every one?!?!?!? Or more likely the route was long, the boards were correct and the need to finish at the mall meant adding on an extra 5-600 metres was unavoidable. My footpod usually measures short, but in my lighter Zoom Elite's which allow me to keep up short, high frequency strides was in sync with the boards. It had me through 5km in 19:30 and 10km in 39:20, and measured a final distance of 10.67, somewhat in line with the rumblings of 10.6 km at the start. The official distance as it turns out was 10.5km.

I really felt good on the day, and felt fast and having been doing my tempos at around 4 min/km pace, I felt that with the route and with the weather that I could run a sub 40 10km. Unfortunately I will  not know at least until the next race at the end of July. My priorities are shifting now though as it is now 18 weeks to the Soweto Marathon. Breaking 40 minutes for 10km is no longer the priority and now if it happens it does.

One thing I did take out of this race was adhering to a pre race pacing plan. Already aiming for  faster than 4 min/km was beyond my PB which was at 4:16 pace. Of course having done a 5km at 3:34 pace and a 15km at 4:07 pace were signs that I am faster than 4:16 pace. However going out at 3:43 pace over the first three kms was suicidal. I could have perhaps managed 3:50 pace if I was a bit more conservative but in the end I managed around 3:57 pace which was still a huge improvement. That gives me a solid based to work off for marathon training. My goal was to get faster. Adding speed is potentially more difficult that adding endurance as opposed to get fit for long distance then trying to get faster. So getting the speed in the bank before getting ready for the long haul was always the challenge. And to have potentially taken 3:00 off a 10km time I achieved 8 weeks ago is just great.

Let the good times roll!!!!

The plateau will come. I know it will. I am expecting it too. I am of the opinion that running improvements follow a classic S-curve model:

When we start training at the base of the curve, improvements are slow, everything is tough. I spent a good 6-7 months in this phase after lacing up my shoes in June last year. It's also the easiest time to get despondent and throw in the towel, as I almost did in  December when workouts were actually getting more and more difficult.

Then something happens. It could be a breakthrough race, nailing that brutal interval session, or in my case a long tempo run. I remember the moment clearly. It was the morning of the 3rd April just before catching a flight to Cape Town and I went out and did a 10km tempo run. I did it in 46:40, nothing remarkable, except it was only a minute slower than my 10km PB at the time and that included warm up and cool down. When I was going for it, I was in a groove, just nailing the pace kilometre after kilometre, and it all felt so easy! Less than two weeks later I would do my first half marathon in 1:38:42, well inside my 'best case scenario' of 1:40 that I had set myself. And two weeks later I brought that down to 1:35:01. Four days later I had lowered my 10km time to 42:38. Two weeks later I broke 20 minutes for 5km and ran 19:25. I was now clearly in the exponential phase.

I haven't raced since that 5km and was looking forward to doing my first race in three weeks and also my first 15km race. I was supposed to do the Moreleta Plaza 16km on the 26th May but I felt a bit fatigued from overdoing it in training and wisely rested. The end results is I felt fresh this past weekend and my legs were raring to go! 

Fifteen kilometre is an odd distance. Most prediction tools jump in classic distance, 1 mile, 2 mile, 5 km, 8 km, 10 km, 21,1 km and 42.2 km. I'm a bit of a pedant and like to have some sort of strategy when running races, something I have developed since that first half marathon. I find it relaxes me to have a plan, but also the plan is not fixed and has early escape clauses to take into account weather and surprising route elements. With the route expected to be somewhat flat I used my 5km time, got a prediction for 10km and 21.1km and went for something roughly in the middle and rounding up I got an expected pace of 4:10/km, so roughly tempo pace then. I segmented the race into thirds planning to run 21:15, 20:50 and 20:25 splits for a 62:30. It was I felt a touch on the ambitious side but my motto at the moment is a rather brash go big or go home. I will pay for that someday!

On Friday, a surprise happened with the weather taking a distinct turn for the worse! The temperatures plummeted and at 7:30 start time on Saturday predictions were 2 degrees Celsius. Nasty. Thankfully the race venue, Silver Oaks Crossing, was not very far from home, a 10 minute drive so at least we didn't have to be up at  an ungodly time of the morning. I got a compression vest from my father to wear under my racing vest, got some gloves, but decided to stick with my poly shorts. When I stripped off my tracksuit at the venue I was almost regretting that decision, but after a 10 minute warm up I was feeling just about okay.

The race went well even if my pacing strategy was ripped apart pretty early on. The first km was in around 4:12 and I settled into a pace that was quite a bit quicker but comfortable, a red herring perhaps? I went through 3km in 12:00 and 5km in around 20:10. I knew the pace was a bit hot and did try and slow myself down. I got sucked into other peoples races though. There was a group of three guys that would pass me on the flats but I would pass them on any climb. The end result was that I went through 10km in 40:26, 4:03 min/km pace. I knew I would pay for it somehow later! Hey it would have be a huge 10km PB, 2:12 min, if the race stopped there but there was another 5km to go.

Sure enough I did pay for the early pace. I got sucked into another race as a guy came past me after that and he was a bit chatty. I went along with him and then we started to climb. I had read fairly flat about the race, but there was some climbing up to about 14km, long climbs broken up by short teasing straights. So predictably my pace dropped. I went past 14km in around 57:50 so my pace had dropped to 4:20 min/km. I finished strong though, putting in a sub-4 min final km to finish in 1:01:40 on my watch. That was a quite a bit quicker than what I set out to run, and with some smarter running could have flirted with running under 61 minutes. But I'm not going to complain about finishing a 15km at 4:06 pace.

In the grander scheme of things, I am still in that exponential phase of the s-curve. While I wait for the plateau there are still some fast times ahead I hope. For the rest of June I have a 5km on the 23rd and a shot at a the 10km on the 30th. At both races I'm going for good PBs. The route at the 5km race, the Take 5 team relay, is also fairly flat (though I'm getting skeptical with 'fairly flat' as a route description) and the organisers do promise a fast course, so flirting with a sub 19:00 5km or 3:47 pace is a target. The 10km race in Hatfield is a new event, but Hatfield is one the flatter areas of Pretoria so if anything I want to match the 40:26 I manged through 10km this weekend, and I'm going whisper it but a 39:XX is on the cards if I pace myself well.

On the road to Soweto, getting my speed up is the mission and so far so goo. Let the good times roll!!

So what's my correct training pace?

Something that I never really grasped is what pace to train at. There are of course so many training types, I'm doing short intervals, long intervals, fartleks, tempo workouts, hill repeats, easy runs and long runs. Each of these has a purpose and must therefore  be done purposefully and at the right effort. I guess the easiest way is to drop the pace constraint and to go by effort. Take that a step further and use heart rate. But I hate running with a heart rate monitor. Scratch that detest it. There's something about having that darn belt around my chest, it irritates me, I'm constantly adjusting it...anyway I digress.

My solution was to just go to a running pace calculator, like this great one from Runner's World that even does race predictions! So I've just run a race, recently the Jackie Mekler 10km in 42:38 and it gives me the following output under training pace:

• 5:16 min/km Easy run training pace
• 4:23 min/km Tempo run training pace
• 3:57 min/km Maximum oxygen training pace
• 3:39 min/km Speed form training pace
• 5:16-5:57 min/km Long run training pace
• 3:15 min/800m Yasso 800s training pace

Great! So on Monday, Tuesday on whenever I head out again I do my tempo at 4:23 min/km, my easy run at 5:16 and my LSD no faster than 5:16 but no slower than 5:57 min/km. Then the following week I do some 400m reps on the track at 87s per 400. Easy?

But what am I actually doing? I never really thought that all I'm doing is maintaining 42:38 form but surely that's not what I want? But if I'm training at paces computed from that as my most recent race time surely that's what I'm doing? It's like the training pace here is the end goal and not a journey when using the race pace method and that seems a bit wrong. I understand the logic that it's a good measure of what I'm capable of, particularly when shooting for a new distance. I'm training for my first marathon, so a good estimation of what I'm capable could be what my times now predict. So using my 42:38 PB run a month ago, I get an estimation of 3:16:06. Using my half-marathon PB of 1:35:01 ran four days before that 10km, I get a marathon prediction of 3:18:06. Two weeks later I ran a 5km, albeit one as flat as a pancake in 19:25, and that predicts 3:05:53!

Here's the thing though, surely this method predicts current capability with a few assumptions, the most obvious to me being you realistically plan to run the predicted distance on a route profile similar to that of the input race result? My 5km time is a useless barometer for Soweto Marathon, but might be a good indicator for a race like Slow Mag, which is also reasonably flat. However the other assumption is that you are fit and ready to run the predicted race NOW. I can tell you now I know I can't run a 32km race at whatever pace my 10km PB would extrapolate to, never mind a marathon. Heck I think I would blow out if trying to do 25km at a hard effort.

This has been weighing on my mind as my different PBs run within two weeks of each other predict times 13 minutes wide for the marathon, but also because I feel I ought to train with a goal in mind and my effort in training should reflect that. I'm am heading into the great unknown so how I do logically plan for that. I have a half marathon scheduled for 29th September, roughly a month before Soweto and that will obviously be a good gauge of what I will be able to achieve. But here's my thing, if I train at 42:38 for a 10km determined pace, am I selling myself short. I have over 5 months to go till Soweto. A lot can change and I will inevitably, judging by my progress in the first half of 2012, be fitter and faster come 4 November. Surely I want to get faster, not maintain the status quo?

When I decided to train for a half marathon I consulted a few people on what I should aim for. The first question was always, 'What have you run?'. At the time it was 48 flat for 10km. I thought of going for 1:40 but guys said that a 1:45 would be more realistically based on my 10km PB. I did a 10km, the Deloitte race in the first week of my program to get a feel for race pace since my 10km PB was from November 2011, and out of nowhere ran 45:44. It was hard, I walked a lot, I was spent, butsuddenly I was in 1:40 territory. As a relative novice, I had no control of pace and actually ended up inadvertently running by feel, ie getting the workout wrong 90% of the time. So easy for me was simply being able to hold a conversation. Tempo I just ran hard, intervals I went all out. As the weeks progressed, I was on a 10 week program, I noticed that interval and tempo workouts, at the same rate of perceived effort were getting faster with no extra work on my part. I ran 1:38:42 and then two weeks later ran 1:35:01. That second half-marathon was at a faster pace than I managed over my 45:44 10km.

Now surely if I had restricted myself to training paces for a 45:44 10km, I never would have managed a 1:35 half marathon? Or a 42:38 10km? Or a 19:25 5km? I would have condition myself for a 1:40:54 half-marathon and a 21:57 5km, hypothetically speaking.

I'm definitely leaning towards a feel based approach with a bit of mathematical prediction thrown in. For example I have four races I am focusing on leading up to Soweto, a 10km each in June, July and August and the half in September. For the 10km races I hope to take a minute off my PB each time, route, weather, health, and the alignment of the stars permitting, which would put me into sub 40 minute territory (crikey!) and a realistical shot at a sub 90 minute half marathon, in turn an opportunity for a fast debut marathon, 3:05 to 3:10 maybe, if everything is perfect on the day (I'll take a 3:30 any day!)

So how do I train for that? I could repeat the exercise above and put in a 40:00 target 10km. But the speed form pace is a blinding 3:26 and I know that is probably to hot for me right now to hit consistently over 4,5,6 up to 10 reps. I can go all out and nail it first time but I would be bushed! What I think is logical and something I'm trying to do, is to have an end goal in mind for training pace I should hit. For example I like that the Yasso 800 is tried and tested so I should be able to do 10 of those at whatever pace I aim for, and if I have done my tempos, fartleks and long run, that together should work. But the goal should be just that, the end goal. The 10x Yasso 800s are usually done just before the taper. My current pace should be a springboard to that end goal, which leads into the foot race. So right now a 4:23 tempo and 3:39 speed form should be at my 80% and 85-90% effort, but like how we increase mileage weekly to improve stamina, I should be able to push a little harder in later weeks so that 80% becomes 4:20, 4:17, 4:14 and down to 4:07 by October and equally 85-90% becomes 3:35, 3:31 down to 3:26.

So a bottom end based on current ability and a top end based on desired, but realistic ability, bridged by running on feel and listening to the body? Well that's the theory anyway.