You’re the coach: How would you (try to) turn a circa 37:00 10k runner, into a 32:00 runner?

Pray.

Ok, You can, I'm a firm believer that natural talent is a real thing. However, I believe natural limitations are not a thing, there are so many factors affecting performance that the limits are when one factor is weak, work on that and you can become very fast. You have people who are naturally fast, people who are naturally good at endurance and then the talented one are the ones who mix it. That is why the Somalians, Kenyans and Ethiopians are good, they have natural speed but the body shape for endurance. If you want to become fast you'll have to prepare, this is how. There are three phases before. Please note, this is not conventional but it should work.

This training method works on building talent.

Phase 1: Spend at least 3-6 Months working on speed, aim for big pbs in the 200m, 400m and 800m. Try to go 25 for the 200m, 56 for the 400m. This will improve all performances and help you make the initial jump from 37 to 34-32.

This stage is vital. Do a lot of strength work, work a lot on cadence and plyometrics.

Phase 2: This phase is the Kenyan phase. You have the speed, you have the talent, now its about getting the endurance and running economy. There are three things to get this. Phase 2 is executed in the base phase, its a base phase just extended. The three things you need are high mileage to get the endurance, do maybe 70 miles or more. Then you need good running economy. You will get this by doing barefoot running, it improves your cadence, prevents injuries and makes you a lot more efficient. In this phase cross train as well.

Now after these two phases you have the natural speed and talent, you have great running economy, less chances of injury and great endurance from the high mileage. Now its onto the final phase.

Phase 3: Phase 3 is the most normal phase, its just a normal training for the season but make sure the mileage is similar to the base phase. The only difference is that you may be able to fit in more hard sessions, I mean Paul Tergat did a hard session every day, I wouldn't recommend it but considering you have lots of easy running already you may as well do more hard sessions. Also if you are going to double, do the hard session in the morning and the recovery session in the evening.

If you do decide to do these three phases please email me to tell me how your doing, ill be interested, and can always give you a training plan in detail.

My Email:

runningtalent56@gmail.com

Haha, not the response I was hoping for, but to be fair that did just make me laugh out loud and spit my coffee everywhere!

All you can do is train progressively and see where you end up. Just like anyone should.

I'd say you are progressing well and broadly keep doing what you are doing

Make sure to do long run every week 10-12 miles don't bother going further

Work on getting down your 5km time. As long as you keep up the miles then 10km time will follow. So do intervals at mile to 5km pace

Gradually increase mileage. Make sure to have easy days don't push it every day

Add hills - best thing to increase strength speed

Join a club or train with people a bit faster than you

In my view don't bother doing interval at pre determined pace. Do some as fast as you can providing you can do them all in the same time. Don't kill yourself but every good runner I trained with didn't subscribe to the running relaxed theory on here. In one group of runners one runner was never headed in any interval session. He ran sub 4 for mile and 1:45 800m. Balance that with relaxing on some more of your steady runs and having slow recovery runs

Strive to be a 36 or 35 minute 10K guy first. You've probably achieved most of the easy gains.

Some pretty solid advice on here, one pretty poor piece of advice. I will leave it up to you to figure out which is which, and I suspect that will be pretty easy for you given the knowledge that you have demonstrated.

These are secondary to training, but I have to wonder how much you weigh and how good your diet is? These are not the factors that will get you from 36:45 to 32:30, but they may be the finishing touches that get you from 33:20 to 32:30.

One more thing to think about: obviously you have had some big gains going from no exercise to some pretty consistent work. On the one hand, you cannot expect those gains to keep accruing. On the other, a big part of distance training is consistent mileage and work over the course of years, and you are just now reaching the point where those cumulative miles should start paying off. Add to that the fact that you are relatively young and that you have fairly few miles on your odometer. So you should believe that more gains (with some potential big gains) are in your near future, notwithstanding that you have already accrued a lot of the "steep curve" benefits that beginners tend to accrue.

I think 32:00 is a stretch, but I would refuse to rule it out and think that 32:5x, while also a stretch, is a lot less of a stretch.

Good luck and keep doing what you are doing.

Profile：Ghost

Club: Hercules Wimbledon

Year: 1978-79

Best times: 800-2.10 1500 -4.19 3000-8.57 -5000-15:12

10.000-32:22 10 miles-51:20 20 miles-1:50.49 Finchley 20 -1978

South London Harriers Gibb Cup Champion -1978- 5 miles cc. 25:56

Ghost had no speed or talent as a runner. His basic training was 50-60 miles a week either in singles or thrice weekly 'short' doubles. Race every Saturday ～Any distance and 10 miles on Sundays from Lariston with people like Bob Holt，John Roberts，Mike Fuller，David Clark etc～All those runners being much faster than Ghost ～Clarke was 27:56 for 10.000 Holt 28:39 for same and Fuller 29.22

The point is when you train with faster runners you will improve～Some more than others.

Ghost in China

ukathleticscoach wrote:

In one group of runners one runner was never headed in any interval session. He ran sub 4 for mile and 1:45 800m.

Is that why he ran that fast or was he never headed because he was just better than everyone else?

At 33 I was running up to 155 miles a week. But that's not where the improvement comes directly. The improvement comes a year and a half later, when you cut the mileage and train a lot faster.

As well, the high mileage allows you to run 20 times 400 easily.

Ghost 1 wrote:

Profile：Ghost

Club: Hercules Wimbledon

Year: 1978-79

Best times: 800-2.10 1500 -4.19 3000-8.57 -5000-15:12

10.000-32:22 10 miles-51:20 20 miles-1:50.49 Finchley 20 -1978

South London Harriers Gibb Cup Champion -1978- 5 miles cc. 25:56

Ghost had no speed or talent as a runner. His basic training was 50-60 miles a week either in singles or thrice weekly 'short' doubles. Race every Saturday ～Any distance and 10 miles on Sundays from Lariston with people like Bob Holt，John Roberts，Mike Fuller，David Clark etc～All those runners being much faster than Ghost ～Clarke was 27:56 for 10.000 Holt 28:39 for same and Fuller 29.22

The point is when you train with faster runners you will improve～Some more than others.

Ghost in China

Yeah well, did you train with Ryan McKenzie ( 3:36 ), and how much faster did you get?

good advice on here so far, no magic workout that will do it. Look at your weight. I know it sounds basic, but 5-8 lbs can make a huge difference.

Some great replies here; thanks guys!

I currently weigh 10 stone (140lbs). I logged my weight for a few months last year, and I ran my best race (the 36:46 10k) around when I weighed 138-139lbs. The lightest I got at any stage was 136lbs, but for most of September (a period of PB's) I was around 138.

I'm 5"8 by the way.

On a related note, the scales I use measure body fat at 14.4% currently. Even when I was 138lbs, this reading didn't ever go below 13%, and was often mid-13's. This has always confused me a lot, as 13% just sounds so high considering I'm running 40-50 miles per week, and making an effort to eat well, and not over-eat???

Granted there was a bit of fat around my stomach that I could lose, but we are talking a small amount here (as far as I can tell) when I hear about people getting down in to single figures body fat, i just don't see how I would have had another 3%+ to lose. I constantly get told I'm too thin already - so I just don't see how I could lose much more, let alone get down to say 8%. Of course the scales could be wrong, and I don't want to get too hung up on losing weight for the sake of losing weight - it has to result in me actually getting faster - but on the other hand, why carry around useless weight?

Diet was poor for a number of years, but it's something I've been addressing over the past 12 months or so. I eat a lot more fruit and veg than I ever did, and I'm trying to cut out biscuits, crisps, excessively fatty foods, junk foods etc. I'd say my diet was better than 90% of the population, no problem.

Trying to watch portion sizes too - it's been an eye opener really; it is SO easy to over-eat every meal, without even realizing it. I didn't even realize I was probably adding 200-300 calories to every meal in bread and butter alone.

Thanks for this! Really helpful!

I have recently joined a club, but the sessions are a good few hours after I finish work - so recently I have been training alone instead (it's hard to justify the time spent sitting around in between otherwise). I do believe the sessions I have done with faster folks have made a difference though; it give you a bench mark to match yourself against for sure!

Noted about the 5k time; I've heard people say before that that will 'filter up' to longer distances so to speak. I find 5k's to be torture though; are they always that way or could it be that I just tend to go out too fast? Our local 5k is very busy, and there is always a tendency to start at a million miles an hour to get in a good spot - starting slowly might be something I need to try out next time?

Would you still advice limiting a long run to 12 miles if I'm hoping to do well at Half Marathons in the meantime? I'm was planning to race regularly at everything from 5k to HM; although I will limit HM's to 3 a year max.

I went from 48:24 for six miles at age 18 to 32:29 at 21. I went from around 40 miles a week to as much as 150 in that time, though that was at the end of the time period, mostly I was around 80-110. I did that over the span of those four years so the 80 would have been in the earlier part, the 100-150 in the late stage. The biggest jump came when I got to about 60 mpw from the 35-45 I'd originally done. That got me to 34:30. Also, we raced a LOT, at least weekly during track season and probably three times every two weeks during cross country.

If you can race 3 @ 5:50 can you do 5:30 mile repeats?

32 min 10k from a 31 year old runner who has no college or advanced club running earlier in life is very, very rare. I have only come across two guys who were able to do it. Most talented non-college/club runners I have run across max out at 34 min for 10k. 32 min is a real time barrier in the 10k.

I would say that it would take at least three years to get in the ballpark. Doubles and 100 mpw are probably a necessity unless there is just a ton of pure natural talent. I would say go full on Lydiard and try to immediately get into a high mileage program over the next 6-8 months. Then do a 10k specific training phase for about 3-4 months. That would probably take a minute off the 10k PR. From there, it really depends on how you respond to the mileage. More than anything, you have to focus on making sure that you are constantly giving yourself a new training stimulus to prevent stagnation.

Precious Roy wrote:... I would say go full on Lydiard..

Heh! Heh! BEAVIS!! He said, uhuh, uh...yeah!! He said FULL ON LYDIARD!! Uhuhuh!!

I'm a few years older than you and I'm a 37min 10k runner that was a 32-33 guy when I was younger so let me list the things that have changed: I'm 15-years older, I have more responsibilities outside of running, I'm 20 lbs heavier, I'm muscularly weaker, I sprint slower (29sec 200m vs 25sec), I don't have a team or a coach. My mileage is about the same or higher but I race less frequently and do fewer structured workouts. I'll leave it to you to judge which of these changes are the most important because I honestly don't know myself.