Is 10k the perfect distance?

Maybe for you, lol. I personally find 10,000s unbearable. IMO the perfect distance is the 1500/mile - fun to race, fun to watch, and everyone and their mother knows what a fast mile time is because they ran a couple in high school.

The perfect distance changes with your age and abilities.

Usually distances get longer the older you get. I find now that I am getting old the distances get shorter again.

Yeah, everybody and their mother has a made up fast mile time they ran in high school or the military. I ran a 2:53 once and wasn't even the fastest in my class

As a new-ish runner I've had a lot of success at 10k. I've been able to almost hold my 5k pace, so my last 10k had splits of roughly 18:20 and 18:30.

I like the half distance too, but I have to be more sensible with pacing.

I guess that depends

I prefer the 40y dash.

i'd die from boredom in a track 10k. 3k is the best IMO

10M is the perfect race distance.

Long enough to test your endurance, but not so long that it's some test or survival, but also short enough to allow you to really get after it and race.

Also, the general public understands 10M vs 10k. The 10k is six miles, but not really JUST six miles so you need to add in a bit of time for that .2... everyone knows how far 10M is.

I always thought it was 5K. Challenging enough to require significant training to be good at, yet the recovery period from the actual race is relatively quick. Plus you can easily race them in back to back weekends.

I love the 10k distance but there are so few opportunities to race it on the roads, at least it seems that way to me in the mid-Atlantic.

Half-marathon is the perfect distance. 10k is too short - 5 to 40 minutes running just isn't long enough! The half marathon takes everything without ruining your body like the full marathon does.

The 10K is perfect. The half is a challenge, should be "the marathon" for nearly all.

The marathon itself should be a 50K.

But then the half wouldn't make sense.

So, 10K, 25K (finally makes sense), and the 50K.

For me my favorite distances are both the 800 and the Half.

I like speed, though I'm not a sprinter so it's the 800 for me, but I also love the effort of the Half.

I wish there were more 30km races. You recover much faster than a marathon, but don't have huge fields you get in a 1/2 marathon.

800m for me is perfect. Training for it allows me to race almost anything.

I can race from 60m to half marathon and get decent results. I once even run trail run and beat everyone exceltone world level trail runner.

If I trained for 10k, I wouldn't be able to run 200m indoor relay at nationals. And if I trained for 200m, I would suck on any endurance run.

I'm no one special but I always found the 10k/10000 to be the perfect distance because it is where the milers and the marathoners compete best against each other.

It's funny you say this. When I coached guys would come back from basic training- guys who couldn't break 6 in the mile in high school- and tell everyone they ran 4:44 in basic training.

4:44, always 4:44. I wondered of the military had one watch they used everywhere and it automatically stopped at 4:44.

10K should be on the road or cross country, I agree it is not good for track.

When I was in college I focused primarily on the 1500m outdoor and ran 3:45. I often moved up to the 10,000m in championship meets and ran close to 29:00 for a 10,000m and actually found the 10,000m to be very relaxing especially considering that the pace was close to 35 to 40 seconds slower then my normal race pace. I would say the 10,000m is close to a perfect distance.