10K Racing 101

The first step to running your best in any race is being able to cover the distance. I don’t care how fast Carl Lewis can sprint; if 5K is a long run for him, he’s not beating me (or many other people, for that matter) in that race. The longer a race is, the more being able to negotiate the distance becomes a limiting factor. That’s why 5Ks to 10Ks are so popular. You don’t have to run all that many miles each week to be able to finish the race. But when you want to do more than just finish the race, then you need to alter your training. How? Here’s a simple training principle that many runners ignore: Different races have different physiological demands; that is, they stress different systems of your body. It’s impossible to effectively train all of the systems of your body in a short period (say, a few months). Therefore, to reach your potential, you should pick a race distance that you want to focus on for a racing season, and then train to meet the physiological demands of your target race.
In other words, you can’t train to be a miler and a marathoner at the same time. The demands of the distances are so different that you have to choose, and then structure your training accordingly. If you want to be a miler, then do a lot of short, very fast speed workouts, and don’t worry about how many miles you run each week. If you want to be a marathoner, don’t worry about how fast you can run a quarter-mile; concentrate on increasing your endurance with long runs.
This focused, seasonal approach is what the best runners in the world do, but many recreational runners are all over the place. They run a 5K one weekend, a half marathon the next, then another 5K, then a 10K. That’s not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t race at a variety of distances. But within any period of a few months, you’ll do better if you focus on a group of distances that have similar physiological demands. That way, you’ll be able to train more effectively because you can concentrate on developing the type of fitness needed for your target races.

How Far Is a K?

What’s the deal with all these “K”s runners are always talking about? I mean, everyone trains all week by measuring their miles, and then they go off on the weekend and race 5Ks and 10Ks. “K” stands for kilometer, as in a five-kilometer race. A kilometer is a metric standard of distance equal to 1,000 meters. One kilometer equals .621 miles. Europe is the epicenter of the international track and field circuit. Every summer, the best runners in the world spend June through August traveling to track meets throughout Europe to race each other. World-class track meets in Europe are like the Super Bowl is here. They often sell out more than a year in advance, with some stadiums holding more than 50,000 fans.
I ran a few of these meets in the late ’70s, and it was an incredible experience. The fans are really knowledgeable. They spend most of the distance races clapping rhythmically, stomping their feet, cheering wildly. You can’t help drawing from their energy. You just don’t see that happening at track meets in this country, which are usually more sparsely attended than a shoe-sniffing contest.
As a result, European track meets set the agenda. Because tracks are measured metrically, being 400 meters around, almost all races are in metric distances. (The main exception is the mile, which fans all over the world love.) The two main distance races are 5,000 meters, or 5K, and 10,000 meters, or 10K. Usually when people talk about track races, they give the distance in meters; when they talk about the same race on the roads, they describe it in kilometers. So a 5,000 on the track is the same distance as a 5K on the roads. Wacky, eh?
Road races used to be all kinds of strange distances: 4.7 miles, 7.1 miles, 11.6 miles, whatever. People would lay out a good course, measure it, and that’s how far the race was. But when the first running boom started in the ’70s, the new breed of runner wanted more precision. Theses runners wanted to be able to compare their times from week to week to make sure that their 5K time this month was better than it had been last month. So the standard distance races from the track were transported to the roads. Next thing you knew, runners who failed algebra could instantaneously convert miles to kilometers and back again.
But what about 8Ks, which are never run on the track? Why don’t those races lengthen their course by 47 yards and call themselves five-milers? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to know what your pace in them was that way? I don’t know. Stop asking so many questions. Just run ’em.

Fartlek: Not an Intestinal Disorder

Some runners thrive on track workouts. They love the precision and the ability to objectively compare their workouts from week to week. A lot of runners get burned out when they do speed work on the track frequently, however. They just don’t like going around and around in circles. Also, many runners don’t have easy access to a track, or they have to train when it’s dark, or the track is covered with snow. How can these runners get in their fast running?
They can do fartlek. That’s not what you do on a run after having a burrito; it’s a Swedish word that translates as “speed play.” Fartlek workouts are done away from the track. Many runners prefer them because the change in scenery makes them less mentally grinding, and they find that they can concentrate of running fast.
Fartleks can be a lot less structured than speed work on the track. You might plan a fartlek on your usual five-mile course. After running easily for a mile, you might run hard to that telephone pole way down the street, and then jog easily until the end of the next block, and then pick up the pace again until the school, and so on until you had a mile left in your run, when you would run easy the rest of the way home as your cooldown. Some runners make fartleks more structured. They might head out on one of their loops and, after warming up, spend the bulk of their run alternating running hard for two minutes with running easy for two minutes.
Runners who don’t have access to a track often use this approach. (It helps to have an alarm on your watch for this type of workout.) This approach is also good when the weather is bad, and you know it would be hard to reach your usual times on the track. In this situation, do a fartlek on the roads and get in a good workout without the weather-induced slower times bumming you out.
Doing fartleks on the road is a good choice if you’re going to be running road races with hills in them. If you do all of your fast running on the track, then you might not be able to tackle the uphills in races as well. But if you’re alternating running hard for three minutes with running slow for two minutes on a road course, then you’ll go over more varied terrain. Sometimes, you might start running hard at the base of a hill. Or your recovery jog might end when you’re halfway down a hill. You’ll learn how to keep running strongly off of the flat.
Fartleks are a safer way to run fast on hills than what some runners do, which is a series of intervals of running fast up a hill, and then jogging down to recover. Sure, this workout is very effective, but it also increases your risk of injury. If you want to work on your hill running ability, do fartleks on the road, and do your long runs on hilly courses.