You’re running at 10-K with us this fall, right?
Women’s Health has partnered with FEED for our second annual RUN 10 FEED 10 program. How it works: Run a 10-K with us, and you’ll provide 10 meals for those going hungry in your local and surrounding communities. Learn more about it and sign up here! (And get your friends to sign up, too!) Then check out our 10-K training plans for beginner and intermediate runners.
Say you’ve followed your training plan—how fast can you expect to run the 6.2-mile race? Great news: you’ll likely run faster than you did in training, says Michelle Lovitt, an exercise physiologist and coach with Pear Sports, a heart-rate based training system.
“I’d say 95 percent of people have pre-race anxiety and adrenaline’s pumping with the crowds,” Lovitt says. “Increased heart rate and adrenaline will actually improve your performance.”
Exactly how much depends on the person, their training, and their hydration, fueling and sleep in the days leading up to the race, Lovitt says. Follow this advice based on your level of running experience and then check out our 10-K pace chart to see how fast you should run each mile.
For First-Timers
“If this is your first 10-K and you trained to finish in a certain time, you’ll most likely hit that goal time—barring injury, dehydration, or lack of fuel—and maybe even run a few minutes faster,” Lovitt says. She suggests first-timers determine their goal time by running 3 miles easy, then doubling that time and adding 10 minutes. So if you can run 3 miles in 30 minutes, you should easily be able to finish the race in 1:10:00 or less.
If you feel great on race day, you can certainly pick up the pace, but do it slowly, Lovitt says. “Go out really easy and if you’re feeling good, don’t hammer out to a sprint, just gradually pick up the pace,” she says. “Your breathing should be somewhat more labored than when you started, but not that you can’t talk to the person next to you.” On a perceived exertion scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the hardest, you should bring it up to a nice, comfortable 6, Lovitt says.
For Veteran Runners
If you’ve run a 10-K before, you can use your last race time to help set your goal. For instance, you could try to run two minutes faster, Lovitt says. But take note: If you’re toward the top of the 10-K pace chart, you could expect to improve by a few seconds per mile, not necessarily multiple minutes off your finish time, Lovitt says. (A rare drawback of being a speedster.)
While you don’t want to crash and burn, “going out too comfortable and too slow is kind of a disservice to yourself,” Lovitt says. Since you’ve raced this distance before, you can build your effort level to a 7 or 8.
RELATED: How to Set Your Race Pace/>
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