Just done my first 10k race - what next?

[Lemonyyy]

Hello everyone!

so firstly, yesterday I ran at my first 10k event! I’m super proud of myself for running the whole way and can’t stop telling everyone 😂

so my question is, I don’t have another race booked in until November. I don’t want to just drop all this fitness and start retraining later in the year. What sort of running do people do for maintenance? Like not necessarily trying to get faster, but on a baseline so in the autumn I can go from a start point of being able to run 10k and just work on getting faster? Is that right?

I did couch to 5k, then just built up the distance, so this time around it was just about doing 10k, but in the future I’d like to get faster so I guess what would you do now if you were me? If that makes sense lol.

i'd work on distance too, even if your race is 10k, if you're used to running further then that distance feels easier on race day. And with stamina you'll probably get some speed improvement too. Do a long run a week, a short one and a speed or hill reps session.

Have a look at the BUPA 10k plan. That will help you improve your time

I would keep to your current schedule (presuming four runs a week) with each one doing something slightly different. Ie:

One "long" run (this may only be 10k at the mo, but you might decide to start increasing that)

One shorter tempo or faster run (parkrun is ideal for this)

One speed or hill session

And one pleasant recovery run that's purely for enjoyment.

This is pretty much the schedule I stick to all year round, though obviously when I'm marathon training the long runs get much longer, and I'll make the midweek runs more targeted.

Make sure you're doing some yoga and strength work as well, especially focused on your core and glutes, to help stay injury free.

Thanks fellrunner, that's perfect. I try and do 4 but sometimes it's only 3, I guess that doesn't matter too much at the moment!

I'd love to slowly build up the distance, definitely, that's something I'll consider for sure. My mate is encouraging me to sign up for a half with her next year, so something to work towards!

I live in a very hilly area so hills are something I do incidentally just going for a run most of the time but I might have a think and a read about more structured hills training.

And yes - been doing yoga for 15 years and have a very regular practice so definitely have that part in hand 😊

Parkrun?