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Your First 10k
Twelve weeks from walk-runs to the finish line, without learning to hate it
Your First 10k
Twelve weeks from walk-runs to the finish line, without learning to hate it
Your name
A4 Β· this is a layout preview in the βArchwayβ design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.
A 10k is a long way if you have never run and an ordinary morning if you have trained for it. The difference is twelve weeks of patient, unglamorous work, most of it slower than you expect. This book gives you those weeks, the reasons behind them, and permission to walk whenever the plan says so.
What's inside
- 1Starting Where You Actually AreShows you how to find an honest starting point with a simple ten minute walk-run rather than a fitness test you will dread. After it you will know which of the three entry points in this book is yours.
- 2Walk-Runs: The First Four WeeksBuilds from one minute of running at a time to eight, using walk breaks as training rather than failure. After it you will be running continuously for twenty minutes without the last five being miserable.
- 3Easy Pace and Why It Feels Too SlowExplains conversational pace, how to test it without a watch, and why almost all of your running should sit there. After it you will stop treating every run as a race against your last one.
- 4Building the Long RunGrows the weekend run from three kilometres to nine in careful steps, with a route strategy and a fuelling plan for the longer efforts. After it you will have covered further on foot than you ever have.
- 5Shoes, Kit and WeatherCovers what to buy, what to ignore, and how to dress for rain, wind and dark evenings without spending much. After it you will have a kit list that survives a British winter.
- 6Niggles, Rest and Missed WeeksDeals with shin ache, sore knees, illness and the fortnight you inevitably lose to life. After it you will have a rule for when to run, when to rest and how to rejoin the plan without starting again.
- 7Race Week and the Day ItselfWalks through the taper, what to eat, the start pen, pacing the first kilometre and the last two. After it you will know exactly how your race morning goes before it happens.
A sample from chapter one
Find your honest starting point
Before you pick a plan, spend ten minutes finding out where you are. Walk for two minutes, run gently for one, and repeat that three times. Notice whether you could hold a conversation during the running minutes, whether your breathing settled during the walks, and how you feel an hour later. That is your starting point, and it is neither good nor bad.
People go wrong here by choosing the plan they wish they needed. If one minute of running left you gasping, week one of this book is one minute of running, and that is the whole job. Starting two weeks ahead of yourself buys nothing and usually costs a month to a sore shin. The plan will catch up with your ambition faster than your ambition can drag the plan.
- Run the ten minute test on flat ground, not a hill you happen to live on.
- Count how many words you can say in one breath while running: fewer than six means slow down.
- Write down how your legs feel the next morning, before you decide anything.
- Choose the entry point one level easier than the one you fancy.
Key takeaways
- An honest starting point is the only thing that makes the following eleven weeks work.
- Walk breaks are part of the training, not evidence that you are failing at it.
- The first sign that you have started too fast usually arrives a day later, in your shins.
The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.
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