My First 10km Run
Running can be surprising sometimes. Around 4 weeks ago I have started to run consistently. After my first couple of runs, I never though I would ever be able to run 10km. It seemed like a marathon to me. Yet it happened unexpectedly on one of my long run days recently. Let me tell you more about it!
First of all, let me tell you that I didn’t plan to run 10km on that day. Past few runs have been great, managing to lineup consecutive 5km runs without any walking or resting. My pace was obviously fairly slow, but from my point of view this shouldn’t be a concern during my early stages of running. Therefore, my goal for that running session was to see for how long can I run on an easy pace of around 7:30 min/km.
The First 5km
Here’s also the summary of the run, if you want to take a deeper look at it. I really didn’t expect the first 5km to pose any types of problems. As said, I mentioned to line up consecutive runs above 5km and with a higher pace. The main challenge here for me was to keep the pace anywhere between 7:10 min/km and 7:30 min/km. It might sound strange, but that was not easy, as I was feeling too lazy. But, at the same time I was aware that for the bigger goal I needed to adhere to my base pace.
For the first km, this was not really an issue. I always start my runs with a warmup phase where I adopt a slower pace. It even comes natural as usually the first kilometer seems to be the hardest one for me. At the beginning, my feet always feel a little bit heavy and tired. Still, warmup is important.
As you can see from the splits above, I went for a higher pace in the next kilometers and I managed to keep the pace in the range I set as a goal at the beginning of the run. The good thing about this first 5km is that it felt very easy and after the fifth I was feeling very strong and confident.
The the next 3 km
That’s why I decided to up the pace a little bit after the fifth kilometer but still keep it above 7:00 min/km. That was very important since everything above the distance of 6km was uncharted territory for me. I never ran longer than this.
Increasing the pace means an increased stress on the body and an increased heart rate. Which is not bad as I was still in the 160 bpm range. For me, that’s an acceptable heart rate which I can sustain for a more prolonged period of time.
However, after the 7km I began to feel a little bit tired, breathing became a little bit more challenging and I was starting to feel my muscles. Yet, I was not in a red area where I felt like stopping. And I completed my eight kilimeter with the highest pace on that run.
If you run 8, you can run 2 more!
At that point I realized that, hey, if I can run 8km without any major difficulty, I can for sure run 2 more. For the very first time in my life the perspective of my first 10km run was suddenly attainable. That gave me a rush of adrenaline and I started the next kilometer on a higher pace.
However, that’s also the point where my body started to wear down more and more. My heart rate began to skyrocket and when I reached 175 bpm, I decided to walk. Therefore, I replaced the run with a very brisk walk for around 200-300 meters and then I started to run again, but on a pace similar to the one I used for the warmup. In the end, having a cooldown is also important!
The last kilometer was probably the hardest one. Even if on a very slow pace, everything started to hurt, my heart rate was fairly high and I wanted it to end. And it did! When I reached the 10km threshold I was so pumped up that I ran 500 meters more.
Pace distribution
Here’s my overall pace distribution. As you can see, I ran the last 3 km slower than my first warmup kilometer because my body was tired, but I still had the necessary energy to complete my first 10km run.
Heart Rate Zones
I am really happy that I managed to keep the proportion of Z3 and Z4 towards equality. Also, I had around 1 kilometer in Z2, which is actually quite nice for me. It’s very rare that I run in Z2. I’m not sure why, but everytime I run, my heart rate is fairly hight. It’s the same for hiking. When I walk uphill, my heart rate gets hight very easily, even if I go slow and can sustain that effort for a fairly long period of time.
Conclusions
My first 10km run was totally unplanned. I just wanted to work on my base pace and when I reached 8km I realized that I can get 2 more kilometers in and I did it! The overall effort was fairly high and I needed 2 rest days after this run instead of just one. But overall I’m quite happy because it was lightyears away of being as damaging as my first run ever (which was only around 1.8 km long).
One thing that you can get out of this experience is the importance of finding a base pace that you can sustain for a prolonged period of time. It doesn’t really matter how slow it is. It just matters that you can sustain it. This would be your base for the longer runs. If you find this pace, you unlock a whole new set of possibilities.
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