‹ Week 8
10K time trial — bank the sub-50 benchmark
Convert a projection into a result, with eight weeks still to spend
Time~69m
Distance13.0 km
DifficultyHard
Target: ≤ 49:59
This exists because the goal was set to sub-50 while the 5K said sub-50 was already available: 23:53 on 27 August projects to 49:52, and a target you can probably already hit is not a target for week 16 — it is a thing to bank now and then re-aim from. Down week, so this is the week's only hard effort: easy running either side of it and nothing else. Measured 10 km or a track (25 laps); GPS over-reads by about 2%, so a watch-measured 10.00 km is really ~9.8 and does not count. Flat, and not into a headwind if you can help it.
Route: Run quality sessions on the FLATTEST route you have. Your routes now average ~14 m of climb per km — nearly three times your historical average — and goal pace on that terrain is a different, much harder session than the one written.
Instructions
Warm-up
12 km easy warm-up + 4 strides6:10–6:50 /km
Read
2Even splits win time trials. 5:00/km is the whole job; the first kilometre feeling too easy is the sign you have it right.
Work
3First 3 km at 5:02-5:055:02–5:05 /km
Work
4Km 4-8 at 4:57-5:004:57–5:00 /km
Work
5Last 2 km: whatever is left4:40–5:00 /km
Cooldown
61 km easy cool-down6:15–6:50 /km
Read
7Under 49:59 -> sub-50 is banked and week 16 becomes the 47:30 attempt. Over it -> the projection was optimistic, and the second half of the block has a clear job.