The Magic Wand.

After I wrote my last blog post, I took this A4 paper, drew a 7x4 grid on it and penciled in a months worth of runs and workouts, working up a gradual mileage progression , and peppering it with core-work and general strengthening.

Then I pinned it to a wall, and proceeded to cross it out, day by day, as I worked through it.  

This level of OCD, of course, is a choice. It’s by no means necessary to train as per a schedule... But if you do want to stick to a program and are having trouble, I highly recommend having it, in tangible form, stuck to a place where you can’t miss it.

Works like a magic wand for me.

Today, it’s nine weeks to race-day at the Bangalore TCS 10k and I’m feeling primed to train. To make sure I take this seriously, I have already planned my leave from work, booked my flights and arranged my accommodation. Registrations open in a couple of days.

I’m committed. Time to choose my wand. 

Those of you who have run marathons or more will agree with me... the 10k isn’t exactly an intimidating distance. It’s a weekday run, something you do when you must go to the office afterwards. For people getting into distance running, the 10k is just the first step, when you cross over into a two-digits and just about start considering a half-marathon as ‘do-able’.

There’s not much of an aura surrounding 10k races, despite it being an awfully accessible distance.

A ‘10k’ refers to the road race, btw... when you call it ‘10,000m’ it refers to the same distance on a stadium track.

Did you know that Paula Radcliffe, the 16-year standing women’s world record holder for the marathon, is also the 16-year standing women’s world record holder for the 10k (30:21)?

By contrast, the men seem to be specialists, with the 10k world record  holder (26:44), Kenya’s Leonard Komon being a relatively slow (2:14:25) marathoner, and Dennis Kimetto, the 2:02:57 world record marathoner, being a relatively slow (28:30) 10,000m racer. Kimetto has run faster 10k splits as a part of his best half, actually, but he just hasn’t raced that specific distance since 2011.

What does it all mean? Meh...nothing, I’m sure. Just some hogwash I dug up while fretfully researching 10k training.

As someone who has only ever focused on marathons, and suddenly decides to go all out for a 10k, I’m sure my disquiet is understandable.

But I digress...

This coach fellow called Greg McMillan has come up with THIS voodoo...

For those of you who are too damn cool to be clicking hyperlinks, the crux is, I quote...

“If you can perform three 2-mile repeats at your goal 10K pace in the last one to two weeks before your race, you will achieve your goal time. Period.”

Notice the patent finality in that. Period, he says, quite unnecessarily. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched an assumption.

Well, he charges a 100 dollars for an eight-week customized training plan. If you’re on Strava Premium (you rich person, you...) and choose to follow a training plan there, you’ll get one by him.

So, I’ll presume he knows his shit.

I’ve built my schedule out of modest mileages around a core of McMillan speedwork. That makes it sound so much like a wand from the Harry Potter books (rosewood with dragon heartstring core, anyone?)... which is appropriate, considering that I’ll probably need some sorcery (there’s a citius spell, maybe?) to be able to get to my stated target in the first attempt.

Mondays and Fridays will be moderate effort/ tempo days. Unlike marathons, where the goal pace is the tempo pace, loosely speaking, here it’s about 50 seconds per km faster. Nevertheless, even in a 10k, roughly 80 percent of the effort remains aerobic, so it’s prudent to have these runs in the mix.

Tuesdays and Thursdays will be short recovery runs, where I will make like a snail and recover for/from...

...Wednesdays, which have been designated as McMillan days. This is where I build up over nine weeks to the 3x2-mile repeats.

Ideally, I should be doing Wednesdays on a Quidditch pitch, or maybe a track... neither of which I have access to.

Here, I have just one, very small flat space near where I live, and I’ll have to run in 200-meter circles every Wednesday for the next 9 weeks.

Not my favorite type of run.

There is some overdistance, but not much. No ‘long’ runs. Nothing over 10 miles, that is. Saturdays will see me get in the longest run of the week at varying efforts, but I want to keep the big picture in mind. This may be a target race, but the training is still a part of a year long build-up in mileage. There’s no hurry. This plan will peak at a 60k week.

The sched is here, if you want to take a look. It goes up on the wall today. 

TCS 10k Training Plan 

Postscript:- Opinions are welcome, especially if you’re a magical coach-like creature who’s feeling generous enough not to charge me an arm and a leg for advice...

I don’t bloody own Gringotts.