Training for a 10K in Under 50 Minutes

I am going to run a 10K race in four weeks and my goal is to improve my time to under 50 minutes. The last few 10K races I have run have all clocked in at just over one hour.

I was reading an article about continuous improvement and decided to apply that thinking to my training program over the next month. I'm going for minor improvements every day and every week.

I'm going to measure improvement in both the time I can run a "race pace" kilometer and the total number of kilometers I can run at "race pace." The twist is that my "race pace" will continuously get better every week. So each weekend, when I'm doing my improvement testing, I should be running more kilometers and I should be running them just a little bit faster than the week before.

If all goes well, I will be running 10K at a pace of under 5 minutes per kilometer by the time of the race.

This is my plan:

Starting Weekend (this weekend)

Taking is slow and easy to get back into my running groove.

Saturday: 4 km slow
Sunday: 4 km slow
Test race pace: 1 km at 7 minute pace

Week 1

M-F: 3 km moderate
Saturday: 6 km slow
Sunday: 6 km slow
Test race pace: 2 km at 6.5 minute pace

Week 2

M-F: 4 km moderate
Saturday: 8 km slow
Sunday: 8 km slow
Test race pace: 4 km at 6 minute pace 

Week 3

M-F: 6 km moderate
Saturday: 10 km slow
Sunday: 10 km slow
Test race pace: 8 km in 5.5 minute pace  

Week 4

M-F: 3 km slow (tapering down)
Saturday: 5 km slow
Sunday: Race day!!!

 By the time I get to my race day, I should be able to run 10 km at my race pace of 5 minutes per km comfortably. I'll post updates on how I'm doing here on my blog.