I need to be able to run 6 miles in 2 weeks!!!!!

[pounce491]

My boyfriend asked me if I want to run a 10K with him and his family. His family is not particularly fit so I don't need to be really fast but I just don't want to embarrass myself :(

I haven't been running in a while but I can probably run at least 2 without a break at the moment. I know that this is a really small amount of time to work with... but what can I do that will give me the best results in 2 weeks? I am prepared to do whatever amount of work necessary to get there.

Please help! and don't tell me I'm an idiot for not running. I work out but just don't run a lot

[NotJustAnotherGuy]

Okay so assuming you have 14 days... You have to get your beginner mileage over with before the race.. so best suggestion I could give is..run in the morning then run at night.. then in the morning, then at night.. for the next 8 days starting at 2 miles and slowly increasing your mileage every other day. Then towards the end stop running two times a day and just try to get one long session in instead. Then day 12 a short very light run and day 13 a shorter equally light run.. and finally... day 14 RACE.

So putting it all in a cleaner format, it looks like this

DAY 1:

morning- 2 miles (or 20 min of running)

night- 2 miles (or 20 min of running)

DAY 2:

morning- 2.5 miles (or 25 min of running)

night- 2.5 miles (or 25 min of running)

DAY 3:

morning- 3 miles (or 30 min of running)

night- 3 miles (or 30 min of running)

DAY 4:

morning- 3 miles (or 30 min of running)

night- 3 miles (or 30 min of running)

DAY 5:

morning- 3.5 miles (or 35 min of running)

night- 3.5 miles (or 35 min of running)

DAY 6:

morning- 3.5 miles (or 35 min of running)

night- 3.5 miles (or 35 min of running)

DAY 7:

morning- 4 miles (or 40 min of running

night- 4 miles (or 40 min of running)

DAY 8:

morning- 4 miles (or 40 min of running)

night- 4 miles (or 40 min of running)

DAY 9:

5 miles (or 50 min of running)

DAY 10:

6 miles (or 60 min of running)

DAY 11:

7 miles (or 70 min of running)

DAY 12:

2 miles (or 20 min of light running)

DAY 13:

1 mile (or 10 min of light running)

DAY 14: RACE!

Try not to take breaks. It's better to run slower than to walk. If you MUST take a break then any miles (or mins) that you walk or stand there, shouldn't count towards your running mileage (or mins). So if you got to do 30 minutes and you run for 20mins then walk for 10mins, then you still have 10 minutes of running to do (since the walking/break time don't count).

Give 8 hours between each run. Sleep at least 10 hours a day (you'll need the extra rest). Eat lots of protein (beef jerky, milk, greek yogurt, PBJs, tunafish sandwiches, steak, hamburgers, recovery formulas like muscle milk, 100% whey, etc). Hydrate before runs (water, gatorade, preworkout formulas such as N.O. Explode and etc.).

Drink a preworkout formula 30 minutes before the start of your race, or a coffee. This WILL give you a competitive edge. Caffeine is a performance enhancer and preworkout formulas (which usually contain caffeine) are designed to energize you through workouts (or in this case a race).

10-20 minutes before the start of your race you should start warming up. Light jogging, dynamic stretches (no static stretches-- stretches that lengthen the muscle by slowly pulling) and 3-4 strides (slowly build up to a full sprint over the course of 50 meters-- start light end hard, you should only be sprinting for the last 10 meters).

[NotJustAnotherGuy]

Not sure what I'm missing.. :/ stupid character limit through off my groove.. Any questions?

[NotJustAnotherGuy]

threw* -.-

[pounce491]

Thank you! this is exactly what I was looking for. Have you ever done anything this quickly?

[NotJustAnotherGuy]

I've done morning and night runs to speed up pre-season lag. But when I prepared for my first 5k (4 years ago) I believe I had a full month of serious training beforehand not just two weeks. 2 weeks should be enough to get a strong edge on him and his parents (unless they're training too). And hopefully, I'm praying, it'll get you addicted to running ((: I've dropped 30-60 seconds in a week (race every 7 days) early season just because I was getting use to it again.

[NotJustAnotherGuy]

So dropping lots of time in 2 weeks is easy. Especially as a beginner (much more so than I was). You might even want to switch out that Day 11 with a timed trial 10k. Those are always brutal preseason, yet rewarding since they familiarize you with the pace and the discomfort of racing.

[Cobalt]

link

See where you fall in there and pick it up at that stage, see how many of those workouts you can complete before the race time. A 10k training programming typically will be twice as long since its generally the same thing only they increase by larger increments in the end, if you feel this 5k stuff is too simple then you can grab a 'couch to 10k' workout. No matter what shape you're in you could injure yourself by trying to leap in and overtrain so try to follow the guide in terms of offdays and what have you.

[rachiee]

Most of the time in races like this when you're running with a large family, yall tend to stick together. So that means you'll more than likely be running at the same speed as the slowest one in the group. Chances are this means you'll be more fast walking than anything. Don't stress it too much. No one is going to expect you to run 6 miles at a constant speed and nonstop,

Right now start getting used to running. Run as much as you can (2 miles nonstop would be great if you can do it). Jog/fast walk too. Basically just alternate between running and jogging and fast walk. I don't suggest you go for the whole six miles just yet. Give it a few days of doing about 3 miles of alternating then gradually increase the mile time.

Make sure you stretch good before and after always too! Allow some walking time to cool down after you're done too.

[pounce491]

Why not try the whole six miles yet? In my head that was what I was going to do but I just got done with three and I had to take a ton of walking breaks. So I was planning for the first week to run 3 miles 2x a day and the 2nd week run the full six but maybe give myself a 2 day break before the real run. Does that sound reasonable?

[rachiee]

You need to get your body used to running and doing cardio. If you just jump into the 6 miles then chances are you'll become extremely sore. I suggest you take a break between the two weeks. You can take a one day break between then take another one day break before the real run (ideally you should really have a two day break for both though).

[pounce491]

Sounds reasonable. Thanks!

[naturaldisaster]

Well you could start running slowly everyday, run for about 30 minutes one day and then the next day run 45 minutes, so on and so forth. Within two weeks you'll be running particularly fine.

Just don't panic, practice running.

[krisdaschwab912]

Don't overdo it. I was in a very similar situation, and ran a 10K with no training in just over an hour, easily blowing out my parents.

[pounce491]

But I'm assuming you were pretty fit before. I'm skinny, and not out of shape, but I wouldn't call myself 'inshape'. You seriously didn't do anything?

[krisdaschwab912]

On the contrary, I weighed about 220 pounds at the time. And I did absolutely nothing beforehand. That's probably the worst thing you can do; I'm just telling you what I did. What I would do in your situation, knowing in advance that you're doing it (because I only got three days' notice) is to go for some long walks and occasionally add more running to it. Just don't do ANYTHING strenuous for the two days before the 10K.

[pounce491]

Well that's very impressive then, kudos to you!