Posted on October 03, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Want to improve your Abbey Dash 10k race time, follow Chris Baird’s, one of the motive8 North personal training team, 6 week Abbey Dash interval programme and smash your PB!

Follow the scenario and see if it rings any bells:

Step 1– You can’t run 1km without walking.

Step 2– You head outside run 1km, walk 3 minutes then run a couple of minute again, rest, run, rest, run etc… This happens over a period of weeks

Step 3– You can now run 5k without stopping…. congratulations

Step 4– You stop doing intervals and run 5k over and over and over again… maybe you do a 6k or 8k run.

Step 5– You don’t get any faster over the distance, your times stagnate and you get stuck running the same routes over and over for the same time.

The scenario above shows what in my experience all runners go through, they already know how to cover a distance in a faster pace, look back at Step 2. Without any training knowledge all individuals start their running career built on interval training!

Stopping interval training is ultimately stopping your progress, congratulations you can run a set distance, want to get faster read on….

Getting to run that distance faster requires you going back to the beginging… INTERVALS!

Here is a 6 week last minute program to add some speed to your 10km Abbey Dash Race

Week	Work Period	Rest Period	Repetitions	Pace	Total Distance
1	800m	¼ time taken	X6	20s faster than race pace	4800m
2	600m	½ time taken	X8	30s faster than race pace	4800m
3	400m	Time taken	X10	Max Effort	4000m
4	600m	1/3 time taken	X6	40s faster than race pace	3600m
5	400m	Time taken + 50%	X8	Max effort	3200m
6	200m	Twice as long as it takes to run	X13	Max Effort	2600m

Ideally this will be one session within your weekly schedule. If you need more help programming your plan, drop one of the motive8 Personal Training team a line!