Your First 10K Couch to 10K: what comes after Couch to 5K

What comes after Couch to 5K?

Couch to 5K started with one runner. Josh Clark wrote a gentle, nine-week schedule for his mother when she was looking for a way to get fit. "I was writing it with the love of a son for his mother," he told CNN. She finished the nine weeks and ran her 5K. Fifteen years later, The Magazine reported, she was still running the occasional half marathon.

That's the thing about a first 5K. It isn't the finish. It's proof that the method works on you.

From here you have three good options. Keep running 5Ks and enjoy them. Work on getting faster at the 5K. Or go longer, and for most people the next step is the 10K. It's twice the distance, but it doesn't take twice the time out of your week: most first-10K plans still fit into 3 or 4 runs a week, and the runs stay mostly easy.

How long does it take to go from 5K to 10K?

In 1974, two years after he ran the 10,000 meters at the Olympics, Jeff Galloway agreed to teach a beginners' running class. None of his students had run in at least five years, and about a third had never exercised regularly in their lives. "At the end of the ten-week term was the 'exam': either a 5K or a 10K," he wrote on his site. Every student finished, and better still, "none of them had been injured."

Ten weeks is a good number to keep in your head. If you already run 2 to 3 miles without stopping, 8 to 10 weeks is usually enough for a first 10K. If you just finished Couch to 5K, 12 weeks is more comfortable.

The reason is that your body adapts on two clocks. Your heart and lungs are quick: within a few weeks your body gets better at turning food and oxygen into energy. Your legs are slower. Tendons take weeks to months to toughen up, and bones take longer still. So you'll feel ready for longer runs before your legs actually are.

That's why a good plan grows the long run by about half a mile at a time, and why it's worth not rushing. A lot of running injuries come from one run that's much longer than anything you've done in the past month. Squeeze the training into too few weeks and that jump gets hard to avoid. And every few weeks, a lighter week helps, because training that piles up without a break raises the odds of getting hurt or sick.

What changes when you train for a 10K

"Part of the reason why the 10K is an awesome event is asking you to have a good amount of speed and a good amount of endurance," says Chris Bennett, Nike Running's global head coach, on Nike's 10K plan.

For a first 10K, the endurance half is the one that matters most. Three things change from your Couch to 5K weeks.

One run gets longer. Your weekend run grows from about 3 miles toward 5 or 6. That's the run that gets you ready.

You run a little more overall. Buena Vida's first-10K plans start around 6 or 7 miles a week and top out between 10 and 14. Nearly all of it stays easy, at a pace where you could talk in full sentences, because easy running is the base that everything else is built on.

A bit of faster running shows up, late and in small doses. A few short, quick strides after an easy run. Maybe a hill session, or a mile at a steady, comfortably hard effort. That's the speed half Bennett means, and a first 10K needs only a taste of it.

Add a short strength session or two each week. Strength work does more to prevent injuries than stretching does, and it matters more now that your runs are getting longer.

One surprise: on many first-10K plans, race day is the first time you'll run the whole 6.2 miles. That's by design. The last weeks get lighter so you arrive fresh, and running less before a race, while keeping a little speed, helps you race better.

Should you eat more when you train for a 10K?

Molly Huddle set an American record in the 10,000 meters at the 2016 Olympics, then co-wrote a book for young women runners about doing it the healthy way. Her message to them is simple. "You need to be strong. You need to be healthy, and you need to have the things that fuel you to run well," she told the Boston Globe.

The short answer is yes, a little, on the right days. A 6-mile long run burns roughly 600 calories for a 150-pound runner. A rest day burns almost nothing extra. Eat the same every day and your long-run day comes up short. Eating enough to match your training is what lets the training do its job: more on long-run and harder days, normal meals on rest days.

After a run, eat some carbs to refill your tank and some protein to help your legs repair. Runners need more of both than people who don't train, so spread protein across your meals.

Run short day after day and it shows: you're tired all the time, your legs never feel fresh, you get sick more often, you sleep badly, and easy runs feel hard. Those are signs from the IOC's consensus on underfueling. Too little energy keeps your training from paying off and wears on your bones, raising the risk of stress injuries.

Hoping to lose some weight along the way? That works, as long as food is part of the plan. Running doesn't take the weight off on its own. A calorie deficit does, taken from the whole week's eating, not your run days. Go slowly, about half a percent to one percent of your weight a week, and keep enough carbs around your long run so the most important run of your week stays fueled.

How you’ll know you’re ready for a 10K

Galloway's first beginners had a final exam. His later plans added pop quizzes: one timed mile, run "every two weeks or so." His site calls it "a snapshot of what you're capable of."

You don't need a track to get your own snapshot. Your runs already hold it. Around week 8, pull up an easy run from week 1 and compare. Same pace, lower heart rate? That's your fitness showing up, and an Apple Watch is accurate enough to show it. It's a great lift in the middle weeks, when 6.2 miles still sounds like a lot.

The record also tells you when to ease off. A long run that jumped too far. A week where you ran more and ate less. An ache that keeps coming back. Shoes that have quietly piled up the miles. Those are easy to miss when your runs live in one app, your food in another, and your plan on the fridge.

And the clearest sign you're ready? Your longest run is 5 or 6 miles at an easy, chatty pace, and you finish it feeling like you could keep going. That's a 10K in your legs.

Race day

Josh Clark has heard from a lot of people who finished his plan. "I hear over and over not, 'I ran my first 5K,' but 'I got the confidence to apply for a new job,'" he told CNN. The finish line is never only about the finish line.

Your 10K will be the longest run you've done, or close to it. At 12-minute miles it takes about an hour and a quarter, and that's a long time to be patient. So be patient early. Start slower than you want to, let the crowd go, and settle into the pace you trained at. If your plan had walk breaks, take them from the start, not when you're tired. Save your strong miles for the second half. That's where the race is fun.

Go run twice as far as you once thought you could.

Remember where this started: a minute of jogging, then a walk. You've already done the hard part.