10km Payerne - Switzerland - 2022

This year my first training block is focused on training at a threshold pace. The level of effort at threshold pace is particularly relevant to races in the 10km to half-marathon range so I have planned to include a couple of 10km races to test my progress over the training block. The first race I scheduled was the 10km of Payerne. I haven't run a 10km race on the roads for a long time so I was looking forward to seeing how it would go.

My goal was to run at a pace that would put me near my threshold effort which I believed was about 3:30/km. I set out this pace and fortunately there were multiple groups of runners all trying to run somewhere around this same pace. I was able to tuck into a few groups to shelter from the wind and when the pace dropped off a bit I would run up to the next group and settle in there. At halfway I was spot on my goal going through 5km in 17:20.

In the second half I aimed to maintain a steady pace and I was happy to see the kilometers ticking by at almost exactly 3:30/km. I was passing quite a few runners and this provided a positive feeling that I was pacing myself well. I ran the second half in 17:13 for a good negative split. I was happy with this race and ran a little under my goal of 35'.

The final finishing straight.

My lesson from the day was that I executed a threshold effort perfectly. The pace and heart rate file from after the race confirmed this and it's useful information to guide the rest of this training block. However, I felt like I could have maintained this effort for longer or alternatively I could have run this distance (10km) at an effort above threshold. If I want to run faster (and I think that's possible) I need to train at a higher speed and work on my turnover.

Race result

27 February 2022
10km
0:34:33