HOW I RAN A 32-30 10k - TIPS and TRICKS to help YOUR RUNNING!

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the channel. Today, I wanted to have a chat with you all about how we went from running a 38-minute 10K to a 32-minute 3010K in around about five and a half months. Yeah, lots of tips and tricks, lots of little bits of advice, and things to help you with your training for a 10K, or you can use this for other distances, obviously, as well. Starting out, we're going to have a chat about form, because, yeah, this is what I've been working at more than anything over the last few months. I'm not, I really believe I'm not the most naturally gifted in my cardiovascular system, but I like to think I can move from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. I'm going to have to make up some ground there. So there's four different areas I've been working on with my form. The first one being drills. I'll link to my drills video up at the top of the screen here. Yeah, just have a look at it, follow it through. I've been doing lots of drills. I tend to do this around about once a week. Pretty much the routine you see in my videos, so check it out. Secondly, strides. Really important to put these at least once a week after one of your easy runs. For me, I just tend to do about four, five, or six repetitions, around about 100 metres, running at maximum effort, and then just have about a 30 second recovery. The third thing, which has just been a bit of a coincidence, but I've had these Nike Tempo Neck Strength Training, a lot of my training in, and just as a sort of coincidence, really, because they have these AirPods on the bottom, which for me has really helped my form, because I just want to be landing right there with every stride. When I first started out running, I used a brand called Newton Shoes, and they have a similar sort of thing. They call them lugs, I think, and they just sit right under the midfoot. It really helped me in those early days to sort of feel out where I felt my foot should be landing. And finally, with form, yes, being a YouTuber, Sarah is filming me all the time, and I'm watching myself running, and looking at my form. So I really encourage other people that aren't YouTubers to get a friend or family member, video them, if they're comfortable on a bike, and they can cycle alongside you, video yourself, and then just compare that to some people that are quite good. So I'm always looking at three particular videos online. One particular one of Jim, any video of Jim Wormsley running is just beautiful form. There's another quite old video from a guy called Chris Erickson. Again, he's just doing some mile reps. It's just a beautiful video on YouTube to look at, or just anything from Chuggy. These are people that move so beautifully. And just compare yourself to them. Have that image of them in your head, that positive visualisation. We'll come on to that a little bit later on. And yeah, just compare and contrast with how they're moving, how you're moving. Moving on to structure of my week. So every week, I've really tried to give myself a good, solid, juicy interval session. Yeah, most of them have been on the channel, so check them out if you want to have a look. And then mixed with that, there's been a lot of easy recovery mileage. So yeah, occasionally using my heart rate monitor, and also having some longer runs with some blocks at pace as well. They're my three key things that I've tried to get into every week. Then every other week, I've tried to give myself a bit of a fartlek run, or yeah, just adding some bursts of pace into one of my easy runs. And they kind of appear every other week. So that's my key structure of a week, getting those particular runs in there. I'll put a link down below to all of my workouts that I've put into this session. So yeah, check them out if you want to add some of those workouts into your routine. A little cheeky bonus point here, because of course, you know, the best thing you can do to get yourself a 10K PB is get yourself a Ben Parkes hat and run in the best gear in the business, especially with one of our brand new technical t-shirts or singlets out there as well. Or better yet, one of the dedicated 10K training plans, which you can check out on benparkes.com, which we've written. We've got thousands of five-star reviews, so go and check them out from everyone that's been out there smashing their PBs with all of our stuff, benparkes.com. Moving on to have a chat about data. So yeah, over the last few weeks and months, I've really tried to do as much running as I can, just on feel. So I haven't been using my heart rate monitor. I have bought a Stride foot pod. It hasn't even made it out of the box yet. I'm just trying to keep myself away from analyzing data and looking over everything so much as when I get out there, do the runs, and come back and then forget about it and move on to the next thing. It's really, really helped me, I've got to be honest. Yes, I do occasionally put my heart rate monitor on for sessions if I need to know exactly where to be running a tempo run in, for example, or a threshold run. I'm going to be wearing it for that. I need it for that. But with my easy runs, recovery runs, I'm just doing all of those on feel. Every now and then, I'll put it on just to check where I'm at. But for the vast majority of time, I'm learning to run on feel, and I think it's a really good skill to be able to do. ♪ Come here, release something ♪ ♪ We should let them talk ♪ Moving on to have a chat about recovery. So recovery's obviously a really important part. I've been recovering from a big ankle surgery earlier on in the year where I broke my ankle and I had metal plates in there. So I haven't been able to run anywhere near as much as I'd like to have been running. But yeah, it's really been really important as I build back up to get that recovery in place. So I've been seeing my massage therapist when I can, and she's been fantastic. And I'd really encourage people to see if you're gonna spend some money on your running, it's a really good investment to see a really good quality massage therapist as often as you can afford to. Also what I recommend is getting something like a Tiger Tail where you can roll your muscles yourself at home, or get a foam roller if you like that kind of thing. Personally, I hate them, so I'm never really using it. And also really important to get yourself a foot roller as well. I can sit and have my roller under my desk, and I'm always rolling out the underside of my feet, and that's keeping things like plantar fasciitis away. And yeah, I've been touch wood not to be affected by that. I've also had my Normatec system that I use pretty much every day now. Yes, it's a bit of a luxury, but I feel I really get a big benefit out of it. I did have what was called an Aerolac system just before that. And yeah, I just upgraded because I just preferred the, I prefer the Normatec system because it's got a battery and you can transport it around. But they're both very good systems. You've got the budget. I think you can really get a lot of benefit from that. So moving on to running with music. Let me know down in the comments. Do you guys run with music? Yeah, it'd be lovely to know. Because yeah, I'd never done anything like this in a race or normally because you're just not allowed to wear headphones. But I thought it's my rules. I'm doing this in the TT. So yeah, let's get some tunes pumping and see how much of a motivating factor it is. And I really felt during the time trial, it actually helped quite a lot. Just to sort of take myself out from where I was, just listening to the music and completely sort of zone out. And yeah, I felt it helped a load. So yeah, it's probably not something I'm gonna do in races because as I say, you're not usually allowed to. Depends what headphones you've got and the rules of the race. But I felt it really did help. So maybe in some of your upcoming trials, give it a go. But yeah, always a bit of a controversial one. Headphones, no headphones. I've got the Aftershocks one so I can hear everything that's going on around. But yeah, it worked quite well and I'll do some more research into it in the future. Right, let's chat about positive visualisation. Something I work on so much with my running, of just seeing myself achieving my goals. I know it sounds a bit cheesy or whatever, but yeah, when I'm out on my easy runs and things, I'm always thinking of what it's gonna feel like, imagining myself looking down at my watch and it says 32 minutes, whatever it is, or 2.19 in the marathon. See what it's gonna feel like as I'm running along and just putting myself in that mindset that I am going to achieve that. Couple of books to check out, How Bad Do You Want It? by Matt Fitzgerald. Really sort of a good book, just getting yourself in the right mindset to get out there and achieve your goals. And also one that's a little bit applicable to me at the moment, this Comeback Quotient, Molly Seidel on the front there, also by Matt Fitzgerald, all about coming back after adversity, some great tales and stories. So yeah, check those out. But yeah, positive visualisation, putting yourself in that right mindset is so, so important. Just gonna touch really quickly on diet. On the day of the TT, I just had a breakfast bagel as I usually do, and then just some orange juice and water throughout the day, pretty standard for me. And then went and did the time trial of that basically. In terms of through the period and things, the only thing I really did religiously was pretty much after every single run is have that recovery shake when I come back in. So your blueberries, your mangoes, your pineapples, frozen into the blender, some protein powder in there mixed up, usually with some coconut milk and that sort of thing as well. Yeah, some chia seeds, my standard thing. Check out some of my diet videos if you want. But yeah, just helped kickstart that recovery. And in terms of day-to-day eating, we just try and cook everything as much as we can from scratch, which has been a little bit easier in this whole sort of lockdown situation of being at home all the time. And then just get as much variety in our diet as we possibly can to get all the vitamins and minerals or the carbs, the proteins and the healthy fats in there as we possibly can to seek the biggest, diverse range of plants, fruit and vegetables as we possibly can. And that's just what we live by and it works. With everything diet-related, you've just got to do your own research. It's not for me to sit here and preach, say, you must do this, you must do this. Yeah, I'll talk about what works for me, but it might not work for you. Just quickly to have a chat about strength work as well. So something I haven't really done all that much of, to be perfectly honest. A lot of my strength comes from just being out there running every day. I've been doing a lot more what I call sort of mobility works using this new device we've got called a Movo Board, getting a lot more ankle strength. Yeah, check that out. It's a little bit on the expensive side, but I'll put some links down below if you want to know about that. Then yeah, just some balance stuff on the Bosu. And yeah, just some planking, some core work. It's just that little and often thing that I like to do. I'm not in the gym, smashing out big sessions because we haven't been able to. And I probably would have gone a few times if we could, but in the end, it didn't really matter. It was just about doing little bits and pieces around the flat. So quick, basic routine is get your squats, your planking, your bridges, things like clams as well. All stuff you can easily do at home once or twice a week. And it's going to set you up really well for your next workout. And finally, I can't do a video without talking about consistency. It really is the key. And all of the things we've talked about today lead to getting that consistency in your running. So I think I averaged over the last, about sort of four or five months, around about 100 to 120K a week. Yeah, it's a lot down on what I usually do, but as I say, I've been coming back from a massive injury. But I've just concentrated on Strava to get all those blue bars, week after week after week after week. And yeah, if you do that and you stack all of those up, you're going to be pretty fit at the end of it. But if you push yourself and you get injured and you have a week off and then you come back, this is this up and down, up and down, up and down nature that a lot of people go through, just pushing themselves too far, and then they get injured. And it's just so hard to build fitness doing that. So yeah, today I'm having a rest day, giving myself time to record the video. If you've got a little niggle or you've got something, go and get some proper advice from your physio and get it seen and get it sorted. Take the time off, give yourself a couple of days, because you don't want that to turn into a couple of weeks if you push yourself. So there we go, guys. Hope you enjoyed the video and you got some tips and tricks for your upcoming 5, 10Ks, half marathons, marathons, ultras, yeah, whatever you're running. Always let me know down in the comments. We hang out down there every time we upload a video to help answer your questions and yeah, see how you are going. So if you liked it, please share it with your friends. Like, share, subscribe to the channel. It helps us out so much. Check out the Ben Parkes merch on the website. And yeah, just keep in touch with how you're going and let's all celebrate this wonderful community as we get back to racing again very soon, which I can't wait. So from me, Sarah, and Kiki here as well, wish you all the very best with your running and we'll see you in the next one.