With less than a month to go before the redspottedhanky.com Sunderland City 10k, and after last week’s efforts, it’s time to increase the intensity slightly.

Hopefully last week’s blog was useful and your training for the redspottedhanky.com Sunderland City 10k on June 26, is now underway. If not, don’t worry, there’s still time before the event to prepare but the next steps here will continue from the last entry and will build progressively until race day.

Again, the pattern to stick to if you can, should be to run today, on Thursday and Saturday.

After going out for a run at the weekend which should have required a little bit more effort than the usual jog, it would be understandable if there were some stiffness left over as a result; as ever, a proper warm up is essential in order to help avoid injury and to loosen off any heavy muscles.

For today’s run, try and increase the distance from this time last week, and aim for a steady three mile route with your partner. Don’t worry about pace so much today. Saturday’s run should have been a bit of a push so it’s important to consolidate without over doing it.

After having a steady run today and a good rest tomorrow, Thursday’s run will be an opportunity to vary things a little. Keeping your training interesting and stimulating is crucial to maintaining a good level of motivation and will allow you to build up different aspects of your fitness as you go along.

Instead of another longer run, this time drop the distance to around two and a half miles. This will allow you to focus on picking up the pace, which is important for conditioning your body to run faster as you gradually build up your stamina. Having got into a nice comfortable rhythm, between half a mile and a mile out, stretch your legs and build up to a speed where you’re no longer able to chat to your partner. Don’t sprint off, just maintain a good steady action and concentrate on your breathing, aiming to run as you’d like to in four weeks time.

For Saturday’s session this time the name of the game is to up the distance to around four miles, just increasing slightly on the last weekend’s distance. Hopefully by this point, at the end of just two weeks of training, you’ll already be feeling a marked difference. This week has stepped up the intensity on last week and Saturday’s run should include what you’ve put together on Tuesday and Thursday.

Aim to go out at a good steady conversational pace with your partner for the first couple of miles and then start to increase the pace to a level where you are just focusing on your own running. Then depending on how your feeling, with between one mile and half a mile left, really try and run as freely as you can, again not sprinting but pushing your pace just a bit above what you would normally be accustomed to. If you need to taper off and slow down after an extra increase in speed, that’s fine, but just try to maintain a level where you’re pushing yourself and aren’t able to converse easily with your partner. After your last run of the week you should hopefully feel exhilarated, if a little tired. Remember to warm down thoroughly, stretch and rehydrate after every session, making sure your body is ready and injury free for your next run.

For many, including myself, things like work and family commitments can get in the way of the amount of exercise you would ideally like to do. That’s why signing up for an event like the redspottedhanky.com Sunderland City 10k can be a real boost to fitness, as the challenge often acts as a focus to help you fit in more ‘me’ time to train when you can.

Whether it’s before work or after the kids have gone to bed, getting out for a run can be the perfect way to relax and unwind, and will also prepare you for a great 10k. That said, if you can’t make it out for every session this blog suggests, don’t worry. Two or even one outing a week is still positive and there’s time yet to prepare for the 10k distance.