My son has signed up for a 10k race for April 20th. He really hasn't prepared and it was a little rash decision. His goal is a respectable time.

He does jog about an hour a day and lifts 4-5 days a week so he is in pretty good shape. He has a bit of a following on TikTok and will be posting about his "journey". He is autistic and his followers are mostly parents of autistic kids. He will be doing shorts of his preparation and the stresses he has traveling alone, financing and of course training for the run and training for it.

I've ran 10Ks before. I will never have competitive speed but it was just something that I enjoyed doing-running new trails and intermixing with the other runners etc. I will put my son in about the same category. He wears horrible shoes. He gets sponsors on TikTok and I don't doubt his latest pair was made in a Chinese kitchen. I'm trying to talk him into buying a decent pair of shoes (he is so frugal he squeaks) and he does have problems (not currently but he will if he doesn't take his shoes seriously) with planters fasciitis.

Since he has the endurance now I told him to start working on his speed and showed him how to use a HIIT app to increase his speed in intervals. He's an askhole (he asks and I tell and then he ignores it) so last night he ran a 10K flat out and his legs are burning today.

I downloaded a 8 week program and have been trying to adapt it for him but I thought I would check here to see if y'all had a better idea of how he can prepare (maybe he'll listen to you?!)

What does he consider respectable?  Was his time when he ran 10k last night respectable?  Honestly, April 20 is less than 2 weeks away, so I don’t know how much he’ll be able to accomplish in training if he hasn’t started yet.  

He already knows he can run the distance, I’d suggest that he just run this one for fun and to see what the experience is like.  See how he likes it, and how he feels about his performance, then decide what he wants to do after that.  There are 10k’s happening all the time if you are near any decent sized metro area, so should be no big deal to find another one in a timeframe that works for him training-wise.  

He should definitely go to a running store and get fitted for a good pair of shoes if he is going to be running a lot.

Good luck!

He did order a pair of shoes that are better. He jogs daily. I have been lecturing him about his shoes. His goal is to be respectable. Is time was 65 minutes. I agree he doesn't have much time. He does have the endurance thankfully.

He doesn’t have a ton of time left, but if does his easy running at 10min miles, and tosses in some intervals once a week at say 7:30 ish he should be able to run the race at 9 min miles and that would give him a time under an hour.

My 10k training blocks were something like 6 easy miles on Monday, 3 easy on Wednesday, intervals on Thursday, and 3-5 on Saturday with cadence work.

Also, What his shoe size? I’m a 11.5-12.5 depending on the shoe and have lots of older pairs I don’t really use much. Altra or Nike mostly with plenty of life. Fairly flat shoes with wide toe boxes so they should be good for just about anyone for at least a race or two.

They would be there pre broken in ready to go before race time. Message me if that’s a size that works and I’ll get them in the mail. My wife hates looking at them and I refuse to toss them out just in case.

After that if he likes the flat /barefoot style, they should last for a bit if not, he would go get fitted properly.

@dupemaster I wanted to let you know that my son ran his 10K today and placed first in his age group. Very proud mom!!

That’s awesome!