Need to Run 1.6km in 7mins

by Waqar
(Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan)

My name is Waqar and I live in Pakistan. I have applied for the Motorway Police. Their requirement is to cover 1.6km in 7 mins. I have never run before in my whole life and I want to achieve this goal.

From yesterday I have started running early in the morning and I have covered about half km in 2 or 3 mins after that I get so tired I can't take one step more.

I am physically 100% fit and my age is 23 years. Please help me and guide me with your experience. I shall be very thankful to you. Thanks.

Answer by Dominique:

Hi Wagar,
Thank you very much for your running training question. It's wonderful to be able to help people from all over the world, including Pakistan!

In the beginning, running is a bit hard. Now, I don't know how much time you have available to be able to achieve your goal of running 1.6k in 7 minutes. So that's 4:22 min / km (7 minutes per mile). It's pretty fast, but not completely crazy.

And you say, you are young and fit, so you should absolutely be able to do this.

The key ingredients to be able to do this are:
1) build a base of slow, easy running
2) add in some faster running through intervals
3) do some time trials to test yourself and get used to the required speed.

BUILD A BASE OF SLOW, EASY RUNNING

Assuming you have a bit of time, I would recommend doing a run/walk program at first.

Make sure the running is at a slow pace, i.e. don't run incredibly fast, just do an easy jog, that's hard enough in the beginning.

Maybe you do not want to use those particular programs. But see how they combine running and walking (follow the link above). See how they build up the running slowly, week by week. That's the kind of training you need to do at first.

I'd like you to get to running slowly for 30 minutes quite comfortably. More is better. The longer you are able to run, the better your endurance, the easier it is to hit your one mile goal. It will take bit of time, but it is necessary to establish an aerobic base.

Also check out this page about easy running.

ADD IN SOME FASTER RUNNING

When you have built up to doing about 15 min of slow running, then you could start working on doing some faster running as well, e.g. do some sessions that are like this: 10 x 30 sec hard / 30 sec slow; then maybe 5 x 1 min fast, 1 min slow. Build up the time running fast.

There are multiple ways to do that. Check out the fartlek page or the interval running page for more information and suggested workouts.

DO SOME TIME TRIALS

Getting closer to the actual test, you can also do time trials to test yourself. Let's say you do that once every two or three weeks. Your first time trial might be a 400m all out. That needs to be in 1 min 45 seconds or faster.

Next time trial, make it 800m. Needs to be in 3:30 min or faster.

Next time do 1,200m. Needs to be in 5:15 min or faster. And then after that do 1.6km, which you want to be able to do in 7 minutes.

You can also play with the format a bit more and try to run 16 x 100m at the right speed with a bit of rest in between. Next time do 8 x 200m, etc, etc. I hope you get the gist. You really want to get used to running at goal pace.

The first few times these time trials can be hard. You need to build up your fitness and your speed. Maybe the first few attempts you do not hit the right goal pace.

But I think that a young guy like you, provided you do the work, will be able to achieve that goal.

Now, clearly, all of this assumes you have time to train to build up the speed and fitness to get to your goal of 1.6km in 7 minutes. Need to be able to get there very quickly? Then I would recommend considering my running coaching service for specialised help.

Best of luck.
Kind regards,
Dom