10K goal times.

The 10K is running's honest middle: too long to sprint, too short to hide in, and the distance where your fitness shows up undisguised. This ladder runs 13 rungs deep, from sub-35 minutes at 3:30 per kilometre to sub-1:20 at 8:00, and it carries a tidy property no other distance on this site can match end to end: because ten kilometres divides evenly, every rung lands on an exact round per-kilometre pace. Whatever your goal, its number fits on a wrist and survives oxygen debt. Each rung opens into a full page — splits, readiness evidence, training paces — computed from the Daniels–Gilbert formulas, the same engine inside the Why Not app.

The ladder's spacing tells its own truth. Up top the rungs tighten to two-and-a-half-minute steps, because minutes get expensive as the score climbs — the stretch from 40:00 to 35:00 alone spans nearly nine VDOT points, while the same five minutes further down costs a fraction of the fitness. The steps widen to five minutes past 50:00, where each rung is a season-sized, honestly climbable stride. End to end the ladder spans VDOT 22.8 to 60.7.

Derive the rung; do not declare it. A recent 5K — even a parkrun — through the VDOT calculator gives your current score and the 10K it already predicts. Take the rung one honest training block beyond that. A block typically moves a runner a point or two of VDOT, which on a ladder spanning 13 rungs is worth knowing before ambition does the choosing.

Threshold is the 10K's home key. At the sharp end — 3:30 per kilometre — the race is run clearly faster than threshold and becomes an exercise in controlled deficit; through the middle rungs race pace and threshold sit within seconds of each other, which is why steady tempo work moves this distance more reliably than anything flashier; at the far end the challenge inverts into continuity, the hour-plus of steady effort that makes the 10K many runners' first true endurance event. Wherever you sit on that arc, the training table on each rung's page is keyed to the same score that priced the rung itself.

Daniels' caveat travels with every row: equivalence assumes distance-specific training. The ladder prices your fitness at the 10K, from sub-35 to sub-1:20; the goal pages hold the preparation that makes the price payable.

The ladder