“Come on, come on, come on, get through it” – the lyrics to Blur’s “Tender” that get me through a 10k run. I like to run either a fast 5k or a medium 10k. As soon as I get near the 20k mark (a half marathon), I’m wiped out, bored and almost certainly injured, and the thought of a full marathon (42k) makes my right knee weep. It feels unnatural for my body to run further than 10k, but there’s always the pressure to move up to a longer distance. At 3.1 and 6.2 miles respectively, a 5k and a 10k are noteworthy distances that don’t take much time out of my day, and I feel well good after. According to South African Olympic middle-distance runner Dominique Scott – who completed the 10k at the Rio Games in a personal best time of 31 minutes 51 seconds – there’s nothing wrong with that. In her training, Dominique runs anything from a mile to 15 miles – but only to make her better at the 5 and 10k, and she’s never been tempted to run a marathon; my kind of woman. In addition to healthy knees and a social life, the 5 and 10k distances happen to span some of the most scenic routes in the world, like along the Great Wall of China (just under 10) or across the Golden Gate Bridge and back (just over 5), which I ran a few days ago with Dominique in our bouncy new adidas UltraBOOST X trainers , and where she talked me through the middle distance after a coffee – which surprisingly, she doesn’t advise against before a run!Probably 5k. It’s a good, solid race with a fast pace but still on that endurance side.5k is 15 minutes 25 seconds. 10k is 31 minutes 51 seconds.In practice, I think the most I’ve run is 15 miles. I’ve never actually raced a half marathon before but every Saturday, I run between 12 and 14 miles, which is a half marathon, as part of my training.Definitely not! Do what excites you – if it excites you to run a half marathon, go do it and see how tough you can be. But if you love the 5k, just try to get faster. If you always move from a 5k to a 10k or a 10k to a half marathon, obviously the distance is longer so you have to dedicate more hours to the treadmill, and maybe you don’t have that much time to train. Also, the longer distance, the more likely you are to injure yourself. And, well, not everyone likes running that far!I ran a 5k two years ago. I was in great shape but the race went out too fast for me – I was running with Olympians. I got to the 3k mark and I was in the well, I was so tired, and I still had 2k to go. But instead of walking off the track and calling it a day I thought, ‘Ok, I’m still on track for a personal best’, so even though I slowed down dramatically and I was hurting a lot, I was determined to make the most out of that situation. At that point it’s all mental, how bad do you want it?It’s not even the running I would tell them to work on. It’s more about doing core exercises like working on your abs, and stretching. Even as a professional runner, I hate stretching! Runners are actually super lazy when it comes to stretching – we’ll go out and run for an hour but we can’t be bothered to stretch when we get back and it’s so stupid! Stretching keeps your muscles fresh and allows you to go back out the next day and run again. It also gives you flexibility that you need to run and helps prevent injury. To be a good runner, you need your abs and your glute [bum] muscles to be strong; if they aren’t, you’ll get tired a lot quicker.