Tips for achieving success runningwise

Tips for achieving success runningwise

My top 10 general tips for best training and racing.

1) Staying Healthy is Your #1 Objective

For me, just getting to the start line healthy, is important.

Running is really about how much you can train while staying healthy, it is an individual thing in terms training volume and intensities, but also tolerances and maintaining immune systems are paramount.

Good Health and staying healthy and injury free, is the glue for holding everything together, because this is where you gain the " compound interest " year in year out and this alone will put you way ahead of the game.

2) A Good Base is Essential:

You benefit from progressing to enough volume early on in your training block

And you can't avoid miles during the winter - no matter how you do them in training , cross country, trails, hills, road racing or mixture of what works best for you.

Whether you think you are a high or low volume trainer, to be able to progress your training and build to intensive quality training and event specific training for your goals, an aerobic endurance base is essential.

3) Don’t Forget Your Big Goal

Do not forget the bigger picture, whilst keeping training going well for your longer term goal, and not get distracted from your plan or peak too soon.

4) Leave Your Pride at the Door: “The sessions aren’t the competition.”

It’s ok to get beaten in training sessions sometimes as varying training partners are at different stages according to their event distances and goals, so check your pride at the gate when you do a track session, tempo run or low key development race.

5) Worry About What You Can Control

There is no point obsessing or getting worked up and stressed about things you can’t control, but you can focus on the things you can control.

6) Running fast is hard

There are no bonus points for how hard you try (the goal is to run “fast” not “too hard”, thus you should be trying to relax your body as much as possible), running fast is not easy and actually can be very hard. Accept the pain as part of the process.

The winner often looks great at the end of the race, but that’s because they accomplished what they set out to do, I guarantee with a mile to go they were hurting.

7) Less can be more

Running smartly in many ways is about trying to train as much as possible without getting hurt, injured or ill.

If you are injury or illness prone, or you know you have a limited capacity to certain types of training, then be sensible and use that type of training within those limits.

Recovery, easy and rest days and lower volume cyclical weeks are part of the essential adaptation process needed for the body to get faster and stronger

8) Change can be good, but don’t change things too quickly

All athletes can benefit from change or conversely get stuck in a rut, physically and mentally, so some subtle gradual changes can give you a boost or turn form around to reach another plateaux.

But remember that your body does not like change, so introduce any emphasis gradually.

9) As you age,running fast at shorter distances is harder.

Speed gets harder, endurance gets easier – accept it.

Train smarter, allow more recovery, but endurance over the years and that side of the equation is easier.

10) Take pride and enjoy what you do

All competitive athletes put in a tremendous amount of hard work. Don’t forget that.

The end result is important, but it’s not the be all and end all, enjoy and take pride in your training whether that key session or early morning long run.

Life is for living , so keep a sensible balance in your life also.

Training Motivations, my top thoughts to consider

1. Do you want to race to win some races, or age group categories, get County, Regional or National Representation, or realise your full potential, or happy to just go along year after year at a more mediocre level ?

If you are running to win, then you need to commit to what you are doing, cutting out unnecessary distractions from your goals and arranging your lifestyle accordingly.

Then you need to have consistency and progression in your training and racing, with as few interruptions from your plan as possible, eliminate muscle imbalances where possible and make sure that your training suits your muscular skeletal composition.

The actual training plan depends on your target distances, your physical level and situation and the level or years of your training history.

Obviously after taking in all considerations then your actual training plan is set around your goals.

2. Do you want a main goal longer term, which is a realistic and achievable dream ?

If you have a major or even annual goal as apposed to goals for different periods of the year or seasons, then your racing and training structure of phases, cycles and peaks will vary somewhat.

3. Are your goals short term, in 3 months, 6 months or an annual goal?

And along with that will be the intensity and purpose of various races, whether you ease down/ taper or train through some of them, also what distance of build up races.

But like all endurance athletes, particularly for long distances, you distinctly need to have your endurance base building where 80-85% is easy / steady runs, 5- 15% are tempo runs and 5 - 15% speed.

Easy/ steady runs are slower than marathon pace, and with a regular long run, tempo running is from threshold pace to marathon pace (threshold (LT) is just under 10ml pace but no faster than 15-30s slower than your 10k pace), the idea is to gradually extend the time at tempo, whilst feeling comfortable.

Obviously whether you are training for short distances or a marathon dictates how far you eventually go up to at tempo, also leading up to the competition phase then you can be nearer to (LT), but also nearer to marathon pace means that you can fit more in at tempo and recover more easily.

The speed training would usually be at 5k pace in the early stages, but include repetitions on grass or track, fartlek, strides etc.

The next phase or micro-cycle, would introduce more at tempo and strength or resistance, so would involve more hills and an increase running in at tempo, therefore a ratio of 80% : 10% : 10%.

When you get into your main competition period the ratio would be nearer to 70-74%: 16-20%: 10%

The increasing intensity of the speed training will sharpen you for your peak, but too much cannot be maintained for long because it brings you on quickly, but also can risk something breaking down if prolonged.

4. Do you just want to race regularly but consistently well to a main race.?

5. Do you want to race regularly for your club targeted events to support the teams?

6. Do you just want to train and race socially for pure enjoyment, fitness or fun?

7. Do you want to make progressive improvements in your level of running, maybe attaining certain plateaus or landmark levels, then moving on to the next higher goal?

8, The main differences in the above 4, are centered around effort and hardness of training, seasons and phases, when and where, peaking, tapering, recovery etc

9.