Running Advice

by McKenzie Farissier

When running cross country or running in general, keeping a good, fast pace is the key to winning a lot of races. Unfortunately, when running a fast pace for longer distances can make you breathe very heavily, have short breaths, or have trouble breathing in general. Today I’m here to talk about how to control your breathing while running a fast pace, and also some advice on how to keep that fast pace.

To start, running and a lot of other sports all depend on your mental positivity or negativity. If you do something wrong or make a mistake you may feel yourself begin to have negative thoughts which could affect the rest of your game. In cross country, positive thoughts play a major role in keeping a good, steady pace. They play a major role because when saying inside of your head “Come on, you got this! You’re almost there!”, “Don’t give up, I see the end! Keep going!” You are keeping a good mindset and most of the time it motivates you to continue running at that pace or faster! 

Now lets talk about if you have negative thoughts while running. For example “Maybe I can just walk for a little bit, it won’t hurt right?”, “I can’t do this, I have to stop.”, “I’m not even good anyway, I don’t know why I’m doing this in the first place.” THESE kinds of thoughts are what can make you stop and walk and possibly lose you and your team the race because you walked and gave up on the race. So, keeping these positive thoughts inside of your mind can help you keep a good, strong pace. 

Another good way to keep a good pace is to stay with someone around your pace to run with. Never EVER run with someone slower than you because you are hurting yourself and your team by doing that. Also, don’t go with someone way faster than you because although you might be getting better at the start you might tire yourself out and slow down more, and more, and more, and then become closer to last place. So, start with someone at your pace and if you would like to run with someone faster maybe start running with them in practice and see how it goes.

Here are some ways to control your breathing while running cross country or just running. The first thing you can do is take deep breaths once you realize you are having trouble breathing. Take about five or more breaths and if you still have some trouble breathing maybe slow down your pace a bit more, because even though winning that race would be awesome, your health is more important than a school sport or sport.

That is all the advice I have for running right now, and I hope this helps!