Whether you're looking to get into running, preparing for your very first 5k or making a victorious comeback, the key to starting this journey is to set yourself up for success and aim to enjoy the process.
Setting your running goals
Before embarking on your running journey, a crucial element is picking your goal. Choosing a goal and implementing the right steps in place to get there will help you to have a purpose and stay accountable; ultimately giving you something you can feel proud of. Whatever your goal is, having a plan is paramount to your success. Having a tailored running plan, not only provides you with expert advice to help you achieve your goals faster but also ensures you train safely and sustainably. TLDR: Aim high but make your goal achievable for you.
Build up gradually, don’t go from zero to one hundred!
As with anything, we want to build up gradually for several reasons. If we increase our training load significantly early on, this may lead to burnout and loss of motivation. Instead, it is important to gradually increase the frequency and intensity of your training and allow enough time for your mind and body to adapt to these new stresses. Additionally, we want to be careful with injury here too. My advice would be to increase by a maximum of 1 x running day per week and let the body adapt to this stress before increasing further. Another good rule of thumb is the ‘10%; rule’, stating that we should look to avoid increasing our running mileage by more than 10% each week.
Prioritise warm-ups and cool-downs
Warm-ups and cool-downs are frequently neglected aspects of many runners' training sessions, despite their crucial role in injury prevention. Warming up sets the stage for a successful working whilst a cool down helps you to recover from the work you have put in.
Investing in your running trainers
The world of running shoes can appear complicated but is something that you should aim to understand to ensure you're setting yourself up for a successful running journey. We recommend purchasing your running shoes from a trusted running shop that will be able to professionally fit your shoes, letting you try them out running on a treadmill.
Some retail stores may offer a form of gait analysis to ensure the shoes fit your form. To guarantee maximum comfort and injury prevention while running, you should aim to change your running shoes if you start to notice a noticeable reduction in cushioning and support, typically after around 250 miles of use.
Pay attention to your form
Your running form is important for several reasons. Running efficiently will protect your body from as much impact as possible, reducing the energy needed to run, increasing your running efficiency and reducing your risk of injury. How you run is something learned over our lifetime so correcting or changing your form can feel very bizarre or uncomfortable at first. As a result, be patient and be prepared to work on your form as a continuous process - it'll pay off I promise!
Incorporate strength training
We know that strength training is already beneficial in reducing your injury risk. Additionally, it provides a proven performance benefit, helping to improve your running economy by 8-12%. When you run, your calf (gastrocnemius and soleus combined) muscle will take up to 11x your body weight in force and your quads take up to 4x. As a result, it is crucial to make sure your body is conditioned to tolerate these, and other, loads. If your muscles are tired, then these loads are going to be distributed elsewhere, for example, your skeletal system which then may lead to more bone stress injuries. Additionally, strength training can quite simply give you some variety and make your training even more enjoyable.
Choosing your routes
When embarking on your new running journey, you are presented with an exciting opportunity to explore new areas. This is something you are going to need to know before setting off out the door. Where possible, try to create a fun and exciting route with good views to distract yourself from simply counting kilometres. Once you have your usual routes planned, you can get excited about dabbling in some new ones.
Fuelling
As you increase your training load, it is important to think about changes to your diet to support this. Nutrition is another wide area with lots to consider. Ensure that you are eating a sufficient amount of food so you have the energy to complete your training to your full potential, as well as enough to recover and make physiological adaptations from your sessions. The key is not to make any drastic changes but to think about each food group and how to make improvements to each.
Embrace a varied diet and keep in mind that your body's requirements change every day. What’s right for someone else will be different for you. Another point to note is if you are training for a long distance, you will need to practise fuelling mid-run and not leave this to race day!
Recovering and listening to your body
Recovery is an essential part of every runner's training plan. Without adequate recovery time, allowing your body to physically and mentally restore itself, you put yourself at risk of injury and burnout. It is important to listen to your training plan and your body, taking rest days when needed to properly recover. You can also enhance your recovery through the use of mobility classes, foam rolling exercises, salt baths and more.
Maintaining motivation
Trust us, a lot of runners can struggle to maintain their motivation when accomplishing a challenge. They stall, hit a wall or simply feel lost on where to go next. But there is a way to prevent this from happening – creating certain habits to make you a stronger, healthier, more focused runner. You see, those runners that have added positive habits to their game, and stuck to them, are the ones that have more success when it comes to hitting their goals.
They focus on the process and roadmap laid out by their plan instead of the result, celebrating every little milestone moment on their journey. That’s how to keep your momentum going without succumbing to any setbacks on the way, especially those which are out of your control. It’s about trusting your process and that comes from curating healthy habits.
Conclusion
Remember, the key to maintaining your momentum, even in the face of setbacks, is to adopt positive habits and have trust in your process. The most important thing is to enjoy the process.
