My top recommendation to improve your running

As part of my series of blogs of how to progress your training over the winter, today we’re looking at how to build your running.

Why go faster than you need to?

Almost everyone I’ve ever worked with is running too fast before we start working together. They’re following the ‘run as fast as I can in the time available’ approach.

But this means they are running faster than they need to, will get more tired and have a higher risk of injury and will get very few extra training benefits.

If you’re only doing a few sessions a week and have loads of energy this is fine.  

But if you are constantly tired from life or from other training then why work harder than you need to? Save your energy for where you need it.

My top recommendation to improve your running is to keep it easy

You can get all the aerobic training adaptations running much slower, plus you'll be able to g further. You only get the adaptations from going faster if you go significantly faster (which will be hard to do if you’re tired from doing everything else too hard).

Instead run at a pace where you can breathe through your nose (nose breathing brings tonnes of extra health benefits but you don’t have to breathe through your nose, you just need to be able to at that speed).

If you still get too out of breath, you’re building up the distance a lot or you’re worried about injuries or whether it will be too hard, I would also recommend adding walk breaks (e.g. 30 secs every 5 mins).

Build base fitness over the winter

At this time of year I would just do easy running to build base fitness. For most people their limiter isn’t their ability to produce top end speed but their ability to keep going at a much slower pace for longer. So train your aerobic system with easy running.

If you’re at a point where you want to add speed work then add intervals. To get the benefit of running faster, you want to run at the sort of speed that can only be sustained for a short while before you need a recovery break.

Key takeaway: Keep the easy stuff easy so you can do the fast stuff fast, rather than everything feeling hard because you’re too tired.

Work on run technique and strength and conditioning over the winter

Another key recommendation for the winter is to work on run technique and strength and

conditioning. We looked specifically at run technique in a recent block of Club Feel Fit, my weekly strength and conditioning classes for runners and triathletes.

Find out more and sign up for a free trial to access these classes (look for block 26) and more.