How to make the difference to your run …
So it’s that time of year … the time when your half marathon and marathon dreams were set and achieved. Now what? The obvious choice is to focus on speed and build in 5 or 10k race whilst this season is upon us but how many of you have done this? It’s very common after a ‘big’ acheivement to take down time, but most of us lose focus, lose motivation and actually stop running altogether until the next big event is booked.
We then wonder why Personal best’s aren’t smashed the next time – the key here is in consistent running, keeping momentum and using the 3 week and 1 week recovery programmes to build on this race fitness from the spring and gain from the accumulative effect.
you going to have to make changes to the way you run.The typical runner will always run within their capabilities, being one paced ponies that never really challenge themselves to do something awesome. As a runner you probably find yourself saying often:
I should be realistic
I am too old to do that
I will get injured
It’s too much time to commit out of ‘life’
I am happy in my comfort zone and running differently scares me
Is this YOU? Your not alone. Most runners just … run. That’s what we do isn’t it. The same route. The same pace. The same roads.
To get better results you need the following :
Consistency: To run faster, further, staying healthy and feeling good about your running you will need to be a consistent runner. If you take a few weeks off because life gets in the way or a few months off because you have no goal you won’t make improvements you could. Try to always run at least three – four days per week to increase your running efficiency and make running feel come to you as easy as a walk in the park.
Aerobic Development: This is all about consistently increasing your stamina through long runs, tempo runs and speed training. Focusing on the aerobic development you will need to be consistent, no consistency will mean you won’t be hitting new fitness levels and running will always feel hard.
Variety: You can’t expect to get different results by doing the same thing over and over again. If you averaged 20 km a week last year try and average 25 km this year. Mix it up, change your:
Effort
Workouts
Pace
Terrain
Surfaces
Races
All these will help your body adapt to different workloads but it also stops injuries from the stressed caused on the body by repetition.
As runners, we love to run… A LOTt. But in order to achieve more than we have already we need to include variety, makes changes and be consistent to promote health and more adaptation to our running.
Accountability: Us runners need help in achieving our goals –combine group runs with a good training plan and the motivation that comes with real accountability, your results are going to improve to new levels.By putting these principles into a system you’ll start running easier. Aches and pains won’t be as common. You’ll just feel better. Plus, you’ll actually be running more and faster!
Elite Conditioning is based on the premise that we can and will get you achieving running goals you never thought you could but you need to take action to achieve these goals.
I want to help those of you passionate runners who care about their running. Not just fast runners, everyone from achieving their first 5k to those sub 4 hour marathon chasers.
Let the rest of 2016 be about consistency. aerobic development, variety and accountability so together we can smash those goals of 2017.
#achievetheunthinkable