Helping runners master their training and nutrition so that they can go further, run faster and smash their running goals

Author: Al Page 3 of 4

I always love to hear what problems other runners face and what parts of my articles help most. If you have any feedback on this post, ideas for future posts or would like to receive new posts to your email please reach out to me at alanjamesladd@gmail.com. I read every email you send me.

The Trinity of Tracking

Triangulate your fitness and performance

Last time, we looked at how obsessing over pace can seriously affect our confidence. We touched on monitoring ‘relative perceived effort’ (RPE) and heart rate. But if you’ve never done this before, what do you do?

To get started with RPE, all you need is to score each running session out of 10 for intensity, making sure that the score fits in with the session purpose. For example, it is counter productive to run at 8 for an easy run or to run at 4 for intervals.

Another way to think of RPE might be to compare it to your starting effort for various race distances. I say starting effort because all races get harder towards the end when you fatigue. 1-2 could be a walk, 3-4 an ultra marathon, 5-6 a marathon, 7 a half marathon, 8 a 10k, 9 a 5k.

Different individuals may be inclined to underestimate or overestimate their effort but as long as the estimates are relative to each other they will be useful.

It is a more subjective metric but it gets you to think about how you feel rather than just watching numbers. This is important because it allows you to get more in tune with what your body is doing and allows you to decide when to push and when to hold back.

Heart rate monitoring is a little bit more complicated but is an invaluable tool. Firstly, you’ll need to invest in a chest strap monitor and a compatible watch (if you don’t own one already).

Many watches include wrist based heart monitoring but it isn’t very accurate compared to a chest strap. The wrist based monitoring can be very glitchy or generally non-responsive to intensity changes. However, most of the watches that have wrist based monitoring also allow you to pair a chest strap over bluetooth.

Next, you’ll need to work out what your ‘heart rate zones’ are. These are generally worked out as percentages of your maximum heart rate but it’s also difficult to find out what your maximum heart rate is.

The general rule of 220 – age is good enough to at least start off and see whether the numbers are in the right ballpark. Beware that some of the heart rate zones on tracking software like Strava and Garmin Connect also seem to be way off for most people.

To keep things simple for now, think of 3 intensity zones relating back to RPE, easy (up to 4), medium (5-7), hard (8 and up). You simply need to find your medium band. The lower end would be a pace and intensity you could maintain for a long time (several hours) and the top end is an intensity you could only keep going for an hour.

Using your maximum heart rate, try 80% for the lower end and 87% for the upper end. Over time you can tweak these numbers to be more accurate for you. Don’t forget heart rate is still a sliding scale not a stepped scale. The boundaries between intensity zones are not concrete so the bottom of the medium zone will be close to easy while the top is close to hard.

  • Example:
  • Runner Age: 36
  • Max HR: (220 – 36) = 184
  • Easy/Medium boundary (Aerobic Threshold) = (80% of 184) = 147
  • Medium/Hard boundary (Lactate Threshold) = (87% of 184) = 160

So all easy running should be 147 or below and harder interval sessions should be 160 or higher. Anything else such as marathon pace efforts or tempo running will fall between 147-160.

As said earlier, these are generic guidelines and you should fine tune these thresholds to what your body is telling you. At an easy pace, you should be able to maintain the same pace and heart rate for at least an hour. If you’re running harder than easy, your heart rate will drift up.

Just under your lactate threshold, the effort should feel ‘comfortably hard’, meaning that you feel like you are working hard but not struggling. It’s a pace you could keep going at for about an hour. Over your lactate threshold, you should start to feel heavy legs setting in and a feeling that you’d like to stop in much less than an hour.

As your fitness changes, so will your thresholds so it’s important to keep listening to your body and be honest about whether you’re pushing too hard or not hard enough. Over time, you can use the combination of all three to know exactly where your general fitness is and gauge your performance on any given day.

There is a lot of information presented here and you can get even more detailed. However, if you have only ever tracked pace then getting started on heart rate and/or RPE will open up a new dimension to your training tracking. The key takeaways are:

  1. Ensure your easy runs stay easy allowing you to hit harder workouts at the intensity required.
  2. Use heart rate and/or RPE in tandem with pace monitoring to better gauge your performance in a session.

As always, if you find this helps or have any questions about getting started, please mail me at alan@therunningrules.com.

Obsessing over pace?

How to avoid losing your mojo

Most of us know our PB times. They’re etched in the memory banks eagerly waiting to be overwritten by new ones. We probably know roughly what pace we ran to get those results. And those paces are almost always a little scary. How did we manage to run that fast for that long?

We forget that those are by definition personal bests. We forget that we can’t be at our best all the time even when we’re improving in general. We forget about outside factors such as weather or terrain. We forget that we aren’t machines.

At a recent interval training session, I asked everyone how they would track their intensity for the session. Almost all said they would monitor their pace. It didn’t surprise me that pace was the majority answer but the extent of the majority was surprising. Maybe it shouldn’t be.

There is nothing wrong with monitoring pace sometimes, especially in a race where we have a target. After all, pace is what determines the result we end up with. Nobody ever posted up a comment on Strava boasting about a new low average heart rate for a 10k race.

The problem is when we obsess over pace all the time. On easy runs it can stop us running easy enough. We don’t get the full benefits of a recovery run that we should. It can lead to feeling burnt out from too much mileage at too high an intensity.

On harder sessions, tracking pace can really knock our confidence when we can’t quite hit the pace we are aiming for. We spend the whole session nervously glancing at the watch and thinking ‘I’m not getting this, I can’t do this’. We’re not focusing on good running form and consistent effort.

Quite some time ago I moved to tracking heart rate in training. Heart rate monitoring is not without some flaws and does require some experimentation to get right but it can really help you hone in on your actual effort level.

It flips the mindset of an easy run on its head. Instead of trying to hit a certain pace and feeling like something is wrong if you fall short, the emphasis is on staying under a target heart rate. Pace becomes irrelevant. You run slow enough to achieve an easy pace for you that day.

Harder sessions are similar. Instead of beating yourself up that you didn’t hit the right pace, you know that you put in the required effort for that session. In fact, you may even exceed your pace expectation by targeting heart rate instead.

The main problem with monitoring heart rate is that whilst general guidelines can be given which are useful as a starting point, every individual is different so ‘heart rate zones’ will differ. This is where a third metric, ‘relative perceived effort’ (RPE), can help.

RPE requires you to give an honest assessment of the effort you feel you are putting in. You score your effort out of 10. You can make up your own scale but I suggest up to 4 as easy, 5-7 as steady to tempo and 8-10 as threshold up to an all out sprint.

By combining and monitoring pace, heart rate and RPE, you can build up a far more complete picture of how you are performing and in turn improve your confidence in your training and progression.

In the next article, I’ll talk about how to track heart rate and RPE but for now please think about your own training. Do you solely track pace? Did tracking pace ever leave you dejected? Please let me know at alan@therunningrules.com.

Training through social distancing

The current Covid-19 crisis is changing rapidly day by day. Restrictions on our interactions and movements affect what we can do from a training perspective but it is also important to keep fit physically and mentally. Here are a few suggestions for what to do in the coming weeks around training and general health:

  1. Do not take any risks with your health or others’ health. If you are in a high risk category then stay at home and do what you can there. If you do go out for a run, go where you know there will not be many people or there is a wide open space where you can avoid coming into contact with other people.

Examples of suitable places would be playing fields, quiet country roads or wide roads with wide pavements, preferably quiet.

  1. Stick to the same number of sessions during the week to maintain fitness. You may need to do different sessions from normal depending on your location and circumstances but keeping up a regular routine will mean your fitness does not decline. Remember that running easy still burns calories and builds your aerobic base.
  1. Work on a weakness that you normally neglect. Maybe your balance isn’t great or you neglect strength training. Maybe hills are your nemesis and you have some near your house you can train on. Whilst races are postponed, it is a perfect time to fill some of these gaps if you are able to.

Running drills, strength work and balance / coordination can all be worked on at home. You may be able to cross train at home if you have an exercise bike or similar.

  1. Don’t be tempted to let your diet run away. With all the extra time at home it is very easy to overeat and drink. Stick to your normal eating routine and even try and cook some healthier meals if you can. Make sure you keep drinking water through the day as it will help curb appetite.
  1. Take time to switch off from the day to day and focus on where you want to be at the end of the year. It’s easy to focus on the fact that there are no races right now and switch off from training but by keeping a good base going now, you will be in a much better position to tackle races later on in the year.

Keep yourself and others safe and focus on the running you have ahead of you. The situation will pass eventually so be in the best shape you can to come out the other side raring to go.

Sometimes the best runs happen when you least expect it

I’m sure lots of you have been in the same boat this week. Checking and checking to see if your target race is being postponed or cancelled. It doesn’t half sap the motivation. I canned two runs already this week and half arsed another couple.

Today Boston marathon was postponed. I’ve been looking forward to it since I qualified for it 18 months ago. I knew it was coming. I nearly didn’t bother with my tempo today. But I did. And it was awesome. It took me by surprise.

Sometimes the best runs happen when you least expect it.

The race is just the culmination of the process and if we can’t enjoy the process then we’ll spend a lot of time being unhappy. Sure it is incredibly disappointing but sometimes there are more important things in life.

This weekend get out and run. Enjoy being able to run. Let everything else take a back seat for a little while and remember why we love the process. Remember what running means to you. There will be other races but they’re for another day. Enjoy today.

Love/hate relationship with the half marathon

The half marathon is my favourite distance. Long enough to be a great physical challenge to aim for but not so long that training for it need take over your life. It is short enough that you can run at a decent pace without carrying lots of supplies while not so short that you feel you are running out of control with every step.

Some of my best races have been half marathons. It’s as close to the fabled runners’ high that I have experienced. You are running at a pace which feels tough on the one hand yet you feel you can keep it going almost indefinitely.

Your body is working hard but your mind is only switched on enough to check your pace is consistent. Miles have passed in half marathons where I couldn’t recall a thing and almost felt trance-like, so focused on maintaining form, cadence, effort and pace.

I have also had good races where external factors have been able to penetrate the trance. I have run half marathons with spectacular coastal or mountainous scenery and ones with great support or out and back routes where you pass many other runners.

External factors are really important to help you along when you are struggling but it is also great to enjoy them when things are going well too.

However, get the half marathon wrong and it can be a soul destroying experience. Let me reframe my opening statements:

A half marathon is long enough that you must do a decent amount of training to be able to complete it well. It is too long to run at your fastest pace. You have to know where the line is to be able to regulate your pace correctly for a half marathon.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes and run some pretty horrific half marathons. I was so under trained for my first half marathon that my brother had to drag me round the last 4 miles listening to me whingeing ‘I can’t do this!’. We finished 11 minutes slower than I did for the next half I actually trained properly for.

In 2019 I ran a fairly flat half marathon 6 weeks after running a half marathon PB on a similar course. I started far too fast, neglecting the fact that since the last half I had run London marathon and not really recovered properly and my training had been reduced for taper either side of it.

After 2 miles at 5k pace the damage was done. The last 11 miles seemed like the longest, toughest miles I’d ever run, though in truth they should have been relatively easy. By the end I was running a minute a mile slower than my London marathon pace and finished 6 minutes slower than 6 weeks earlier.

You can definitely avoid the woeful runs I’ve had throughout the years. Obviously having strength in the legs and some decent long runs in the bag is essential. Base training of strength and conditioning sessions combined with some hill runs can build up your strength.

This phase should precede your half marathon training. During the plan your long run will increase gradually over each week. I recommend building up to at least the same elapsed time you plan to run on the day. 11 miles at easy pace should take you the same time as a half at race pace.

In the more advanced half plans we go up to 16 miles. With proper fuelling beforehand this should be over before any ‘wall’ you may encounter in marathon training and races. You may still feel you need energy boosts for a half marathon, especially if you are running 2 hours plus, but unlike marathons, it isn’t as critical. One less thing to think about makes things easier.

If you are new to half marathons then ensuring you can complete the distance should be your main focus. If you have run a few and are looking to improve then you may want to focus more on speed but never forget your long runs are still key.

The short intervals are great for increasing raw speed and improving your 5k time. If your 5k time is improving then it is very likely that your half marathon time will improve too if the rest of your training is going well.

However, the tempo or progression runs are my favourite for the half marathon. Typically you will run 3 to 6 miles in the middle at half marathon pace. If you can hold this pace then it’s a great indicator that you’re on the right track for the race.

Technically, this pace is slightly below ‘lactate threshold’ pace. This is the pace at which the body can clear out lactate faster than it is produced in the muscles. Once you go over this pace you will fatigue very quickly – which is what happened to me in my ordeal in 2019.

My biggest tip is to understand and be honest about exactly what shape you are in when you take on a half marathon. This can work both ways. In the past I have been overly optimistic of what I could achieve leading to some spectacular blow-ups.

However, sometimes when the training has gone well, you have to back yourself to maintain a pace during the race that you’ve only held for 5 miles in training. You have to remember that the race is a culmination of all the different parts of training coming together combined with the freshness of rest and the adrenaline of race day.

When you get it right the half marathon can make you feel almost invincible.

Rule #4 – Set a goal – any goal!

Have you ever noticed how your focus or intensity in training tails off when you don’t have a race booked in? Or maybe you had a race booked but you were just running it for fun and so you didn’t really take training very seriously?

Now I am all for enjoying running. Absolutely. If you don’t ever enjoy it then there better be another darn good reason for doing it! And you should definitely have some easy weeks built into your training to avoid burnout.

But I’m also a believer that you need to keep the horizon in your eye-line. You need to know and be thinking of the next big thing for your running. You need a goal that is going to keep you focused and motivated to maintain your fitness.

It could be a special race, a charity event, a faster time, a new distance, terrain or country. It might not have to be a race at all but it has to be something that is big enough for you to have a plan towards.

Planning out at least 6 months in advance keeps you focused on what you need to do to achieve your next target. It will prevent you going onto autopilot and potentially undoing the good work you’ve done up to this point.

Sign up to something today if you haven’t got anything planned. Tell your friends and family to make you accountable and start planning towards your next big goal.

Mourne Skyline MTR

thanks to www.nolimitsphotography.co.uk for the picture

What is it?

The Mourne Skyline Mountain Trail Race is set in the mountains of Mourne starting and finishing in Newcastle Co Down. It is 35km long and there is 3370m of ascent. It climbs eight peaks along the Mourne wall including the highest two in Northern Ireland, Slieve Donard and Slieve Commedagh.

What do you need to do beforehand?

You must sign up for the race on the day registration opens. It is a hugely popular race and on 14th February 2019, it sold out in just four hours. Once you’ve been accepted into the race you’ll need to make sure you have the items on the mandatory checklist such as full body waterproofs, a hat, gloves, compass, whistle and possibly more. Oh and some training is a good idea.

What to expect before the race

The registration on the day was very efficient, so much so I almost didn’t know what was happening as I got moved from person to person! Your mandatory kit will be checked so make sure you have your pack with you.

You’ll get a tracker taped to your backpack to allow people to follow you on the website. You’ll also get an electronic dibber strapped to your wrist which you will need to check in at each of the checkpoints around the course. You can place a drop bag with food in it to pick up halfway round the course. Be sure to number it!

The race in detail

You start off on the promenade at Newcastle before quickly entering the forest park. After a short while of undulating trail you’ll turn right to be confronted with a long set of steps up. This leads up out of the trees where you’ll turn right for a short downhill to the start of the Glen river path.

The path takes you up the valley to the saddle between Slieve Donard on the left and Slieve Commedagh on the right. In most parts the path is excellent and ascends gradually. Gaining elevation after this point is nowhere near as easy. You cross the river around two thirds of the way up where the path starts to get steeper.

The first dibber checkpoint is at the col at the top of the valley. The wind picked up here from behind and it suddenly started to feel cold and more remote. Crossing over the huge Mourne wall here provides some short term shelter.

The next section along the brandy pad provides some of the easiest running of the day. The path skirts round the side of Commedagh and is good in most places. The path gets a little more broken up and steeper towards Hare’s gap. There’s a checkpoint here but no dibber then you start the first summit ascent of Slieve Bearnagh.

The ascent of Bearnagh from this side doesn’t seem too bad. There are a few steps near the bottom which take you to some steeper climbing. Then a track runs off to the left and plateaus for a while before bending back round for the final climb. A dibber on top marks your first peak for the day.

I had a battle in the wind trying to get my jacket back on halfway up the climb as the freezing rain started to fall. After I put it on at this point I never took it off again! It can be bleak and unforgiving up there and it can turn rapidly as I would find out a lot later. I could also feel that my big toe had punctured a hole in my sock. I tried to forget about that.

As soon as we started descending Bernagh I knew I was in for a tough day. My technique or maybe just my courage for descent is very weak. Additionally, I and perhaps my shoes were not ready for the soaking wet steep slope of Bernagh. It seemed like twenty people passed me just on the downhill.

Over the course of the entire race I went over at least three times and tripped countless other times. However, on reflection I think was probably lower than average listening to the general chat afterwards. I was certainly very cautious to try and avoid injury which meant I lost a lot of time on the downhills.

The ascent of Slieve Meelmore from the col seems quite long and relentless but in truth it is probably one of the easier climbs with the help of the steps by the side of the wall. There is not much room for passing but I did manage to retake a few positions on the ascent.

The second summit dibber awaits on top and then the heavens opened. I felt like I couldn’t see a thing on the descent of Meelmore due to the rain on my glasses. Again, I was passed by at least a dozen other runners. After a relatively short slither down the very top, there is a right turn onto a ‘path’ which takes you towards Fofanny Dam.

At the top this is still fairly steep and the path is very poor in places and I found myself making very hard work of it. This was my worst section of the day. Better looking paths turn off to the right and the orange flags that guide you round the course lead off to a small stream crossing. I actually managed to miss a couple of flags and come down slightly to the right and had to work my way back over.

A short path from here takes you to the dam which you run along to get to a checkpoint, dibber, drop bag and cut off point. You must make this point in three hours fifteen minutes so I was satisfied to make this point in just under two and a half hours. Barring any disasters in the second ‘half’ I should make it round in the eight hours allotted time.

I say ‘half’ because realistically I had marked out the next summit of Slieve Loughshannagh as the real halfway point in terms of effort as that’s what previous years’ times seem to indicate. A lot of the easier running is in the first half and most of the big climbs are in the second half.

I quickly located my drop bag; they have them out in a rough order but it definitely helps if you know what yours looks like as I think the number had mostly washed off. I had been looking forward to the banana I knew was awaiting me though I’d left my coke at home and I was going to crave that round the second half.

I picked it up and walked up the short hill to the road. I didn’t want to stop at this point but keep on moving and I picked up a steady pace up the road towards Ott car park. Clearly a lot of other competitors had marked this out as a breather and I passed quite a few walking up the road.

Turning left onto Ott track it feels like you are now heading for home. True, it is still a long way off but completing the course is now probably the easiest way to get back. The track is reasonably good for the most part and found I was able to run most of it. This section was my best of the day and I still had time to take half the banana and a bar on board as I was going.

In general I soon decided to ditch my usual road marathon fuelling plan of every half hour as I didn’t fancy trying to take anything during the descents. Firstly, you should be going faster (which I probably wasn’t) but secondly, you need both hands free for any tumbles you may incur. Consequently, I ended up eating something on most of the ascents.

Despite taking on what I thought was quite a lot, a banana; several coco pops bars; a couple of gels and some fun size milky ways, I was getting hungry at some stages and I didn’t end up with much spare by the end.

As the Ott track steepens and starts to dissipate, it meets the Mourne wall which takes you on a short steep ascent to the top of Loughshannagh. This is the fifth dibber point and what I would regard as the halfway point. Having reached here in just over three hours I was still hopeful that I may get round in six.

I found the descent of Loughshannagh one of the easiest of the day. Not only is it short but there were quite a lot of long, grassy tussocks which didn’t seem overly wet to allow you to get a decent grip going down.

Each peak seems to have a slightly different characteristic to the others. Loughshannagh was grassy but some are bouldery and some are slithery mud. And a couple do have a discernible path to follow.

I don’t remember the climb to the summit of Slieve Meelbeg and the sixth dibber point but at the top there is a right turn along the northside of the Mourne wall which was straight into a gale. This made for another awkward descent back toward the slopes of Meelmore.

Again, the ascent of Meelmore seemed deceptively long despite it clocking in as the shortest section of the day. I think it is the close proximity of these peaks and the steepness of the slopes that make them short but feel long.

Getting back to Meelmore seemed like another target crossed off. I knew what to expect for the next section at least and I also knew that I only had three more ascents to go although they are the biggest three.

However, the bouldery steps that proved helpful in climbing Meelmore on the way out prove tough on the legs on the way down. I was still able to make decent progress down with their aid and reacquaint myself with the tough side of Bearnagh. I knew it was going to be a tough climb and I’d planned to get some caffeine in if things were getting tough which I did.

I reached the summit of Bearnagh two and a half hours after I was last here and almost as soon as I started descending the weather suddenly cleared and I was treated to amazing views off to the right of Cove Mountain and Slieve Lamagan heading in the direction of Slieve Binnian.

If you remember from earlier, this side of Bearnagh is by far the easier to the extent that you can actually get a bit of comfortable running in round the rocky outcrops. I knew that six hours was now no longer attainable and I decided to really try and enjoy the views and the last couple of climbs.

At the bottom of Bearnagh is the checkpoint at Hare’s gap where the Brandy pad which we ran on in the morning diverges off to the right. This time we head on straight up towards Slieve Commedagh though this ascent has a few parts as it passes over the minor tops of Slievenaglogh and Slieve Corragh.

The first part up to Slievenaglogh is quite steep but I took it slowly and kept enjoying the views to the right. Ben Crom and Silent Valley reservoirs where the Dambusters half marathon turns round come into sight below Lamagan and Binnian.

Once Slievenaglogh was conquered, the path turned right towards Corragh. This means you can see back towards Bearnagh and the Meels from where we have come. This is a fine sight and makes you realise the extent of the challenge. The terrain to Corragh and beyond is fairly good and running becomes possible again. It is like a long gradual shoulder to the final push up Commedagh.

There is a big tower at the ‘top’ of Commedagh (the actual top is off to the left but the penultimate dibber point is the tower). Unfortunately, it disappeared into the mist again as I started the short sharp climb to the top.

The descent of Commedagh was not bad on the south side of the wall. Some remnants of paths can be found and it is not quite as steep as some of the other downhills. Soon I was back to the col between Commedagh and Donard and I couldn’t see how far up I had to go for the final climb.

I’ve done the climb up to Donard many times before but this was by far the toughest. Whilst the ground isn’t too bad it just feels relentlessly long and steep given all the climbing already done. You can see other runners descending on the other side of the wall and wish that you were there.

Finally at the top you dib for the last time and head over the wall and back down the other side. Having not passed or been passed by anyone since Hare’s gap runners suddenly appeared from nowhere blasting past me again on the descent. I went over slightly on my ankle reminding me that I was not home yet.

I stayed close to the wall to make use of the steps but I think there was better ground to be had off to the right. Eventually I crossed over to it as I approached the col then turned right down the glen river path. As noted on the way up it is still relatively steep at the top and I was very cautious simply trying to get home in one piece.

After crossing the river, I picked up a bit more speed and confidence to lead back down to the fire road. This is a gravel track that zigzags down to the finish. I can’t tell at this point if I have stones in my shoes or blisters on my feet or both. At the top, Newcastle still seems a fair way to go but covering distance suddenly becomes a bit faster and easier.

The tanoy and music can be heard a little way off then you hit the grass. One last left turn takes you down to the finish area, no sprint finish just a very hard shift put in and a resolve to not get talked into another race like this without a lot better preparation.

I thoroughly recommend this event as long as you know what you are getting yourself into. The registration, marshalling and course marking is all excellent and unless you are seriously good on this terrain you should think of it as a challenge rather than a race.

Invest in some proper fell running shoes and go and practise in the Mournes. Try running in various conditions. You won’t know what it will be like on the day but it is worth preparing for the worst. Finally, plan for it taking a long time! I seriously underestimated my ability on a course like this. It is tough and if you are not used to it, doubling your marathon time is not unrealistic.

Rule #3 – Past performance is not an indicator of future results

Investing in the stock market always comes with the warning above. However, it applies to running too. It is far too easy to focus on the past and let it cloud our judgement of what we do now. This can manifest itself in two ways: Reminiscent running and Rut running.

Reminiscent running is where we wish that we are as fast and as fit as we used to be. We may wish it so much that we actually believe it until we try running. We then come back to earth with a horrible crash leaving us demoralised and dreading running.

Instead of focusing on where we once were at some perfect point in time, we must be pragmatic and use ‘now’ as the starting point for where we can get to in the future. Start with realistic goals based on your current fitness and work up from there.

Rut running is almost worse. This is where we get stuck doing the same training and our levels plateau. We could see improvements but instead our potential is stunted by doing training that doesn’t work and doesn’t excite us anymore and leaves us feeling stale.

By constantly reassessing our goals and challenges and varying our training accordingly, we stay fresh and keep improving. We conquer new challenges and get the best out of ourselves.

If you are going to invest in the stock market then take the statement above as a caution. However, if you are running take it as a positive reminder not to compare yourself to a former you and that quite possibly your best running days are still ahead of you.

Rule #2 – The 3 Rs – Remember your Reasons for Running

Sometimes it’s very easy to forget why we run. The reasons are different for everyone but there are some common ones that many will share: lose weight; get fit; improve mental health; sense of achievement; meet new people; new experience; set an example to our kids; the list goes on.

However, there may be lots of times when we forget these factors: when the weather is bad; when we feel like we have a bad run or race or sometimes we just don’t feel like running. It’s at these times we need to remember the reasons we chose to do this, especially the most important one.

It may be that we’ve got caught up chasing PBs and we forget that the main reason we run is to be able to eat a few treats guilt free. Or it’s the middle of the winter training for a marathon and the elation of crossing that finish line feels so far off.

A visual or audio cue is a great way to remind us of our reasons for running. It could be a phrase or a picture. It could be before we run or even during the run itself. Pick a short phrase you can recite when things get tough or have a picture that epitomises your why in your kit bag.

If you can’t think of a single reason for why you run then it is possible it isn’t for you and you should think about doing something else. But for almost all of us our personal reasons for running are the single most important thing. They will get us past the toughest points and allow us to enjoy our running more. 

Rule #1 – Believe in yourself

If you don’t believe in yourself you will not achieve the things you are capable of. This is not easy for most of us. How do we know that we can succeed at things before we’ve done them? The truth is that we don’t know so we think about it irrationally. We persuade ourselves we can’t go for the goals we dream of and then invariably we talk ourselves out of doing it. We’re scared of failure but actually, not trying is the biggest failure of all.

We look at other people achieving the things we want to and we make up reasons why it is possible for others but not us. Maybe they are ‘naturally gifted’ or they ‘have more time’. What we don’t think about is that maybe they just believe in themselves more. They don’t know any better than us whether they will succeed but they trust in their training plan, lifestyle and work ethic to get where they want to.

Instead of focusing negatively on others, we can use this to our advantage. If these people can achieve their goals then there is no reason why we can’t. Surrounding yourself with people who believe in you too will help. Try and cut out the people who bring you down or try and dampen your expectations. Setting smaller targets to see your progress also helps to build confidence. Combining this with a longer term goal makes the latter less daunting as you see your progress.

The body is capable of far more than we think it is so stop telling yourself you can’t do it and start doing it today.

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