Take a sensible approach to building up, there's no benefit from overdoing it and then not being able to run for a few days because everything hurts.
- Start with a 20 minute session - walk one minute, run one minute and slowly build from this base.
- Build walking pauses into your efforts even when your distance increases
- If it's taking 3 days to recover, do shorter walk/run efforts to build up
- Run every two days with cycling or cross trainer workouts in between
- Protein repairs and builds muscles
- Vegetables have the nuts and bolts to keep your systems functioning
- A lean runner has enough fat to fuel 52 marathons, so dont "reward" yourself for your effort
By starting with a shorter session and alternating running with walking, you will break your body in gently and not over do it, which often leaves you aching and demoralised. Some of our newest research is showing that walking pauses are very useful for retaining the right amount of tension in our support structures to ward off some of the niggles we get when running.
Alternating running with other cross training allows the tissue damaged during running the time to recover before your next effort. Cycling and cross-trainers use different tissue to running, so they give your body the time to repair.
Garbage in, garbage out. To build better tissues and to repair the damage, you need to put quality food into your body. My choice of food as an athlete tends to be made up of ingredients I recognise and can pronounce. Good variety of proteins and vegetables and little processed foods, including carbohydrates.
We have a huge amount of stored energy to burn, teach your body to burn the big logs rather then throwing kindling on every few minutes.
Lastly learn the difference between good pain and bad pain and remember it's easier to fix a niggle before it becomes a full blown injury.
