Running up hills in training
When you are in training, don’t get disheartened if you have difficulty running up hills. I find that it doesn’t matter if you walk and jog up the hills; the most important thing is to do the distance. And when training, try to run up at least 50% of the hills ‘with effort’, but you can walk the rest. I find that it makes a big difference to my performance if I train with hills as opposed to training without them, but it doesn’t necessarily make a big difference whether I run all the way up or walk and jog up the...
read moreFocus on Breathing
Hard to believe it is only six weeks to go until the City2Surf. Where has the year gone! This week we will continue doing runs with increased focus on performance. There is a fartlek run on Tuesday and you should start to concentrate on our breathing. One of the things I’ve noticed is that many social runners take very shallow breaths when exercising. Your body needs oxygen as you run so deep breaths help to reduce the stress on your body. You want to get the oxygen deep into the diaphragm, not in the chest. Just like in swimming, a good...
read moreSore shin and a dickie heel
I didn’t do my morning run today because after my run yesterday I found my heel was painful to walk on and I also have minor shin splint in my right leg. Plantar fasciitis, commonly called ‘heel spurs’, in most people (including me this morning), shows up as heel pain with the first few steps in the morning. I felt fine after my run yesterday but unfortunately, it can take 12 to 36 hours after activity before the plantar fasciitis pain increases. These types of stress related injury are common when running shoes wear out and...
read morePreventing Running Injuries
I’m not a sports physio and I don’t like running injuries so I try my best to avoid them. Having said that, I have had a fair few, so if you have an injury, I can empathise with you. Running injuries usually come in the form of pains in the joints, pulled muscles, twisted ankles, stress fractures (such as shin splints), and tendinitis. And when you start to do longer distances, you may also get blisters and chaffing, (and chaffed nipples, which can be rather painful!). One of the important things I’ve learnt over the years...
read moreCalculating your Ideal Training Level
Training should be a mix of easy and hard workout sessions. In some training sessions you will go flat out, and you need to do this occasionally in order to build your anaerobic conditioning, but you also want to make sure you don’t over exert yourself too often. Remember that when you are training, you should be aiming on working at no more than an average of 75 to 80% of your maximum capacity. The idea is to build your conditioning without exhausting yourself so much that your body needs time to repair itself. Most running injuries...
read moreSpies and spooks selling secrets?
It stands to reason that if you are selling secrets, you must be a spy.. right! And spies that sell secrets are at great risk of being gaoled, fined or even killed. So why is it that every day I get at least an email or a tweet, or I come across a website that is offering to sell me a quantity of secrets. Most secret vendors sell them in bundles of seven, although sometimes you can purchase 17 or 27 and sometimes even 101 (of the best-kept ones that is!). Some days I even come across three or four vendors offering me very special limited time...
read moreTraining week 7 Step it up a notch
We are starting to get into the serious part of the program and it is time to begin putting some more effort into our training. You don’t want to get too comfortable with jogging day in and day out, or your performance will suffer. There are a lot of things you can do to improve your running, but without actually watching you train, I couldn’t guess at what is the most critical thing is for you. It may be that you are turning your feet turned in or out, or you are swinging your arms across your body in an odd way’¦ who...
read moreCity to Surf training plan – Stage Two
With seven weeks to go, you should be feeling a bit fitter and by now you should also be getting comfortably into a regular jogging routine. So, now we want to maintain the routine but it is time to get uncomfortable again: In the next three weeks we will focus on increasing our speed and conditioning by introducing the fartlek into the program, along with three important techniques for increasing your speed and overall performance. The second stage of this program is very important because if we continue to walk and jog as we have been doing...
read moreNo time to run yesterday but I did it
Yesterday I had planned to run a 10km before breakfast but circumstances meant that I didn’t have enough time available. The temptation is to run a 5km, do nothing or reschedule a 10km run for another day; but I did none of these. A few years ago I had a friend who was a very good half marathon runner. He had been quite sick for around six weeks leading up to the Sydney Half Marathon and had done no training whatsoever. He hadn’t planned on competing that year because of his poor condition, but as a seeded runner the previous year,...
read moreMy first City to Surf in 1971
I remember when we drove down to Sydney to run the first City to Surf in 1971 (now called City2Surf). It was a very early start for us, as we lived in the Blue Mountains at the time, and my father always wanted to get to an event with time to spare, so we left at about 6am for the drive to Sydney. No freeway in those days, so it was a long drive along a single lane highway that meandered through Penrith, StMarys and Parramatta. We parked in College Street and then walked to Sydney Town Hall to get our registration sorted out. Everyone had to...
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