Conditioning Yourself Into a Training Routine
The training plan I put on Google for you to download, (link in the back of my City2Surf training ebook) starts 11 weeks before the City2Surf. You may start your training closer to the event, but I suggest starting your preparation at least 10 weeks prior to the run.
The first 3 to 4 weeks
The aim of the first 3 to 4 weeks of the training program is to ease you into a regular exercise routine. If you haven’t been doing much physical activity, or if you haven’t recently done regular running or jogging, your body won’t be used to it.
In our modern lifestyles, most of us don’t do anywhere near enough activity each day to burn off the calories we put into our bodies. Most of us are overweight and irregular jogging (particularly if you are overweight), can put a lot of strain on the muscles and joints in the body.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1cG7EMWGec[/youtube]
Objectives for the first 3-4 weeks of training
The most important thing to remember at this stage of your conditioning is not to use more exertion than 75% of your maximum effort.
- Get into the routine of doing regular exercise. If you are already fairly fit, you can start with jogging, if you are starting from scratch, I recommend starting by walking interspersed with jogging.
- You need to build your aerobic capacity. This part of the program is aimed at helping to ease you into increase in your endurance.
- Lose those extra kilos. You don’t want to be carrying extra weight for 14km do you? If you are 10kg overweight, go to the gym and pick up two 5kg weights ‘? now imaging carrying these to the finish line? It isn’t really what you want to do is it? If you eat correctly and follow this training routine, you will lose 5 to 10kg. You don’t want to aim to lose more than that. Healthy weight loss is around 750gsm per week.
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Update April 2013
My City2Surf Training Program is now an eBook
‘How to Break Your Fitness Slump and Comfortably Finish a Fun Run’
My full City2Surf training program is now available as an eBook from all leading online bookstores and contains a link to download the training schedule as an iCal file, so you can import it into your calendar.
Also, feel free to join my free Facebook training group the City2Surf 100 day Challenge.