Want to Start Running?

A friend of mine, to keep her anonymity we'll call her Jennifer is pregnant and has been thinking about taking up running after her pregnancy. I'm not sure what triggered this since she admits that she's not really into working out or sports but something struck her interest.

Her husband a good friend of mine, we'll call him Eric, was a track and field guy in college and is probably the only T&F guy that I know that hates to run which I find funny. He used to do the high jump and I think the long jump (man can he jump) and his coach made him run every day.

I'm all about encouraging running especially for those who have really never tried it before. I myself hated running and hadn't run a mile when a 5k I was forced into (see other post) a few years ago turned me into a full fledged runner.

I mentioned to Jennifer that I've read many articles on what they call the 'Couch to 5k' training plans and would find it for her. While doing this, I started jotting down all the advice that I would give a new runner. Things I learned along the way. I figured it would be good blog content so here it is. (please excuse the grammar and typos - I just don't have the time to clean it up right now).
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Here's three good articles I found. I couldn't find the one I was looking for but these seem pretty good. The first one is good but I personally feel that to get running to stick you need to pick a race as a goal. You can find almost every race in NJ here...

http://www.compuscore.com/

It will have next years schedule added soon. Some have links to just the PDF application and some will have links to the races web site.


Beginner Runner
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-380-381-387-2201-0,00.html?cm_mmc=beginner-_-2007_10_24-_-beginner-_-Ready%20to%20Run

8 weeks to your first 5k
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-380-381-387-1703-0,00.html

Might be the same article or at least similar
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-380-381-386-11940-0,00.html

Lot's of good stuff here. The discussion boards are great to get answers from other new runners on any topic. They also have a great email newsletter that you can sign up for.
http://www.runnersworld.com/0,7118,,00.html

Tips I came up with for new runners:

Shoes:
When you are ready to start go to a running shoe store and not Dicks Sporting Goods... It will cost a bit more but if you tell them you are new to running and that you don't know what kind of shoes you need, they will watch you walk around, look at your feet, ask questions and choose the right type of shoe. Most beginners don't realize why their knees, ankles, hips... hurt and it's because they aren't in the right type of shoes. Most people overpronate a bit which means they more or less roll their feet over too much. Some supinate which is the exact opposite and some have neutral feet and some are flat footed while others have high heels. All of this makes a big difference in how your feet hit the ground and push off. Guys in running stores like Running Company in Morristown (there's others) can tell you what kind of shoes you need.

Too Much Too Soon- stick to a plan otherwise many people get too excited when they start and over do it. Only leads to injury. Rule of thumb is adding 10% mileage each week or so.

Stretching - new school of thought is that stretching doesn't help before you run and can hurt you. Warm up instead. Warm for 5 minutes and then run/walk for 5 minutes to get warmed up. Especially when it is cold out. Some still stretch afterwards but there's debate on that. There's a new type of stretching that is suppose to be better for you that really just mimics what your muscle do when running rather than forcing them in one direction too far (when you feel the pull). I'll see if I can find that article.

Drinking - you only need gatorade on runs over an hour. Otherwise water is fine. Same goes with recovery drinks. Gatorade and recovery drinks have lots of carbs and calories (and sodium) but that is only really useful on long runs or hard training sessions. You can run with water but you can also skip it if it's not hot and you are out less than an hour. Best to drink a good 16oz 1 hour before you go out but if you are out less than an hour, it really doesn't matter.

Eating - when you get your mileage up a bit and go out for an hour or longer run, when finished, replenish with a snack of carbs and a little protein. (bagel and peanut butter, half a turkey sandwich, recovery drink... Might sound a bit too complicated right now but it's 4 grams of carbs to 1 of protein. Then eat a bit more (lunch, dinner,...) within an hour to 1 1/2 hours after the run. You are still burning calories from the run (after burn) and its the best time to replenish your glycogen (carbs in muscles that store energy). Just don't go crazy if you are only out for an hour.

Calories Burned - you burn about 100 calories for every mile run. And around 110 if it was a pretty strenuous training session. Of course as you get fitter you have to run faster to burn that off at that rate. If you are out for 5 miles, that's almost a whole meal.

Comfortable Pace - this means you should be able to speak in sentances while you run. If you struggle with that, you are running faster which is fine but if a plan calls for easy running, they mean comfortable. At first all running will seem hard and hard to speak while running but in 2 weeks, it will be much much easier.

Traffic - run into traffic and not with it. Although I don't practice this all the time, it's a good idea at least until you are comfortable especially if you are running with music.

Watch - buy a cheap watch which can keep laps/splits and write down on your training plan how long you went for and how you felt.

Miles - once you start, at some point try to figure out how far you are running. Get a feel for it. Drive the route so you know where each mile market is about. Then hit the split you watch. It's interesting to see afterwards if you are consistent, if you get faster as you warm up... Knowing this will help you get faster and then run longer. If you don't do that, you can get in a slump where you don't improve because you won't know if you are getting better, worse, or just the same. The goal is to run longer.

Long vs Fast - main goal in the beginning is to start running longer not necessarily faster. Faster will start to come naturually. The real goal is to get to 3.1 miles and beyond. SOunds like a long time now but in time you will bust out 3 miles in less than half an hour. Seems fast but it is very very doable. Real aerobic conditioning, burning calories... really only occurs on runs longer than 40 minutes once you get beyond the first few weeks of beginner running. Yes you will be aerobically better and burn calories when you run 30 minutes or even 20 when you get started but that quickly changes and you will need to go out longer. Again, you should be able to someday (within 8-10 weeks) be able to go on your weekly long run for an hour and not kill yourself. Those long runs are about going out long and not fast and should be easy running.

Clothing - buy running clothing. Cotton Kills. That is the motto. Cotton doesn't breath, it holds moisture which is bad when it's cold and chafes. You want material like Dry-Fit... go to dicks and find running clothing or work out clothing that is not cotton.

Cold then Warm - When you go out the door you should feel cold but you will warm up within 10 minutes. Most beginners over dress and then sweat way too much. If its a problem just be ready to take a layer off.

Dogs - watch out for dogs not on leashes even on trails where owners let their dogs run free. They think their dogs are well trained but they will be excited and want to jump on you to say hi. Give them a wide berth and for those that pull their dog to the side to let you pass, say thanks to encourage.

Concrete - say off sidewalks. Concrete will hurt your knees. The perfect surface is a flat even dirt trail but macadam is much softer than concrete and makes a huge difference.

Bad Roads - some roads are bad for running where the side of the road has a slope to the right or left for water to drain (the camber of the road?). All roads have this to some extent but others are real bad. If you continue to run on the same side of the street on these types of roads one leg has to reach further down to hit the road which over 1000 steps will hurt your hips, knees... Try to avoid these types of roads or run on one side of the road on the way out and the other side on the way back to even it out. The same is true for running on a track in the same direction for many laps. You're always turning left. Not usually an issue if you are running 4 laps but if you are running 20, consider running the other direction for half of them but stick to the outside lane if there are others on the track.

Fartlec - it's just just a funny word but a great workout. It means Speed Play in Swedish. You will come across this easy workout at some point. Basically you are running different speeds and different distances with easy running in the middle. For example, run the length of each telephone pole fast and the next one easy to recover. You can do this after warming up 5-10min and leave 5-10 min for cooling down. This is a great way to get your body used to running fast and it extends out your threshold (time it takes before you go anerobic where you're legs start to burn and get tired where your body starts to use glycogen - it's more complicated than that but you get the point). The idea is to extend your anerobic threshold so you can run faster longer without hitting that limit.

Turnover and Stride Length - stay low - ideally when you run you don't want to bounce up and down but rather staying low to the ground and all energy towards moving forward. To do this concentrate on not over striding (kicking your heels with long strides). It might feel like your running better but the idea is to stay low with shorter faster steps. Aim for 180 steps a minute. YOu can check this by counting your right foot hitting the ground for 15 seconds and multiply that by 4. If you're close to 80-90 that's good. Running faster is first about faster turnover which in turn will give you a longer stride covering more distance because you are moving faster naturally vs making your stride longer. This is a good one to remember to check from time to time. So to run faster, quicken the pace not your stride.

R.I.C.E. - when something just doesn't feel right, RICE is where you start. It stands for Rest - take a day off if needed, or dial it back. Ice - ice it up every 10-20 minutes for 10-20 minutes but not directly on the skin (use a towel. Buy an ice pack and put it in a big sock). Compression - wrap it up when needed. Elevation - keep it elevated to prevent swelling.

Pain and Real Pain - sometimes its hard to tell what kind of pain you should run through or sideline yourself. If it's sharp and in a specific spot, take a day or two off and then pressure test it. If it still occurs 4 days later, see a Doctor or PT. If it's sore like muscle sore, you can usually run through it but take some extra time to warm up, stretch lightly and see how it goes. If you are two sore and tight to run take a day off. When you first start running, you are going to be sore. It's going to happen. Just take it slow, stretch lightly and you'll be fine. You'll find in a week or so that this goes away. Soreness after that can occur when you up your mileage or start doing speed workouts or hills. Usually this soreness comes on the 2nd day. It's called Delayed Onset Soreness. Again, just stretch lightly, take extra warm up time and you can usually run through it.

Lastly...

Encourage Others - say hi to runners you run by, encourage others to run. Let them know it's really not that hard. There is a running community out there and it's great to talk to others who also run. Sharing tips, stories, how their work out went... It helps keep you motivated.