As a beginning runner I have learned a few new tips that might help on your training and enjoying your runs more. First let me tell you a little about me. I started running to help my health, mostly because both my grandpa’s have had heart attacks and a few years ago my dad had one. I was on the same track and not that track you run on. I had been gaining weight and being active less. About two years ago I thought that I better start doing something more than just the occasional bike ride here or there, and I wanted my kids to grow up staying active with their parents.
Now here are some ideas, first plan your run either by driving your route or going to one of the many sites that let you map your course, it helps to know how far your run is going to be. If this is your first run experience or you’re an experienced runner know your body’s limits, don’t start out trying to be the long lost runner that you were in your youth. Another thing would be to have a good start to your run unless you are doing a tempo run. Start out easy let your body help tell you how fast to pace yourself, after you get a few runs in those shorts, you will be able to tell how hard you can push yourself.
Have Fun. After I have done some of the same runs over and over I like to see improvement. I want to see that I have started to shave time off the course that I had been running. I have several different out and back runs from my house at different distances. You could get expensive devices with the GPS and heart rate monitors, but all you really need is a common stop watch, you could pick one up at your local Wal-Mart for under $15. I have the Garmin 305 and I love it. It helps me keep track of all my runs and a whole lot more. I suggest getting a heart rate monitor, it will help you better understand what your body is telling your brain. Now start by naming your different runs and keeping a journal of those runs and how fast you ran it, how you felt even small things like what you wore, what the temperature was for that day, and what you might have ate before your run. Soon you will be filling pages and pages. And now you can start to see your improvement. Try not to get discouraged if you don’t see improvement over night it takes time and for some of us even more time. Remember you are going to be doing this for the rest of your life so have fun take it slow, the improvement will come. The key to all of this is F U N.
I have found that running by myself is fun and relaxing but, It helps by finding someone to run with not only does it give you some one to enjoy the run with but someone to help push you or help you push them. When you get into this great sport you will be finding that you will be talking about it to everyone, you will find runners at work and friends that you never even knew ran to talk about different runs and distances that you did. Find a race in your city or even a town that you would like to go on a vacation too there are races everywhere and every weekend, this will help keep things fresh and different. Soon you will be encouraging family and friends to start running. You can find runners everywhere.
Remember that running is going to be fun when you want it to be fun. Stay hydrated, keep the calories in mind when you ask your body to work its going to need calories to feed those muscles. If you are like me and are going to start to run to lose weight you need to cut out the bad and keep the good. We could go on and on about what to eat. This doesn’t mean stop eating every thing bad I think that you still need to enjoy life, maybe just not to the extreme you were at. ENOY THE RUN.
B.C Breeze