Platypus' Beginners Guide to Running

I did the Red bull Wings for life world run yesterday. I really good event and great atmosphere. It does need a better bag drop system and more loo's tho. I made it to 25.98km 454th in the UK. Really hard to pace it correctly, I could have gone further, I couldn't speed up as the chaser car came as I was on this bit of farm track and there wasn't space to go past people safely, also it was very slow for the first mile through Cambridge. I was running a 5min/km pace, could have probably gone to 4:45-4:50 and pushed on to 28-30km.
 
I Did a pleasant 11mile charity trail run at the weekend, ran with my wife and our dog.
My wife is now looking at Canicross events to do with him, he was so good around everyone and ran beautifully.
 
I'm looking to improve my fitness, and running is something I've always flirted with but not really committed to. This time last year my fitness was decent (doing lots of cycling) but bouts of illness and the Christmas period led me to put about a stone in weight on. I'm not heavy by any means (at my heaviest I was 12.5 stone, 5'10") but for me that's the upper end of where I want to be. Ideally I should be down at 11 stone or thereabouts. Since the start of spring I've been in the allotment digging (about an hour and a half every other day) and swimming once per week, and I've dropped almost a stone in weight. I've about plateaued on the weight and I feel my swimming stamina could also improve.

I have a treadmill in the garage, so got on it last night. I managed to run 5k without stopping or walking, so I haven't lost too much fitness but it was slow at just under 40 minutes. So I'm looking to reduce that time, increase stamina and (eventually) increase distance. What I don't want is to overdo it so wondering what the advice is about regularity. Should I aim to run every day, or is that likely to cause injury?
 
Everyday for 5k at that pace I doubt is likely to cause injury, but like most exercise/sports rest is pretty important to improving performance.

Personally I found when I switched from distance running to time based running I made bigger improvements inc pace. So rather than saying "I am going to run 5k/10k", say to yourself "I'm running for 30 minutes". I'm about 5 weeks into getting myself back into form, my training plan involves a run on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday is generally "easy", so keeping my heart rate down but over the weeks the duration is increasing. Thursday is my "hard" day, so intervals of some description but based on effort rather than pace, again gradually increasing duration. Saturday is a short-ish easy run (a little less than the Tuesday run) then Sunday is my long easy run where I'm increasing my run duration each week and trying to avoid increasing effort, some times in the middle I would include a few interval periods or a fast finish.
 
xyphic said:
I'm looking to improve my fitness, and running is something I've always flirted with but not really committed to. This time last year my fitness was decent (doing lots of cycling) but bouts of illness and the Christmas period led me to put about a stone in weight on. I'm not heavy by any means (at my heaviest I was 12.5 stone, 5'10") but for me that's the upper end of where I want to be. Ideally I should be down at 11 stone or thereabouts. Since the start of spring I've been in the allotment digging (about an hour and a half every other day) and swimming once per week, and I've dropped almost a stone in weight. I've about plateaued on the weight and I feel my swimming stamina could also improve.

I have a treadmill in the garage, so got on it last night. I managed to run 5k without stopping or walking, so I haven't lost too much fitness but it was slow at just under 40 minutes. So I'm looking to reduce that time, increase stamina and (eventually) increase distance. What I don't want is to overdo it so wondering what the advice is about regularity. Should I aim to run every day, or is that likely to cause injury?
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Build up, start with 3 days a week for 4 weeks, add another day and do another 4-6 weeks, another day. You can safely run 6 days a week, Heck you can safely run 7 days but you do need recovery and so will need to add them at irregular periods when you body needs extra rest. (which requires being in turn with your body).

Just make sure easy runs are actually easy, ignore pace and concentrate on effort, or rather the lack thereof. The hard runs need to be hard but not to the point of nausea/breaking things/long recovery.
 
Thinking that my Achilles is now improved enough to let me start with some gentle runs again. Pain seems to be completely gone and I can cycle without issue as well.

Need to get back out there as the weather is looking so nice at the moment.
 
Guys I'm after advice on whether to try some Vibram Five Fingers after being recommended them by a guy I work with... He seemingly knows his stuff but I'm sceptical. I have been running successfully in some Mizuno Wave Inspires and comfortably ran the 13 miles for my IM 70.3 in them, they feel bulky though and for some reason I can always feel my big toes tensing too much then the arch of my foot subsequently starts to ache.
For context my 5k pb is 22:xx and my 10k is 44:xx but I need to get comfortable to start eyeing up full IM 40k runs...
 
NoNameNoNumber said:
Guys I'm after advice on whether to try some Vibram Five Fingers after being recommended them by a guy I work with... He seemingly knows his stuff but I'm sceptical. I have been running successfully in some Mizuno Wave Inspires and comfortably ran the 13 miles for my IM 70.3 in them, they feel bulky though and for some reason I can always feel my big toes tensing too much then the arch of my foot subsequently starts to ache.
For context my 5k pb is 22:xx and my 10k is 44:xx but I need to get comfortable to start eyeing up full IM 40k runs...
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I haven't tried the Five Fingers but if you're changing to a radically different type of shoes then it could take a significant amount of time to get comfortable and you may have to change your running style along with it e.g. if you're a heel striker you'll need to adopt a different running motion so you're up on your toes more etc. By all means try them and see if they work for you, if it does then great but if not at least you've learned something. Part of the joy/problem is that there's lots of theories about what works best but as far as I can tell it's often a very individual thing and people's bodies will often compensate for their less than perfect technique or whatever is technically sub-optimal - general principles will give guidance about what works but even then there's probably some room for individual adaptations.

I did the Edinburgh Marathon at the weekend and it felt like it was by far the worst run I've ever done, over 20 minutes down on my time last year. I felt good for the first 6 miles or so (albeit despite best efforts was going a touch faster than intended), ok up to halfway and then had absolutely nothing left so the next 13 miles were a huge struggle including even having to walk for some sections and stop at the water stations for brief spells. I'm pleased that I made it round but I'd put it down to willpower rather than athletic ability. It did seem like there were quite a few people finding it tough on the day judging by the numbers walking in spells plus far fewer people finishing inside 3 hours and that despite both 2016 and 2017 being sold out there were around 400 fewer finishers this year - some of that might be BA's fault though.

Still it's done now and that's enough of me whinging so while I could put forward excuses about why it didn't go so well I'm going to try and take any lessons I can from it and do better for the next marathon.
 
NoNameNoNumber said:
Guys I'm after advice on whether to try some Vibram Five Fingers after being recommended them by a guy I work with... He seemingly knows his stuff but I'm sceptical. I have been running successfully in some Mizuno Wave Inspires and comfortably ran the 13 miles for my IM 70.3 in them, they feel bulky though and for some reason I can always feel my big toes tensing too much then the arch of my foot subsequently starts to ache.
For context my 5k pb is 22:xx and my 10k is 44:xx but I need to get comfortable to start eyeing up full IM 40k runs...
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IMO, avoid. Vibram were sued for millions because there is no evidence to support their claims and people were getting injured.

Running shoes and biomechanics are quite complex so nothing is black and white so you can make anything work, people run in high heals after all. In time you can learn to adapt to run barefoot/minimalist but really I don't see the point. You can also run naked and learn to to cope with the cold or get tanned skin to rescue cancer risks form the sun but I prefer to wear clothes. The minimalist movement has kind of died off, most people are going the opposite direction into the maximal cushioning running shoes with the likes of Hoka etc. Eben at the profesional level, guess what the Nike sub-2hour project designed as running shoes for the fastest men on the planet? Not some flimsy running flat but a maximum cushioning shoe.

As Semi-pros points out, changing to a radically different minimalist runnign shoe will require significant adaption to avoid injury, which means starting with much slower paces, shorter distances and more rest days. The end result after months of re-training is probably pretty meaningless but could potentially mean you are at a higher risk of injury.

There is a lot of bogus pseudoscience out there which is a shame. The popular false-hood is that runnign injuries increased rapidly at the same time as the advent of modern runnign shoes in the 1970s, which is complete ****** because that is also when there was a massive increase in the opularity rf running, people were runnign higher volumes at faster paces (the average Marathon time has declined a lot), modern training techniques liek intervals etc. A properly fitted runnign shoe will provably reduce injury risks.
 
I ran a mile on Wednesday night, having not run in 20 years since the days of being shouted at by a PE teacher. It took me a bit over 10 minutes and I managed it without stopping. My legs have been killing since then! My quads are really sore, particularly just above my knees, and walking downstairs is hilarious. I was conscious when I was running how much I could feel the impacts. Is this all normal? I'm assuming this is just because I've never done this before and I'll get used to it. I doubt it's a general fitness thing as I cycle well over 100 miles a week, so I'm guessing that I'm just not used to using these muscles in this way, right?
 
Vonhelmet said:
I ran a mile on Wednesday night, having not run in 20 years since the days of being shouted at by a PE teacher. It took me a bit over 10 minutes and I managed it without stopping. My legs have been killing since then! My quads are really sore, particularly just above my knees, and walking downstairs is hilarious. I was conscious when I was running how much I could feel the impacts. Is this all normal? I'm assuming this is just because I've never done this before and I'll get used to it. I doubt it's a general fitness thing as I cycle well over 100 miles a week, so I'm guessing that I'm just not used to using these muscles in this way, right?
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99% it's just DOMS from you using muscles in a way you haven't for ages. Go out again on this weekend for 1.5 miles and build up the distance slowly.
 
Vonhelmet said:
I ran a mile on Wednesday night, having not run in 20 years since the days of being shouted at by a PE teacher. It took me a bit over 10 minutes and I managed it without stopping. My legs have been killing since then! My quads are really sore, particularly just above my knees, and walking downstairs is hilarious. I was conscious when I was running how much I could feel the impacts. Is this all normal? I'm assuming this is just because I've never done this before and I'll get used to it. I doubt it's a general fitness thing as I cycle well over 100 miles a week, so I'm guessing that I'm just not used to using these muscles in this way, right?
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What you feel will be at least partly down to using muscles that you either currently don't use much or are used to a different action from cycling so it's worth taking a bit of time to allow them to adjust/stretch and adapt so don't be tempted to ramp up the distances too quickly, a general rule of thumb is no more of an increase than about 1 mile per week. I don't know what trainers you are using but if you haven't already it's worth going to your local running shop which offers gait analysis and getting a pair of running trainers - this doesn't have to be expensive, there's often offers on last seasons trainers but it can make a huge difference to how comfortable you feel when running and many of the typical "fashion" trainers are more designed for appearance than function.
 
Run much slower, make sure you can hold a full conversation. Much better if you can do 15-2miels at 11 minutes a mile vs the 10mins for your 1 mile.

Running should be comfortable and enjoyable, and mostly just easy fun. Only after months and months o base building with a focus on improving a race time should you consider doing some faster running. Go out runnign with your phone and call a friend, if you can't speak normally to them you are running too fast.
 
I hope everyone's running is going OK.

Since I didn't really get to race my last marathon I've made a quick recovery, got in 85 miles last week. Next race is a 50mile ultra with nearly 12K vertical so I have been doing more trail runs and finding as many hills as possible which is not so easy bot managed nearly 7000ft ascent last week. Also trying to push my Long runs out farther, but slower. Yesterday I ran a full marathon 26.3 miles at about 8:30 pace
 
^Just casually mentioning you ran a marathon yesterday :D

Can anyone recommend a decent running shoe? I want to start running more often and after reading the last couple of pages I think I've been asking a bit too much of myself. I'm going to start off slower and progress slowly. That said I'd like to get a decent pair of running shoes so any recommendations would be welcome.

Cheers
 
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