Platypus' Beginners Guide to Running

Has anyone ran the London Marathon before (silly question I know as I guess a few of you will have). I'm doing it for the first time next month, had the information pack through this week to find that I've got to go to the ExCel centre to register between Thursday and Saturday before the race. Bit disappointing really as I wasn't planning on going into London until the day of the race as I'm stopping at a friends house the night before in Letchworth, means that I'm going to have to go down earlier to drop the stuff there before getting the train/tube into London :o
 
Psycho Sonny said:
I never use the bikes, I also never use the pool.

I already have a full weight setup (includes 2 benches with attachments, power rack, full set of dumbells up to 45kg, full set of olympic plates roughly 400kg worth and a host of bars and other stuff such as kettlebells, etc), as well as a boxing setup (reaction ball, speed bag, hanging punch bag and freestanding kickboxing bag, etc). Look at the official home gym building thread for more info.

The only thing i would miss is the sauna but you can buy them for around £5K for a 6 people, wood burning so you don't need to worry about energy costs.

http://www.hottubsbarn.co.uk/saunas/traditional-saunas.asp

I also have 4 members of my family which use the equipment but only 3 of us who use it regularly.

I also have a gym membership, it works out roughly £125 a month just for me to go to the gym (£80+ in fuel, plus £43 monthly fee). This is purely so I can use the treadmills and sauna, nothing else.

So just for me it costs just under £1.5K a year to go to the gym.

I guess the main issue is that my gym is a 15-20 minute car journey away, which can become 30-45 mins during rush hour with it being located in the city centre and me staying out in the sticks. There are closer gyms but council run and they just aren't as good.

So it depends on your own situation, but if 3-4 of us were all paying gym membership you can quickly see that £1.5K a year turning into £4K+ very quickly, especially since we couldn't all sync our schedules to car share, etc.

I always buy decent stuff, so I know it will last. My weight equipment should last several lifetimes, so it can be used by future generations, etc also. Sure the initial costs are high but in the long run the benefits are too.
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Ill get my coat lol
 
King85 said:
Ill get my coat lol
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lol

You are right though for a lot of people a home gym works out more expensive, or they simply do not use it enough to justify the costs.

I always advocate any newbie to join a gym first for at least 6 months, and if they still want a home gym, then go for it. People usually do not last that long though, usually why the gym's are mobbed Jan-April (new year's resolutioners) and they are empty come December compared with the start of the year.

Their is also all the added benefits of being at a gym, both have advantages and disadvantages, free classes, females in lycra/skimpy/tight clothing, pool, sauna, etc.

Oh I also met a celebrity last weekend at the gym, not one you would associate with fitness though, Frankie Boyle.
 
Hope this is the correct thread to post in.

Bought some running trainers from the Nike store. They had me on the running machine and filmed me running I seem to turn my ankle when I run. Shop assistant recommended me a more supportive shoe. tried some on the running machine for a couple of minutes seemed fine. Just started wearing them round the house and the right shoe feels good but the left feels like the arch of my foot isn't sitting correctly feels like its digging into the side.
I didn’t want to risk running in them and finding they hurt to much then of wasted a lot of money.
Any thoughts?
 
1.5 mile in 11:42 today (12.5 km/h) whilst in a fasting state.

Shaved 18 seconds off since friday (12.1 km/h), will try 12.8 km/h tomorrow to try and break the 11:30 barrier whilst in a fasting state. I normally only increase by 0.1 km/h, per session, but decided to try harder and see what happens.

I do IF and only eat between 4pm and 8pm, I also eat a lot of chillies, hot sauce, jalapeno vinegar, etc in order to increase a thermogenic reaction too when I am not in a fasting state. Sauna and keep wrapped up for a few hours too after my running to increase metabolism and thermogenic reaction.

Hope this will boost fat loss in the coming weeks, I have been getting lazy with my diet and pigging out a lot.
 
Lew said:
Hope this is the correct thread to post in.

Bought some running trainers from the Nike store. They had me on the running machine and filmed me running I seem to turn my ankle when I run. Shop assistant recommended me a more supportive shoe. tried some on the running machine for a couple of minutes seemed fine. Just started wearing them round the house and the right shoe feels good but the left feels like the arch of my foot isn't sitting correctly feels like its digging into the side.
I didn’t want to risk running in them and finding they hurt to much then of wasted a lot of money.
Any thoughts?
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Do you have any independent running stores near by? If so go to them and have your gait checked and then tell them about your visit to nike and show them what they sold you and how you're finding them. They may suggest something different.

What trainers did they sell you out of curiosity?
 
Lew said:
Hope this is the correct thread to post in.

Bought some running trainers from the Nike store. They had me on the running machine and filmed me running I seem to turn my ankle when I run. Shop assistant recommended me a more supportive shoe. tried some on the running machine for a couple of minutes seemed fine. Just started wearing them round the house and the right shoe feels good but the left feels like the arch of my foot isn't sitting correctly feels like its digging into the side.
I didn’t want to risk running in them and finding they hurt to much then of wasted a lot of money.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Yes. You did the right thing by getting your gait checked. The only glitch in the system is you might not be best suited to Nike trainers. Like King85, I would recommend going to somewhere like Sweatshop or an independent where you can get your gait checked and they will let you try on a few different brands. You MUST choose the trainer that fits you the best and the brand is not important. You may find the Nike is best after all, but it's probably best to not run in the ones you bought in case you need to return them in favour of a Saucony/Reebok/Asics/Mizuno/etc :)
 
Thanks King and Jonny for the replies

They sold me Nike Lunar eclipse 3's. Went back to Nike today chatted with two shop assistants and explained the problem with the arch issue of my left foot. Had to go back to Nike as my wife bought me the shoes for my birthday I couldn't get a refund because I didn't have her card otherwise I would have looked elsewhere. So I tried on a different pair which still offer the same benefits I picked up some Lunar glide 4's and they feel amazing been walking round the house in them.

Will hit the tarmac tomorrow and post back :)
 
Question for the experienced runners. How long do you think you can go without running before seeing a drop in your performance / times.

e.g. 3-5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 14 days, etc.

Say if I never ran for 7 or 8 days, would my stamina and performance be hindered at all?

Or how regularly do you need to run to maintain your current fitness? at least 2 times per week? or at least 5 times over 2 weeks? etc.
 
When I'm not training for an event, I run or cycle every day commuting. Before an event, I'll force myself to rest for a whole week, i.e. do absolutely nothing except rest and eat. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it puts you in a state of full recovery and you're stronger for the event. At the moment I'm training for a marathon and I'm only running twice a week. I'm restricting activity to purely my long run at the weekend and one short one during the week to keep everything in check and make sure the feet don't soften up etc. I don't think I've lost any cardio by doing that, I'm just doing enough to keep it ticking over.

I would say after two weeks of zero activity I notice a difference. By then my legs start losing mass and my cardio doesn't feel so good. That said, my Parkrun 5k times are practically identical before and after Christmas which is my main break from everything, so read into that what you can?
 
I have had a similar experience to Jonny69 when it comes to periods of inactivity. I was unwell recently and didn't run for a couple of weeks. I then went for a run last week and wasn't any slower than I was prior to taking a break, though I must admit my perceived effort was higher. I then took another week off and ran on Tuesday, again expecting it to be ruinously hard work. I actually ran my fastest ever 5k, which surprised me.
 
i managed to hit 11:30 for 1.5 miles @ 11.8 km/h.

next time at the gym i tried 12.1 km/h and my shoelace came loose at roughly 9 minutes and i felt i was struggling, stopped, tied back up and continued running. obviously i did not do it properly but next time i tried 12.2 km/h anyway and i only lasted about 9 minutes again before i had to walk to recovery. i felt there was no way i was going to last at that pace. ended up running for longer than usual though overall to help build stamina.

so next time i will go a step back try 11.8 km/h again, and then only increase by 0.1 km/h every session. it seems to be the easiest and simplest way to progress. increasing by 0.3 km/h was just too much for me.

may re-introduce a longer run once a week in order to build stamina as well.

how much water do you guys drink? i usually consume 3 litres a day, but i do use the sauna every gym session, which really dehydrates me. i try and get half a pint in me before entering the sauna to compensate.
 
Seemed like a nicer day today so we went for an 8.5k run down the canal. Longest run since mid Jan knee injury and 3rd 8k run in six days, all feels fine for now.
 
Well I've done an 8.5k on Friday, a 5.5k on Monday (major hill runs) and a 7.5k tonight, all outside. Knee is fine and I've been doing 19k recovery workouts on the static bike. Busy week really.
 
Went for a run this afternoon and felt ok so stretched it out to 10K, managed it in 44:53 so it gives me an idea of what to aim for in the Manchester 10K. I've told them 49-51 minutes when I registered, I'm thinking i should be looking to break 44 minutes now.
 
44 min 10k is madness, you'd be 2.5k ahead of me at 44mins lol. My pace is rubbish @ about 9.5 min miles.

Parkrun 5k for us at 9am tommorow :)
 
I'm hoping to get my 10k time down towards the end of the year. Only ever done three in three years so should really be looking to double that amount this year if I can find races easy enough to get to. PB at the moment is 46.07 on quite a tough course. Would like to do this one again actually just too compare times and it'll be a good measure as well with it being exactly the same. There is another race at the end of the year coming up I've done before as well. Definitely want to see this come down to Sub 45:00 maybe even 44:00.
 
I think pushing 5k's has helped my pace a lot. I got my 5K time down to just over 21 minutes and I now find I can run 4:30 pace comfortably without getting out of breath, the splits on my run today were all between 4:20 and 4:40/k apart from the last one I did in 4:07.
 
Hey everyone,

I've wanted to start running for a while, to help get fitter and lose weight, so I signed up to the Bristol 10k a few weeks ago to help push me towards something, so I've started training this week.
I ran 10k at the start of the week to get a base time, which was just under one hour, which isn't too bad seeing as I've only run 5k about twice the past half year, and nothing before that since high school (5+ years ago).

I'm fairly clued up about nutrition/macros and eat healthily, but I'm just wondering whether my plan looks the most effective?
So about me, I'm 21, 5' 10" and 170lb (I've put on quite a bit since half a year ago :( so I'm trying to get it back down). I eat a lowish (100-150g) carb diet which I get from fruit and veg. I carb load weekly where I eat pasta/rice/potatoes/cous cous, etc.

So, with respect to that, I'm aiming to run every day if possible (at least every other day). There's just over 4 weeks left until the Bristol 10k, so I was planning to push my 5k time for the first 3 weeks, whilst running one 10k a week (the day after carb loading). Then for the last week, run 10k every (other) day. Sound like a plan? Or can I manage it better?

And after the Bristol 10k, I'll probably start doing a mix of 5k and 10k throughout the week, or even 15k depending on how quickly my endurance improves.
 
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