- All runners make mistakes
at some point within their training,
and most certainly within their racing too,
and in some cases we repeat those mistakes
over and over again, myself included.
So today I thought we could take this opportunity
to reflect upon those mistakes, learn from them,
so that we don't make the same mistakes again.
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Okay, let's start off with your trainers.
Now most people take somewhere between 1,000
and 2,000 steps per mile when they're running,
and if we think about a 10-kilometer run,
and we take that up round to 2,000 steps per mile
and equate that over the 10-kilometers,
that works out at 12,420 steps over the course of a 10K.
Now, let's take a moment and think
about our trainers during that.
That is a lot of pounding of the pavement, treadmill,
or trails or whatever you're running on.
So it really does highlight the need
to have correctly fitting trainers
and trainers that work well for your gait.
But we also need to consider the lifetime
and the wear of your trainers.
Now I'd love to say that your trainers
are going to last you forever and ever,
but I'm afraid that simply isn't the case.
Typically they'll last somewhere between 450 and 550 miles.
Beyond that point, we start to find that they become
less supportive and less cushioned,
both of which can lead to niggles and injuries,
which ironically can end up costing you more money
as you try to sort out those niggles and injuries.
So do yourself a favor and keep an eye
on the wear of your trainers.
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Now when you're getting go of running,
it can be all to easy to get excited
and end up doing too much too soon.
Many mistakenly think that more is better
when it comes to running, but before they know it,
they're on the sidelines dealing with injury.
Instead, try to be conservative
in terms of how often you run and how far you run,
particularly so when you're starting out.
We often advise following the 10% rule,
so you're never increasing a run
by more than 10% in terms of the mileage
or the duration and also from week to week.
This will allow your body time
to recover, adapt and develop.
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Are you a one-route kind of person?
Perhaps you've figured out a perfect 5K
from the door of your house,
so you just do that over and over again.
Okay, fundamentally there's nothing wrong with that,
and I can understand it's probably really time efficient,
but what I would say is that there is
more to running than that.
Go and explore and enjoy; it's great fun.
I do also appreciate some people
are limited with their route choices.
There aren't so many routes readily available to them.
But something to consider if you are doing
the same route over and over again,
and perhaps it's on quite a hard surface,
the tarmac, pavement, sidewalk,
that's a lot of repeated impact through the joints.
But if you can mix up that terrain,
perhaps do a little bit of off-road,
trail, and on the sidewalk,
that is going to be much better for your body.
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Okay, a big mistake that I used to make
and still do make from time to time,
particularly so when I'm getting tired, is overstriding.
Now what I mean by overstriding
is that we're landing heel-first
with our leg out in front of our bodies' center of gravity.
Now this causes a couple of issues,
one of which is that by landing with our heel first,
that is essentially like a breaking force,
but that also creates a big issue.
It sends a lot of force up through the leg
that can result in injuries such as shin splints,
stress reactions, even stress fractures.
Now to prevent this you want to try and land
on your midfoot underneath your body.
Now when we are overstriding,
which we're trying to prevent doing,
what we're trying to do there
is actually take really big steps.
We want to reduce that, so a tip here is actually to imagine
that you're running on hot coals,
and you're trying to take really light, quick steps
so you don't burn the soles of your feet.
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Similarly to doing too much too soon,
we've also got those that like to go out too fast.
Now Heather and Fraser seem to think
that this is me down to a tee.
Personally I have no idea what they're on about.
Now I do understand though that when you're in a race
and everyone's going off at breakneck speeds around you,
it can be very hard to restrain yourself
and hold yourself back.
But what I would say, if you can stick to your game plan,
stick to your pace, it's amazing how many of those people
you will pass later on in the race,
and the satisfaction of doing so.
So stick to your race, your pace, not someone else's.
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Have you ever got 1/2 way around a run,
perhaps as far away from home as you can be,
and realize that you're lacking fuel,
you're bonking, or perhaps you're dehydrated.
Yeah, it is not a pleasant feeling
and nor is it actually good for you in the long run,
because actually by bonking,
lacking fuel, getting dehydrated,
it's putting a lot of stress on your body,
and that's going to take a lot of time to recover from.
So to prevent this you actually
want to be thinking about fueling up
and take some hydration on
around one to two hours before you plan to run.
It's going to allow your body time to process that,
perhaps even factoring in a little loo stop before your run.
And if needs be, take some fuel and some fluids with you,
and of course make sure you do the same
when you get back from your run.
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Now when I first started running,
I used to carry my shoulders a bit like a boxer.
It's something I see a lot of people do.
Basically, they're right up around my ears.
They're really tense.
That restricted my movement and restricted my breathing
and restricted my arm carriage
and obviously wasted a lot of energy.
Instead, you want to be relaxing those shoulders down,
trying to carry your arms at approximately
around a 90-degree bend in your elbow
from your forearm to your upper arm.
Now, as you're running, what I found really helps,
is actually making a little bit
of a mental checklist of your upper body.
So you think about relaxing your jaw,
relaxing your shoulders,
and thinking about that swing in your arms.
Another thing that I find really helps
is actually just dropping my arms down occasionally,
really floppy, and then just bringing them back up
into that 90-degree bend.
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Okay I'm going to tackle another technical point here,
but I'm actually going to refrain from calling it a mistake,
because it's actually kind of perfectly normal,
but it's just something to be mindful of
and try and progress from with time,
and that is dragging your feet.
Now if you ever watch an elite-level runner,
you'll see that they really lift their knee up quite high.
I'm not talking quite as high as sprinters like Usain Bolt,
but there is definitely a high knee lift,
and that is really helping
with the dry phase of the running.
Now the key muscle within this knee lift
is actually our hamstring,
'cause that helps to pick that foot up behind.
So to work on this I'd actually suggest
doing a few slow drills,
and that's really going to help work on that form.
You can also do a few exercises in the gym
to strengthen the glutes and the hamstring
to really hold that form well,
particularly so under fatigue.
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All right, and my final mistake,
and it's a pretty big and common one,
and that is not warming up.
Come one, own up; how many of you quite regularly
head out of the door at quite a pace
with absolutely zero warmup?
Yeah, I know you're out there.
And now the problem here is that your muscles are cold,
they're less supple, and they're less active,
and that is putting you at far greater risk of injury,
and also not forgetting the fact
that it's just not setting you up well for that workout
and making sure that you're getting the most
and the best quality out of that.
Now the absolute ideal is actually to do
a light dynamic warmup or exercises
before you actually head out of the door.
Failing that, though, you can just use
the first one, two, or three kilometers of your run
and just do it at a nice easy pace
to really warm the body up gradually.
Now in the same manner,
we've also obviously got the cool-down,
and how many of you just finish a run
and are very happy just to sit down
and have it done and dusted?
The problem here is that you're not
flushing the body of the toxins
and bringing your heart rate down gradually.
That's going to actually increase your recovery time
and perhaps even have a knock-on effect for future runs.
So, if you can, just hang in there,
do a couple of minutes at the minimum,
just at a nice easy pace
just to bring that heart rate down gradually.
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