In short Build up slowly, run mostly easy, sleep, get stronger, look after your shoes and your plate, listen to pain, follow a realistic plan and keep the fun.
Before you lace up
Running is simple: one foot in front of the other, then repeat. Running for years, regularly, without spending your Saturdays at the physio, is subtler. Good news: the essentials fit in a few rules, valid for a first 5K as much as a tenth marathon. Here they are, carved in stone. Well, in a text file.
1. Thou shalt build up gradually
Your heart and lungs adapt quickly. Your tendons, bones and joints adapt more slowly: they need time to get used to the load. The classic trap is feeling great and doubling your mileage overnight. Three weeks later, your Achilles tendon files a complaint.
The best-known guideline is the "10% rule": don't increase your weekly volume by more than about 10% from one week to the next. It is a guideline, not a law of physics, but the idea is right: climb in small steps, and give yourself a lighter week regularly.
2. Thou shalt run slowly, most of the time
The most counter-intuitive commandment: to run faster, you mostly need to run slowly. Easy running, the pace at which you can hold a conversation, builds your base without wearing you out and lets you string the weeks together.
Many coaches use the "80/20" guideline: roughly 80% of training at an easy effort, roughly 20% at higher intensities (intervals, threshold, race pace). Again, an order of magnitude. The simplest test: if you can't say "I'd love another slice of lasagne" without splitting the sentence in two, you're not running easy.
3. Thou shalt keep rest days holy
You don't improve during the session but afterwards, while your body repairs and adapts. Without recovery, training piles up, and so does fatigue. Plan at least one day without running each week, more if you're a beginner or stacking hard sessions. A rest day is not a lost day: it is the day training starts to pay.
And the best recovery tool costs nothing: it's called sleep. Regular, sufficient nights beat any gadget.
4. Thou shalt not skip the warm-up and cool-down
Starting intervals cold is like taking the car out of the garage in January and going straight onto the motorway. Before a hard session or a race, take 10 to 20 minutes to warm up: very easy jogging, a little mobility, drills (high knees, butt kicks, side steps), then two or three progressive strides.
Afterwards, don't stop dead: a few minutes of very slow jogging or walking to come down gently. Stretching? Runners have argued about it for ages. If you enjoy it, go gently, without forcing and without chasing a flexibility record.
5. Thou shalt strengthen thy calves (and the rest)
Running means absorbing thousands of foot strikes on every run, through your calves, thighs, glutes and core. Strength work helps your body handle that load and keep good posture when fatigue sets in. Two short 15 to 20 minute sessions a week, no equipment needed, is a great start:
- calves: calf raises, on both feet then on one;
- glutes: glute bridges, squats, lunges;
- core: front and side planks, back nicely straight.
Don't worry: your chicken legs will stay chicken legs. We love them that way. They'll just be better armed.
6. Thou shalt cherish thy shoes (but not forever)
Running shoes wear out, even when they still look presentable. Smooth patches on the sole, cushioning that feels flat, an upper losing its shape: time to think about it. You'll often hear 500 to 800 km, but that's an order of magnitude that depends on the model, your build, your stride and the surfaces. Keep track of the mileage of each pair.
And the golden rule: never race in brand-new shoes. Taking them out of the box on race morning is playing roulette with blisters. Break them in over several runs, including at least one long one.
7. Thou shalt eat and drink like an athlete
You don't need a special diet to run, but your body needs fuel and building materials. A varied diet, with carbohydrates for energy (starches, fruit, bread), protein for muscle repair, vegetables and good fats, covers the essentials. Skipping meals "to make up for" your runs is the best way to run out of energy. If you have specific needs, a doctor or dietitian can guide you.
As for hydration, drink regularly through the day without waiting to be very thirsty, a little more when it's hot. No need to force down litres either: drinking too much is no better than too little. For long runs, especially in summer, bring something to drink.
8. Thou shalt listen to thy pain
Stiffness at the start of a run that fades once warm, soreness the day after a hard session: that's usually the normal price of effort. Sharp, localised pain that grows during the run, makes you limp, returns on every run or persists at rest: that's a stop sign, not a challenge.
In that case, ease off, don't "run through it", and if it lasts more than a few days, see someone: a doctor, physio or podiatrist depending on the case. Better to lose a week now than the whole season later. Your shin doesn't read your training plan.
9. Thou shalt vary thy sessions
The same route every day at the same pace ends up boring your head and stalling your progress. Mix it up:
- easy running, the foundation of everything;
- intervals, for speed;
- the long run, for endurance (and patience);
- hills, for strength;
- terrain: road, trails, track, park, so you don't always wear out the same pavement.
No need to fit it all in every week: one or two quality sessions surrounded by easy runs is already very good.
10. Thou shalt follow a plan and a realistic goal
A training plan is a roadmap: it doses progress, places key sessions and lighter weeks, and saves you from improvising according to your mood. Choose it for your current level, your target distance and the number of runs you can really fit in. A five-runs-a-week plan, when you manage two, is someone else's plan.
As for your goal, be ambitious but honest with yourself. A realistic goal motivates; a crazy one risks injuring or discouraging you. And a plan is not a contract: sick, exhausted or injured, you adapt. Nobody will check.
Bonus: thou shalt keep the fun
Yes, there are eleven commandments. This one is a bit like the last 195 metres of a marathon: you'd stopped expecting it, but it might be the most important. If every run becomes a chore, change something: a new route, a club run, a training partner, a fun race on the calendar, or a week without a watch. Consistency is what makes you improve, and you're only consistent at what you enjoy.
And the day your well-trained calves want to bring home something other than soreness, you know where to rent them out.
The Leg Up team
Sunday runners (and Thursday-night ones) who decided their calves deserved a salary. We write Le Ravito between two long runs.