Nearly 50 percent of recreational runners who participate in distance running end up with a running injury each year. And 82 percent of them suffer such injury in their lifetime. Definitely, we admire every runner out there waking up in wee hours to get in a run and pushing through built-up lactic acid for the last km. But pushing through a stubborn pain or injury is hardly a solution right?

Weightlifters have significantly different physiques as runners. They also use different energy pathways to drive their workout. While we’re not saying that you should be rapidly stacking up weights, including strength training into your training regime would allow you to reap the benefits of both worlds.

#1 Work your leg muscles

For runners, your quads, hamstrings, ankle and hip flexibility are clearly going to be most essential. Starting with a squat would help with just that. However, squat can be really damaging to your lower back and knees if not done well. There are kinetic checkpoints to watch out for: a) Your knees should be in line with your toes and pointing forward; b) Your upper body should be upright and; c) Your back should be in neutral. The best way would be to have a professional have spot you and watch your form.

#2 Work your lower back

When you’re at your 35km mark, your upper body might collapse forward due to weariness. When you’ve been at your computer the entire day before the run, your head might be arched forward. All these just add more weight to what your lower back might already be holding up. This makes it really, really important to strengthen the lower back. One exercise would be deadlift. Similarly, be sure to check the proper form online and have a partner spot you if this is your first time.

#3 Work your core stability

This refers to how you maintain your upper body stability with respect to your lower body. When you run, there’s a lot of hip rotation going on. Instead of pitching forward or arching your back, you should be able to maintain rotational stability. Otherwise, inhibiting your core muscles, would in turn restricts your hips and ultimately, your leg movements. A Russian Twist demands that you rotate your abdominal muscles while maintaining trunk stability in all other planes.

Our body works as a kinetic chain. To become a truly strong runner, working other parts of your kinetic chain (and not just your legs!) is just as important. More than just a virtue, strength is needed to ace your next race!

There are probably a couple of accomplishments you’ve made thus far. You might not have noticed them, but they’re definitely worth celebrating.

You went ahead to register for your first race and to some extent, you’ve made some investment into this new promise you made. Commitment to effort is an admirable trait that many runners, beginner and experienced alike, possess. You mastered the first trait – you try.

You headed out for a morning run. That’s amazing! Especially if you’ve never worked out in the morning before, or you’re usually a late riser. You’re probably beginning to realise what good it’s been doing to your mental alertness and focus throughout the day. That takes some amount of planning, and of course, discipline.

You kept to your resolve and packed a gym bag to work. During lunch or before heading home after work, you went for a quick run out in the city. That’s impressive because running later in the day usually means more excuses has piled up – the weather looks bad, the traffic is heavy… but you didn’t relent! That’s good effort on your part.

You have started reading a couple of running blogs and googled “training plan online for free.” Browsing through, you might have came across a pretty legitimate plan, that seems marginally feasible to follow through with. And you did. Today is speed play, or intervals, or hill sprints, and painful as it is, you stuck to it. There is a training plan and you remained focused on it.

Thing is, running can be a long journey. Training for a half-marathon can take up to 16 weeks to do so safely; and training for marathons can take about 6 months! After your first race, there’s the challenge of beating your PB. You’d also come to realize that there’s a lot to learn about the sport – from what types of nutrition are best for your body to what kinds of strength training would benefit runners most.

In this journey you may or may not be just discovering, remember to celebrate every small achievements you’ve made. They’re yours, be proud of them!

Just like the fitness industry with their #fitspo, inspiring marathoners would tell you that the key to their training success is consistency. We jump from fitness trends like popcorns ready to be eaten – from Bikram Yoga to Powerlifting. The thing is, training for a race requires you to stay focused. Focus on the training plan you’ve decided on and the goal pace you’re working towards.

Your training plan is meant to protect you from injuries and ensure that you’re developing your strength (upper, core and lower), endurance and power holistically. The only acceptable change is when you’re adding speed to your workout or looking at new running routes for motivation on your long runs. The fundamentals of your training does not change.

BUT, we get it.

It can be difficult staying energised and let alone focused for every single training. So we’re here to share you 3 methods to do just that.

#1 When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time

If the mileage seems too intimidating, break them up into bite-sized distances. Do a 4-km round loop to cover 8km and tell yourself ‘Let me finish this loop first.’ For hill sprints, focus on that 1-rep and tell yourself that you want quality over quantity. Think about whether you’re maintaining proper form, or maintaining a consistent pace for a long run and focus on the one bite you have ready at your spoon.

#2 Listen to audiobooks

Unlike music, which is more about having a beat that matches the rhythm of your pace, audiobooks keep you engaged. You aren’t thinking so much about whether this song is too fast or too slow. It’s an additional entertainment during your run. Some of us listen to podcast or the radio to keep updated as well.

#3 Run with a friend

Both of you keep each other on track with pacing. For tempo runs, where you’re supposed to keep your exertion level just above conversational but below breathlessness (so you should be able to talk in choppy sentences), you can track how well you’re keeping to the training pace as well.

Often times, the best motivation is progress. So when you see yourself improving, celebrate it. This would encourage you to stay on track and focused.

Author Mark Will-Weber once said, “Running is real and relatively simple, but it ain’t easy.”

Ultramarathoners and national record holders don’t just happen. What’s behind them is hours of dedicated long runs, holistic workouts and a fair share of blisters and painful muscle cramps. Whether you’ve signed up for 5K, 10K or had the impressive courage of taking on the next Ironman, you need to put in your due diligence and we’re here to tell you how to do so smartly.

An important aspect of training (including distance runners) is to add in speed work. Our cardio strengthens much faster than our tendons and ligaments. Easy, long runs are necessary for developing endurance. However, to really improve your muscles’ (including our heart’s) responsiveness, speed work is important.

Fartlek

This is a swedish term for ‘speed play.’ The uniqueness of this training form is its emphasis on ‘play.’ It is meant to be unstructured and alternating between moderate-to-hard efforts. During your regular training run, play with the speed and duration of higher intensities. It could be sprinting past the runner with neon pink shirt 400m ahead, or just keeping up with a faster pace for 10min. It’s entirely up to you! The entire run itself should average out into an easy run. The irregularity of fartlek teaches your body to adapt quickly and allows you to train for speed.

Intervals

They sound scary as hell but they do wonders in training your physiology and psychology. After your warm up, go all out for the next 1 min. You should be above your anaerobic threshold and having difficulty talking. Then, do a slow jog for the next 2-3 mins. If you’re new to this (or just frightened at the prospect of how exhausting this sounds), start with longer break intervals. During which, learn to control your pace. Then, you won’t tire yourself out before the next sprint. This is an important skill for longer distance runs from 10K to ultramarathons.

Explosive Hill Sprints

Unlike the training methods above, hill sprints are considered alactic. This means that they don’t result in the buildup of lactic acid in your body. Continuously performing speed trainings that push you above your lactate threshold would lead to a decrease in lower body’s pH. After 6 to 8 weeks, you’d burn out and this would interfere in subsequent training efforts. Hill sprints don’t do that. Start with 10-15s of hill sprints just once or twice per week. Once you’re more comfortable, add 2-3 reps per week. Remember to add reps gradually. You can do this as a standalone training or after your easy runs.

For those who’d like to seek more professional advice or get some structured training, JRL Academy encompasses a comprehensive selection of speed work, pace runs and strengthening exercises. In the next few days, we’d be sharing more essentials for smashing any race so let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to hear about!

Now that you’ve decided to try, here are a few starting points for you.

What to wear for runs: Shoes are clearly going to be the most important and there are tons of options out there for you. Imagining the shoe construction – think about the amount of support you want (cushioned or minimal cushioning), the sole flexibility and its overall fit. One easily neglected part of the shoe is the shoe width, or the ‘toe box’ area. Giving your toes enough flexibility would help with a lowering the impact from a forefoot to midfoot strike (which is also a better form). This protects your joints and tissues when engaging in high impact sports such as running. For starters, pick up your regular pair of running/multi-purpose sports shoes. Do a few kilometers in them in a comfortable pace. This is to give you a feel of how your feet rolls off the ground and how your body maintains its form. As you gain more experience, you can then consider investing in a more elaborate pair of running shoes. It would then be good for you to make a trip down to the specialty store yourself. No amount of reading is going to make up for the understanding you get by trying those shoes on.

When to run: The best time to run is in the morning, and the second best time is whenever you’ve time. There’s really no ‘rule’ but running in the morning does have its benefits. It kickstarts your metabolism and leaves you more refreshed. You are also more likely to get your training runs in, instead of hiding behind excuses that have piled up throughout the day. If you’re not a morning person and waking up to run feels like you’re mistreating yourself, do some simple warm ups to get yourself in the mood.

How to start your run: Shawn M. Arent, an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, has been appearing in a trending video on Facebook this couple of weeks. He tells us that we shouldn’t stretch before a workout. It’s ironic but holding a stretch for 30s is ineffective for two reasons: 1) it doesn’t warm up our muscles or get up our heart rate to prepare us for the run; 2) it forcefully pulls at our short muscles, which might have been under-active from hours of sitting. Pulling at it is going to be like tugging at a stretched-out rubber band; it’s going to snap. Instead, do 2-3 sets of 10 lunges, squats and push ups.

Again, there are lots of resources out there for you and within Just Run Lah! website itself. If you can’t find them, just shoot us a comment!

Before any race, you might feel apprehension.

You might feel like you aren’t ready for this, or that maybe your body just isn’t designed for endurance. Even if you’re already used to lacing up your shoes and going out for a sweaty workout, you might not feel like running very much that day. From one runner to another, it’s normal.

From the time you decide to embark on a training program all through to race day, the process is probably going to be riddled with hesitation and exhaustion pushing you to the brink of giving up. That is why, running is as much a physical challenge as it is a mental one. Yet the most fulfilling pursuit we can embark on, is the journey of figuring out what you are capable of. You have never did a 10km or garnered up enough discipline for anything, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. The idea of signing up for a race is not suggesting that you buck up and start thinking of the impossible. It’s about giving yourself more credit and trying.

Running, like anything else, allows you to start slow. Walk 30 mins a day, for at least 5 days a week. If you find that it’s getting easier, walk the first 20mins and run the last 10mins. There are numerous modalities such as increasing workout time or distance for you to play with. Whether you’re planning to achieve a 15-second 100m sprint or finish a marathon under 4h, there are going to be different sets of challenges that you face along the way. It can be intimidating, but fret not – there are plenty of resources out there for you. Online resources can tell you how to stay safe, avoid injuries, or what to do if you’re too busy for a run. There are also professionals that can give you guidance. Along the way, you might discover the breadth of knowledge related to running. It could be about running surfaces or about cross-training. Most importantly, we have people who have been there done that and would love to share their experiences with others. As Claire (jogger turned runner) advises new runners, “Just Run Lah! You start by enjoying the experience.” The thing is, you aren’t going to be alone in this.

There is going to be plenty of support you can find out there, but before anything can happen, you need to allow yourself to try.

Runners enjoy running. Being breathless and sweaty after overcoming another medium-distance training can leave us feeling exhilarated. So we easily assume that we’re invincible – we like to think that we don’t need resting, and just more compression gear should suffice. But like any other complex machinery, our body needs taking care of and proper maintenance is especially needed before race day.

We give you 5 tips to make your race day better.

The Mistake: Going for a final training run

If you’ve been training a few weeks for this race, it’d be even more difficult to pull in the reigns and allow yourself to rest. Your muscles and ligaments have worked hard these past weeks. Just like studying for your ‘A’ levels (here’s to those right in the midst of it!), you need to take breaks. Recharge. Give your body enough time to repair its muscles so that you may feel refreshed on race day. What you should do: Do dynamic workouts such as squats and lunges, and keep them light.

The Mistake: Carb loading

You organise a buffet session with your buddies to load up glycogen stores for the race. Sounds like a win-win situation. That only works if you’re planning on eating whole grains and nuts. These are the right carbs that would actually leave you feeling satisfied and energised for next day’s run. Otherwise, bad carbs such as pizza and fries are just going to give you a ‘sugar rush’ and leave you hungrier the next day. Furthermore, eating too much at one go might screw up your digestive system. What you should do: Make good carbs the main portions of your meals and eat just enough to feel satisfied.

The Mistake: New workout gear

Outfits that your body isn’t comfortable with might interfere with your race day performance. For new shoes, you might end up with blisters at the front of your foot or near the ankles. Your running gait might also change slightly due to the unfamiliar shape of the shoes. What you should do: Stick with what you trained for and are comfortable in.

The Mistake: Sleeping late

Catching up on TV drama till 5am in the morning is unwise. For obvious reasons, you don’t get enough rest. Ideally, give you the 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It allows other systems to go into standby and repair mode. That is crucial for endurance athletes and even more so before the race, when you need to feel as energized as possible. What you should do: Wind down for the night once dinner has ended and go to bed early

The Mistake: Alcohol

Drinking alcohol leaves you dehydrated and just 2 percent of dehydration can slow you down. Furthermore, it causes you to take more bathroom breaks. If it happens at night, it interrupts your sleep. If it happens during the race, it disrupts your race time. What you should do: Drink water throughout the day. Sometimes, you might continue to feel dehydrated, try taking electrolyte drinks then.

There are a couple of other things that might make you feel ever ready for your race. It could be a jolt of caffeine or getting up early and moving the next day. The general rule of thumb here is that you should avoid over-stimulating your body with anything too harsh (like running at the last minute) or too unexpected (like carb loading).