5 Things to keep in mind once you start to run

This is part 2 to a pre­vi­ous arti­cle about the ben­e­fits run­ning brings you

(1) Drink plenty of water

On a hot day or dur­ing a long run your body can loose up to 2L of water an hour, so drink plenty of water before you run. If your body is dehy­drated your per­for­mance will fall dras­ti­cally and it will take the fun out of run­ning. I sug­gest a big glass of roomtem­per­a­ture water before each run. Drink­ing water there is to cold might make your stom­ach cramp.

(2) Start off easy

Run­ning for 20–35 min­utes 2 or 3 times a week will be more than enough to improve the shape your in and also make run­ning seem fun. Remem­ber to be real­is­tic, lower your ambi­tions. If you’re not used to run­ning, than for­get every­thing about par­tic­i­pat­ing in any longer runs or marathons for the first year. It can take years before your body gets used to run­ning long dis­tances, lis­ten to what your body tells you, pain is a sign of some­thing is wrong. The eas­ier you start off the less likely you will be to get injured.

                      

(3) Make it a habit

As a begin­ner the most impor­tant part of run­ning is mak­ing it a habit. It’s much eas­ier to make it a habit if you write down 2–3 days in your weekly cal­en­dar where you’re going to run, in that way you don’t risk for­get­ting about hav­ing to run because some­thing else came up and it will help you to get out the door on days where you might not feel like run­ning. On days where the moti­va­tion is lack­ing I like to think of all the ben­e­fits run­ning brings me. Once you got past the first 4–6 weeks of train­ing you’ll start to enjoy run­ning much more and even find your­self start­ing to look for­ward to your next run. I know I am.

(4) Vari­a­tion is impor­tant

Keep­ing your train­ing var­ied is an impor­tant part of you train­ing, vari­a­tion not only keeps you moti­vated but it also helps you to improve. Try mix­ing thing up by some­time run­ning shorter and faster runs or some­times run longer than you use to, run­ning your nor­mal route in reverse or even bet­ter run­ning gives you a change to explore you neigh­bour­hood and see some of the thing you nor­mally just drive by, oth­er­wise its like hav­ing the same food for din­ner every­day within a week or two I’ll get tired of it. I remem­ber read­ing about a gut who kept grow­ing more and more fond of the neigh­bour­hood he lived in because every time he went out for a run he would go explor­ing and every time he would find some­thing new he liked. 

                          

(5) Make sure to stretch your legs before and after you run

This helps to pre­vent injuries and helps the mus­cles relax. You legs will also feel a lot bet­ter the fol­low­ing day.

Remem­ber!

Be care­ful, if you push your­self to hard its going to have a bad effect on your body, your body needs to rest and reset. If you feel any­thing start­ing to hurt in a bad way go see a doc­tor, the ten­dons and lig­a­ments in your legs are very frag­ile so be careful.