Warriors 09 - Practical virgin runner seeks advice

No problem, glad to hear you went out Pocabella. Im from Strandhill (working in Dublin) and try and do it every year. Its going to be great this year. Both yourself and Moon Dancer will love it. Its a great feeling running down towards the finish at the beach when its nearly finished!

The Daniels plan is really good. It is very do-able all the way and in no time youre able to run for a long stretch and feeling good and fit.

Post here for advice or you can PM me (either of ye) any time ye want.

MoonDancer wrote: »

I had the porridge and coffee at 8:30 am then toast & water about 15 mins before I went out for the run

Hi MoonDancer.

I would say Hail might be right there.
Sometimes when you are digesting food and exercising you can run out of energy. Your not digesting the food quickly due to the exercise and this means youre not getting any energy released for the exercise, like a catch 22.

You need to eat longer before exercise or have nothing at all or something small (like a banana) before heading out. Dont have anything too sugary though as this stops slow release energy and could cause a mid run slump after the sugar is gone and before the slow release process catches up again.

Another solution might be to have a carbohydrate rich meal as your evening meal the evening before. This should stock your muscles with energy for the morning.

When you try it the next morning go very easy for the first few.

Do you think you may have been down on energy from the day/days before nutrition wise?

Peterx wrote: »

I bow to T-runner's lactate buffering knowledge but have always found cycling to be very helpful with regards to running uphills, especially mountain biking although commuting to work is also OK.

As with any other form of running, interval sessions will help too.

Baby steps, always baby steps and always start up the hill 30% slower then you thinnk you need or else you'll be reduced to walking before you top out.

Peterx is right about everything there. Cycling seems to give a major boost climbing power especially for the more shallow climbs where you use your quads.

Pumping the arms does help but is energy sapping and should only be done near the end of a climb.

For a road climb you need to keep your cadence but lower your stride lenght.
Do not do big steps slowly.

Off road: If you do a "mountain walk" for the steep sections you will use your quads too.
The runner has to decide if a steep uphill is worth running or not on race day.
That is the second part of the Knocknarea climb in the case of the warriors run. You will use your calves for steep off road uphill running.

To train for these you need to build climbing endurance in your legs.
As it is training it doesnt matter how slow you go up the hill the important thing is to get as far as possible up the hill. Do exremely slow with small steps and try and make it up as far as you can. Try and incorporate a few of these climbs into a longish run.

After you have more endurance and you can get through these hills you can work on your climbing speed and fitness with hill intervals. eg 2 mins hard uphill 1 min rest. 6 times starting out up to 10 times for someone on 150k per week(thats not me BTW!).

So for advanced training for the warriors run you might do long running in hills, a mixture of hill intervals, tempo runs, intervals and easy running on the flat with as much cycling as possible. No more than 2 runs on the hills per week to keep leg speed.

For that race build your strenght first and then you can work on you speed closer to the race. IMO strenght and stamina are the first prerequisites for the race followed by road speed.



Heres a section from an article on Hill Running by John Lenihan (6 times Warriors Run winner) from the IMRA site

On the climb focus on staying relaxed as possible. Train yourself to focus on what you are doing, short steps, knees close together (except on slippery slopes) lifting your legs on to an imaginary stairs, just lifting the legs not pushing forward. Learn to change posture on the run to relieve tired muscles without having to walk. For example, if running with bent knees for a long time when the muscles begin to scream at you, try reverting to running a few steps allowing the knees to straighten. Feel the instant relief as you imagine that you can feel blocked blood flow moving freely to muscles starved of oxygen.Remember stay relaxed, ease up the hill don't fight it and focus. This sounds easier than it is; anyone can concentrate for a few minutes but try holding this focus for a 90 minute race! Conserve energy with as little body movement as possible.

MoonDancer wrote: »

WOW! There really is so much I don't know yet!
That makes perfect sense, I did have dinner earlier then usual the day before about 4pm, usually it's between 5 & 6pm. back when I was a competing gymnast, I always had a big dinner of pasta or rice the night before a competition.

To be honest, I've had to take almost 3 months off gym & working out due to a few really bad chest infections & multiple colds right after each other, I lost a whole stone in weight because of it (I'm small enough!) I've been better now about a month so I gave myself a month to recover from it all before I started training again, so maybe that has something to do with it?!

The Daniels plan has 3 days of running days, would you recommend adding more days to that?
Thank you soo much for the advice, it really is an honour hearing it from the pros

You may have been low in energy allright. I had a bad dose for a few months over the winter as well and still only coming around. A problem I had was I took sugar which slowed my recovery as I wasnt eating enough fruit and veg and pasta. The sugar made me think I was.
Anyway plenty of fruit, veg and carbs (pasta etc) is good for energy and the immune system.
Take the sessions nice and easy. I wouldnt do more than 4 a week at the start. 3 is fine for the first few weeks. See how you feel.

Once you start feeling fitter and stronger bring it up to 4 and maybe throw in some gentle abs stuff.

Thanks for calling me a pro Id agree with you only Peterx and a few others know me so wouldnt get away with it! Ive done the warriors a good few times and from Strandhill so get my knowledge that way.