Weight training for runners

mydingaling

Hi, I'm relatively new to any form of exercise and have been running since the end of August. I started to shed my beer gut but now that I've gained some fitness I want to improve. I'm 40 years old and ran the Clontarf half marathon in 2 hours( I ran way too slow in the first half) I know I should have done it in 1:55.I am trying to increase my speed and have been doing 10km runs at 8:20min per mile?I'm down to 52 mins which I want to improve. Will lifting light weights with high reps in addition to fartleks do any good? I run 8 to 10 miles at the weekend @ 9:15 min per mile.

RayCun

Running more often will improve your speed more than weights

mydingaling

I Currently run 4 times a week, two 10k runs at a push one 5k hard and one 12 to 15 k easy at the weekend. Maybe I'm being too impatient.

adrian522

Have you looked into joining a running club? Or looked at a plan to train for a 10K? Hal Higdon or whatever?

It's better to mix up your training rather than doing the same sessions every week. If you are running 4 times per week I would imagine 3 of them should be at an easy conversational pace.

adrian522

A few training plans here that you may be interested in

http://www.halhigdon.com/training/

mydingaling

That's a great site. I think I'll give the half marathon intermediate plan a try. Thanks for that.

adrian522

It's a good plan if you are willing to run 5 times per week. Best of luck with it,

mydingaling

Cheers.

RayCun

mydingaling wrote: »

ran the Clontarf half marathon in 2 hours( I ran way too slow in the first half) I know I should have done it in 1:55.
... 10km runs at 8:20min per mile?I'm down to 52 mins which I want to improve. ...
I run 8 to 10 miles at the weekend @ 9:15 min per mile.

mydingaling wrote: »

I Currently run 4 times a week, two 10k runs at a push one 5k hard and one 12 to 15 k easy at the weekend. Maybe I'm being too impatient.

Most of your runs should be at a quite easy pace. Your half marathon pace is about 9 minutes/mile, you should be doing most runs between 9.30 and 10 minutes/mile, even slower is okay. Don't try to beat your time on every 10k run, that's not what they're for. And when you want to run faster, warm-up with an easy mile or two first, and then you don't have to do the whole run faster but mix it up - 5k faster, or mile on/mile off, or k on/k off, or 800s, or 400s, or strides... Join a club, they'll have proper sessions for getting faster.

The time to race yourself is in a race.

Chivito550

Weights would be very useful for a distance runner for increasing core strength and reducing risk of injury. But only if you are already training properly. If you aren't training properly running wise, then I'd advise sorting that out first before introducing weights.

walshb

Weight training has been around years for runners. I wouldn't say it's a major part of their training but definitely used and beneficial.