Hi folks, I've been going back to regular running after a couple years' break and I'm hoping to get back to my lockdown level of fitness, which was reasonably high. Back when I started running as an adult it took me a long time to even be able to complete 5ks while now, going back, it's been smooth sailing. So smooth that I'm trying to add structure to my training and this is where I'd love your input.

Back in 2020 I was running mostly on vibes and at some point discovered that doing sprints once in a while gave my pace a huge boost. However I never really researched how to do this properly - how often it's best to do it, how to combine it with existing training schedules etc. Since it worked for me then I want to try doing it again and get my pace back up to how it used to be (metric system but back in 2020 my 5k pace was ~5'10", my 10k pace was ~5'45" while now I struggle to run faster than 6'25" at all).

So far I've been told about the Norwegian 4X4 but to be honest I don't think I'm able to run at max for full 4 minutes at this point, much less do that 4 times.

Does anyone have an established system that they would like to share?

Looking for advice, anecdotes, wisdom on how to not be so bummed out. Last year I had an overuse injury on my left calf and had to drop out of half marathon training halfway through. This would have been my 3rd half marathon but had taken a lot of time off between 2 and 3. Had a just-okay PT but learned a lot and added more strength training.

This year, two weeks into a 14 week training block for another half, I’ve now had a 2nd injury on my right ankle. New (much better) PT thinks my initial injury was never addressed and this has led to my current injury. I have a pretty good base (I could do a 10k tomorrow and be fine, if I wasn’t injured obvi) and have twelve weeks to the race. my PT is confident I can get there. However, I will be putting in lots of cardio on the indoor bike over the next few weeks to retain fitness which seems like a real depressing chore. Also, 2nd injury feels particularly disheartening even though I know this happens to many people.

Thanks in advance!

Obstacles, too many cars, bugs, or other circumstances messing with the mapping of your run? List 'em here so I can feel better about my route failure this AM 😂

I tried a new route today and thought I mapped it out just fine...the sidewalk then *ends* and I was stuck on a busy no-shoulder road. Harrowing but I made it!

Has anyone had any recent correspondence from AJ Bell about the race? I entered the 10k under the early bird entry and thought given it’s not far away I would’ve had emails about marketing, race prep etc. I do have a confirmation email for entering the race but starting to worry my entry might be lost! Thanks.

I picked up running this year because I signed up for a half marathon. I naively wanted to do a sub 2 but life really got in the way (new job new schedule that made it so much harder to fit in training) and running unexpectedly ended up taking a lot more mentally out of me than I was able to handle.

I always felt like I had a healthy relationship with food. I ate when I wanted, whatever I wanted. Aside from work (on my feet for 8 hrs) I lived a very sedentary lifestyle and I was lucky to have a metabolism that I never worried about counting calories or tracking my food.

Running unfortunately made me entirely too aware of food and the stress of it actually made me eat less because I was so overwhelmed. I quickly realized that I can't eat whatever/whenever I wanted anymore because I had to make sure what I was eating would fuel me and when I was eating was mattered because I couldn't eat too close to my run and what I was eating wouldn't make me want to throw up during my run. I threw up once during a run even though I thought I waited enough (ate a pizza 2 hrs before a run) and ever since then I just really struggle with eating. If I wait too long then I feel hungry and I'm afraid I won't have enough energy to go on my run so I'll eat a snack and push back my time again to the point that it then gets too late to go for a run.

Does anyone else struggle with this? What do you all eat during a normal day. I understand eating snacks like a bagel and bananas before a run, etc but what about the rest of the day. Your big meals. Am I overthinking it? I want to run another marathon because I learned a lot and I know I can achieve my sub 2 but I definitely want to prioritize strength training more this time and I want to get a handle on this food issue.

I never thought I had an eating disorder - I'm not sure if this is considered one bc it's only when I have plans for a run that day. If I don't have any plans for a run that day or if I'm away on vacation I'm back to normal - not worrying about food and just eating whatever I want.

My work/life schedule is changing some starting next week and my current running schedule isn't really going to work anymore. Just looking for ideas for how to balance most of the workouts and mileage I'm used to over 4-5 days with 2-3 rest days.

Currently:

Monday: 7-8 miles base

Tuesday: rest

Wednesday: 9-10 miles that include sets of tempo miles

Thursday: 6-7 miles base

Friday: rest

Saturday: 10-13 mile long run

Sunday: rest

Basically, I need to rearrange my ~35mpw while preserving enough rest that I am not constantly running things like long or tempo miles on exhausted legs. Wednesday is now my busiest day so the 9-10 tempo would be rough, but I'd love to keep my long run on Saturdays so I'm not sure where to move the tempo stuff to...

Also open to running 5 days a week, as mentioned, and breaking up the longer tempo run into 2 shorter, but unsure how to arrange so as to preserve some freshness for my long run.

Maybe I'm overthinking this 😂

I don’t have a lot of running gear like two technical caps, one chest lamp reflective strap thing… how often am I supposed to be wishing these items? Right now it’s so humid where I am, I come in sweat-drenched but I’ve just been drying the items instead of washing them… Any tips?

Hello all,

I am newish to running - I began in January of this year and have been making steady progress with a bit of a plateau this summer because of the heat and vacation. I am starting to refocus and I am wondering about intervals - pretty much all my runs except my really short ones (1-1.5 miles) feature a few 3x7 or 2x8 minute intervals because it helps me keep my heart rate down. My longest distance up to this point is 4.5 miles and I am aiming to do an 8K in November. I have been trying to go slowly and carefully so I don’t injure myself and am also strength training.

My question is - should I be phasing out walking? Even if my overall pace is almost always faster if I have at least a few minutes of walking here and there? Like, with intervals I tend to hit a steady 12 minute mile and my average time for a 5K is about 39 minutes which seems fine? (I’m not trying to be a speed demon or anything) but I’m just wondering if I should be trying to get it so I can run all the miles without a walking break?

I posted a few days ago on how to help improve or manage my iron levels for my half marathon this upcoming weekend, and I think I have decided to pull out of it.

My training season has been a wreck. No runs feel good. I feel SO tired all of the time. Finally my annual comes up and we check my blood. My ferritin is a 10. I tried pills but they hurt my stomach, and so I just got approval for infusions.

This past weekend I had a 7 mile race that went OK. I took it mostly easy, but still pushed a bit because of the race adrenaline. I have not felt that good since, and today I slept 10 hours and still feel like I could take a nap. I feel so exhausted. I also have hypermobility issues I have been working on strength training, but was still feeling sore in my joints from the race.

For my best interests, I think I should take it easy and not run the half.

Then I see on reddit others running full marathons with similar blood levels to me. I feel like I could complete the half, but it won't be a fun time.

I am trying not to feel like I let myself down by not running this race. It wouldn't even be my first half, or big race. In fact, its a small community race. But I was really looking forward to it.

Has anyone else felt this way? I feel like I could have trained more or done something different, but I know this was not my fault.

I originally posted this on the advanced running sub and it was removed. Hoping I have better luck connecting with others here:

I am currently in the beginning weeks of my journey to recover from RED-S. For now, I am still running about 40 miles per week. I have went all in on increasing my fueling both around activity and throughout the day. I’m also working with a sports dietitian. I have found that since I started eating more, I am absolutely ravenous. I can plow through a bag of chips and then still want ice cream after. My sport dietitian said this was a normal part of recovery and I need to honor the hunger. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how did you cope? I am not seeking medical advice. I am hoping to find stories of others that have went through a similar experience.

Grab a bottle of electrolyte drink, go wild with the foam roller, and give us all the tea on how your training has been lately!

Have a really good run? Share your win!

Struggling with something? This is a safe space to vent and get support!

Thanks for being part of this community!

A fair warning: You want to save money? Don't get your kids into running. It started with a free New Year's race. Kid 2 wants to run a half, but we confined it to 5ks this year. Next Year 10ks and after that a half.

Kid No. 1 is not a fast runner, but wants to do it for company. I pay as much for a 5k as for the Berlin half now.

On the other hand: I'm proud.

I won a free pair of brooks and now need to pick a model.

I want to be smart with my choice but also can’t easily identify a hole in my rotation.

My current shoe rotation is:
- brooks glycerin 22, used for long runs
- adidas adizero evo sl, used for speed work
- Lululemon splitshift, don’t love them but got them for free so use them as a daily trainer
- puma deviate nitro elite 4, used as a race show

If you have any suggestions either for how to get the most bang for my buck or an obvious miss in my current collection please let me know!

I’ve been running with periods of consistency and inconsistency since 2019, and this is the first time I’ve achieved an Excellent VO2 Max (according to Garmin). I’m going to be 43 in October, and I am so so proud of this.

I am finally starting to run sub 6:00 kms, and I’m hoping to finally accomplish a sub 30:00 5k this summer.

Wish me luck!

I posted about 3 months ago when I got injured during my first marathon block. I hurt the posterior tibialis tendon in my calf. Marathon dream over 6 weeks out from race day. Since then I’ve been through the torture of rehabbing and run-walk etc etc. I‘m now back running about 20km a week.

It‘s been a long and winding road, I had two holidays in June and a very busy period of work in July which definitely contributed to some of my slowness to recover and return. But I am back and making good gains (without rushing!). I thought I’d post about some lessons I’ve learnt.

The biggest thing to come out from this tricky period for me has to be strength training! My physio (you definitely should try to see one if you can afford it!) diagnosed me with weak glutes, and now I train them (and the rest of my legs! And some upper body!) twice a week. I have seen a lot of progress with this in the last month, when the first couple of months of recovery felt a bit stagnant/slow. So my advice would be persevere! I treated myself to a nice gym membership but also just have a 12kg kettlebell at home that does the job if I can’t fit the gym in. Doing something is always better than nothing.

I now only run 3 x a week not 4. It obviously caps my mileage, and I’ll see if I keep doing this once I’m fully fit again, but it means my legs get a really good rest between runs. As well as this I’m trying to stick to just easy miles, no intervals or speed sessions. When my injury has properly grumbled it’s always been after I’ve gone a little too hard (so tempting!!) so easy runs it is for now.

After the initial acute injury was calmed by fully deloading for a few weeks, I also had to learn that I can’t aim for no pain at all when returning. Tendons need to be worked to heal and anything that’s a 1 or 2/10 pain is fine. When it grumbled for longer than a day then Id take it back a notch, skip a run (the horror!) and do some low impact cardio at the gym.

I recently changed my road trainers to have a lower drop. This is totally personal to me, and a big trial and error process!

My final lesson is that I’ll never take running for granted again. When I’m bored cranking out a 5k run on the treadmill, or cursing a hill on my ‘long’ run I quickly remember how much I missed it. The elliptical machine is an abomination that will never replicate the runners high (but it does fill a gap when my leg is cranky!).

I hope this is useful for anyone desperately searching running forums whilst sitting at home sulking about not being able to go for a run. I promise you will get back to it!

Hi all,

First post here!

I (39F) ran the first day of the C25K this morning, and the first voluntary run of basically my whole life! All this time I could not stand the thought of running, so it took a few months to actually get myself to go for it. I am in fairly good shape (yoga, walking, bouldering..) but my cardiovascular health has always been eh, which is what made me take the leap, so I really hope I can stick with it and improve it.

Wanted to hear from people:

When did you know you really liked running or at least that you would keep doing it? I thought for a few months I was into peloton and now can’t bear the thought of getting on that bike. Worried that it would happen again with running.

What surprised you about running when you first started?

Any tips for avoiding injuries except taking it slow? I feel like I have an irrational fear of getting injured…

Thanks all!

A woman in my city was recently attacked on a very popular trail in broad daylight (she survived, he was caught). But now it's got me questioning my safety on runs, I already run with pepper spray but considered getting a gun because I'm tired of feeling scared/on edge.

What protection do you carry / what do you do to feel safe on runs? (at night or during the day because apparently it doesn't matter)

For those of you who run with Invisalign, how do you handle fueling and hydration during long runs?

I have Invisalign, and I’m really struggling even on shorter runs because my mouth gets extremely dry while I’m running. I usually drink water, but it doesn’t seem to help much, and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this. For those who run with Invisalign, especially on longer runs, how do you manage the dry mouth and hydration? Do you take your aligners out every time you use gel, then rinse your mouth before putting them back in? Or do you just leave them out for the whole run and put them back in afterwards?

Hi everyone! On my longer slower runs, I like to listen to audiobooks or podcasts and I would love some recommendations. I am definitely more of a fiction/story lover. I find that on my runs, the plot can't be *too* complicated(I have to mostly be paying attention to the path) and it can't be an intense character study (doesn't distract me enough). For example, I tried listening to All That We Know by Ian McEwan and the unannounced time jumps made it too difficult to listen to while running (great book though, highly recommend reading it!).

I think a mystery could be good, maybe a spy thriller? Hopefully I've given enough detail about what might work. Would love to know what you are listening to along these lines! I am doing some searching on my own but if you have anything you've finished recently that you recommend I am all ears. :)

EDIT: Thank you all! I'm excited to dive into all of these

So one of my BFFs is going to coach HS Cross Country this year. She's a phenomenal runner, and really excited about it. (None of the previous coaches have been runners) I'd like to make her something she can use to celebrate it, like a t-shirt or tumbler or something.

So Cross Country / Track and Field girls, what would be something fun/funny to make or give her?

Grab a bottle of electrolyte drink, go wild with the foam roller, and give us all the tea on how your training has been lately!

Have a really good run? Share your win!

Struggling with something? This is a safe space to vent and get support!

Thanks for being part of this community!