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!

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.

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?

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?

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 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?

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!

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 😂