Running 101 – MyFitnessPal Blog created several videos for the beginning runner and for those looking to improve their run times. There are some very helpful tips here as we move into running season and especially if you are training for your first 5K or even half-marathon.
Upper Body Form
When to Run
How Often to Run
What to Eat, Drink and When
How Fast and Far to Run
Cadence and Stride Length
Hill Running
1. STRIDES
4–6 x 20 seconds, focus on getting the legs moving a little faster than normal and work on your form
2. FARTLEK
The term means ‘speed play’ in Swedish and is consists of high-energy bursts of running followed by recovery.
Sprint 20 seconds at 80–90% of your highest capacity, followed by running 20 seconds at a slow pace. As you progress start increasing the times to 30 seconds fast and 30 recovery and work your way up to 1-minute for each before going back down.
3. INTERVALS
This workout is one that could be done on a track and will help you get used to longer bursts of speed with a bit less recovery.
Start running on the track and run fast on the straight away and slow on the curves. If you are running on a trail or street, do these in 50 yard intervals.
4. HILL REPEATS
Do this after you have a strong base. The strength that’s gained on hills turns into speed on the flat spots.
Do a 5 – 10 warmup, 6 x 90 seconds moderately hard effort up a moderate grade hill, jog back to the start for recovery between reps and a 5 minute cooldown.
Adapted from an original post on mapmyrun.com:
https://blog.mapmyrun.com/5-ideal-speed-workouts-new-runners/
