This section is adapted from No Need For Speed - A Beginner's Guide To The Joy Of Running, by John Bingham. Buy this book!You may be uncomfortable hearing that no one can tell you what your fitness goals should be. No one can tell you how much

:John 'The Penguin' Bingham The saviour of slower runners everywhere, John writes books and the Penguin Chronicles column for Runner's World, and has run-walked more marathons and halfs than most of us will manage in a lifetime.Nick 'The Publisher' Troop

I was an old man when I started running. Not that 43 is all that old, it’s just that I was living an old man’s life in an old man’s body, dreaming an old man’s dreams. I’m much younger than that now.Before I started running, I could count the years of accumulated excess like the ...

Readers of this column know that I like to run marathons. Not that I have any particular skill or success at that distance. For me, a good marathon is one that I finish. A great marathon is one that I finish in under five hours. And I’ve had very few great marathons.I tell you th...

It started long before it began. The idea was as eloquent as it was simple – and perhaps a tad outrageous: stuff a couple of pairs of running shoes and a change of clothes into the saddlebags of a motorbike and head across country in search of new roads and new friends. As with ...

There are times when a single image is crystallised into a lifetime’s memory. These are moments of transcendence, awareness, enlightenment. And sometimes these memories become road signs that direct us along the highway of our lives.Such a moment occurred for me in the middle o...

He had the look. As he tightened his shoelaces, tucked in his shirt and carefully donned his sunglasses, he had all the makings of a racer. He was a runner in search of a 5K PB. Everyone around him knew it.Making his way to the start line, he was oblivious to the other runners ar...

There we were. Two middle-aged men in a Firebird on a summer night. The top was down, the V8 was rumbling. We were just driving around, minding our own business.And there he was. A 20-something young man in a four-cylinder sports saloon with loud mufflers. He kept racing his engi...

“This just isn’t my day,” I heard her whisper. When I turned to look at her, I couldn’t believe my eyes. She wasn’t in pain. She was simply finished. It was as though someone had drained out all of her energy. And the marathon finish was still 13 miles away.Now what? I was having...

After university I decided to get back in shape – about once every 10 years, that is. In my early 20s I took up tennis. In my early 30s I played squash. And, of course, in my early 40s I discovered running. I got a lot of exercise playing tennis. Well, no, not playing tennis, but...