good long break, especially if you've just run a hilly marathon. Lastly, some good news. Downhill running builds your strength for future downhill running. If you practise it regularly, you'll gain muscle endurance and suffer less from post-run soreness

, and after your run. Bon appetit!Protein's first shoutThe runner’s perfect nutritional universe started to come apart in 1992 when a University of Texas exercise physiologist, John Ivy, first challenged King Carb. Ivy and colleagues published a study showing

If you ask me, the ancient Olympians were a lot cleverer than we are. They had the good sense to run, jump and throw in the nude. When you put anything between your skin and the environment, such as shorts and a singlet, you only decrease your body

For as long as I’ve been running – and I recently passed the four-decade mark – I’ve been practising certain key principles of our sport. Run long to develop endurance. Run fast to build speed. Take recovery days as necessary. Sleep well. Eat a

Knee-high mud, driving rain, howling wind and numb hands form many people's memories of cross-country running at school. But despite this unappealing recollection, cross-country is the training backbone for many of our most successful distance

As runners, we all want to increase our endurance, but we’re often referring to different things. While the beginner often wants to go further – from two miles to four miles, then to six, more experienced runners don’t see much point in running

session is slower, so you get slightly less training effect. But most of the time you do long runs to build overall endurance and increase your body’s ability to burn fat and calories in general. A long R/W run does this just fine. Increased variety Far

-burning. So grab your favourite sports drink, put your feet up and read on at a comfortable pace.Why?Long runs give you endurance – the ability to run further. Yet they can help 10K runners as well as marathoners. Long runs do several things. They

? If so, how and what are the implications for those of us who finish races far behind? Is there an ideal age to run your best marathon? We posed these questions to top physiologists, statisticians, coaches and elite athletes. Their answers paint a

? If so, how and what are the implications for those of us who finish races far behind? Is there an ideal age to run your best marathon? We posed these questions to top physiologists, statisticians, coaches and elite athletes. Their answers paint a