in recovery days on which you do 15-45 minutes of striding at an easy pace.Try these work-outs: Long (for endurance) Stride easily for the duration of a long run.Speed (for fast leg turnover) Do 15 seconds at 220 strides per minute with light resistance

accurate? A In general terms, at the start of your 20s, the MHR is about 200 beats per minute (BPM). From then on, the heart gradually slows down, by approximately one beat per year. In endurance athletes, the MHR also slows as a response to prolonged

perhaps a one to two per cent increase in endurance performance, which may make a small difference in race results. Not all athletes benefit equally; some respond to altitude training, while some don’t.With altitude training at around 2,000-2,400 metres

Q I don’t race longer than 10K. Do my training runs need to be any longer than this distance? A Yes – longer runs are beneficial, even for 5K and 10K runners, because there is a relationship between endurance and speed. Although a lot shorter than a

Many of us would describe the ideal runner’s body as lean, lanky and lithe. But then someone who is none of these things blows past us in a 5K, leaving us questioning what ‘fit’ really looks like.Some doctors say people who are overweight (with 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

bubbling away. Over the 13 years that Runner's World has been published in the UK, we reckon we've probably tried to answer all the questions it's possible to ask on our pet subject; from the straightforward - "What should I eat before racing

the development of your pace awareness and speed endurance.Finally, runners who train almost every day actually recover faster from hard work because of their increased aerobic fitness. They often find training easier than when they were piling all of their effort

. But, until your training has given you the endurance to run 26.2 miles comfortably inside nine-minute miling, it will be extremely hard to achieve. You do need to build up to run more miles in training, and so you’ll probably need to hold off

sharpen your pure speed, which is most important for races like 5Ks and 10Ks. Longer periods of speed help to raise your anaerobic threshold, which improves your speed endurance – ideal for 10-milers and half-marathons. In reality, though, both