with 10 minutes of very easy running and walking. Stretch gently for a few minutes and mix in four or five 100m strides (at 90 per cent of maximum speed) to get you ready for the upcoming effort. To keep your heart rate up, move around or jog on the spot

’ll run alone in the streets of your hometown, or with 20,000 others at a major marathon. One step at a time we’ll discover each other – and ourselves.Waddle on, friends.

you carry a protective layer with you in case the weather takes a turn for the worse. If you’re heading to more remote areas, tell someone about your planned route and think about carrying a mobile phone and ICE (In Case of Emergency) information

, running takes time to break into. "Every able-bodied person can be a runner," says Gordon Bakoulis, a running coach and author of Cross-Training (£12.99, Simon and Schuster). "Just start slowly and build up gradually." Most coaches agree that the best way

and run at 65 per cent of your working heart rate. (To calculate effort based on your WHR, subtract your resting heart rate from your max – eg 200-40 = 160WHR. Then calculate 65 per cent of that = 104, and add it back onto your resting rate = 144 target

."NUTRITIONPass on the extra carbsBread, bagels, pasta, potatoes and pancakes - you just can't get enough, right? Wrong, says sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, author of Nancy Clark's Food Guide for New Runners (£12.95, Meyer & Meyer Sport). Running two or three miles

the equivalent of eight large glasses of water every day, and probably twice that in warm weather. It also means taking in about half a pint of fluid every 15-20 minutes of running. For runs of an hour or more, you also need to replenish spent energy stores

:48 and on that day I passed through the half at 1:47 and 25km at 2:09, which was also a PB. I think it works better for longer distances - I've done sub four minutes for 1K and 23 mins for 5K but never dipped under 48 for 10K. I can run fast for short distances

run for 132 minutes.If you ran for 150 minutes this week - next week run for 165 minutes.23. Go running, even when your head says 'no' Some days your legs may say yes, but your head says no. Give yourself 10 minutes to warm up, suggests Kastor. "A good

At the last count, 132,000 runners had posted 1.6 million messages between them on the Runner's World forum. That's a ton of useful tips!Our readers already helped us pick out some of the best threads (or 'conversations'). Now we've gone a step