I've ticked most of the 'must-do' boxes in my 20 years of running, from 5Ks to marathons, a multi-day event and even a night run. But I've never raced a mile, attempted cross-country or donned fancy dress. Nor have I run a European city marathon or braved a fell race. "Many of us...

. We tried and tested five ways of boosting runners' moods. Before following the strategies, most of the runners under-performed; afterwards, 70 per cent of them improved their performances. Here are the secrets of their success.Strategy 1: If

This week’s questioner has finally decided to kick the weed in order to improve her running times. Trouble is, she’s worried the cravings will get the better of her and she’ll lapse back into old habits. What’s your advice to help keep her motivated

character, but only on the pages of Runner's World). My progress as a runner has consisted of frustratingly slow, small gains. I’ve gradually learnt that, in order to improve, I need to inch my mileage up and, sometimes, slow my pace down. I’ve realised

Reducing your level of training to improve your race times might seem counter-intuitive but research exists to suggest that in fact, less can sometimes be more. This week’s reader is keen to put this theory into practice - can you help him strike

with women athletes achieving lifetime bests, despite having recently had children. So what about us lesser mortals? Can we expect to see our running performances improve after nine months of pregnancy? We spoke to three ordinary women whose fitness gains

There’s no single 'best shoe' – everyone has different needs. All sorts of things - your biomechanics, your weight, the surfaces you run on, and obviously, the shape of your feet - mean that one person's ideal shoe can be terrible for another person. We divide our sh...

We've all committed open-water swimming sins. And no, that doesn't mean the undignified fisticuffs at the start of a race, but offences that are entirely our own fault: aiming for a swan instead of a buoy; forgetting everything we know about technique as soon as the wetsuit goes ...

Coffee has been revving people up since around the ninth century, probably first in Ethiopia, and it reached Europe in the 17th century. It is now the second most traded product in the world, after oil. The first coffee house opened in the UK in 1651 and today we drink more than ...

We've all committed open-water swimming sins. And no, that doesn't mean the undignified fisticuffs at the start of a race, but offences that are entirely our own fault: aiming for a swan instead of a buoy; forgetting everything we know about technique as soon as the wetsuit goes ...