, increase the speed settings to make sure you're always sprinting at 8/10 effort. If you've only got time for a short workout, this short sharp session (10-15 minutes) does the trick. Warm up with an easy jog on an 0.25-1

’s most important is being alert to any aches, pains or fatigue. A good rule of thumb is to take one easy day for each mile of a race or hard training session. Another useful measure is to check your pulse as soon as you get up. If it’s 20 per cent higher

before returning to gentle 5-10-minute running or cross-training sessions. Make time for plenty of rest and recovery while slowly building your training volume over 6-12 weeks - bearing in mind, of course, the problems that originally led to you

Keith's solution: Self-talkRunners need to learn to manage their internal dialogue. The average person has 10-15,000 thoughts every day, and you need to get as many of these thoughts working for you as you can.There a couple of techniques you can try

© Getty Images If 26.2 miles just isn't enough, an ultra could be the race for you. Races longer than a marathon, ultras range from 30 miles to hundreds of miles and take place in hundreds of beautiful locations from Sussex to the Sahara

of periodisation, it can seem tough between 'peaks'. Runner Lasse Viren, dubbed The 'Flying Finn', won very little other than his four Olympic gold medals, from double victory in the 5000m and 10,000m at the 1972 and 1976 Games. He mastered the art of peaking

their experience of pre-competition stress. He says, "The world's best athletes set lots of different goals – if you go into a race with 15 goals, then you're sure to achieve at least some of them.' Set a variety of goals to make sure you come away happy. You could

year took me from retching after half a mile to a sub-2:00 half-marathon. I wanted more. The RW forum sowed the seeds of this madcap tri adventure. I bought a new bike, a £10 Aldi tri suit and put in a few weeks of training before turning up for a

with total flexibility in terms of how and when to clock up those miles. Online running community fetcheveryone.com has monthly mileage groups, which are great for motivation. You could even run the year – 2010 miles works out as 38.5 per week! Start a

've made this humble fruit our own. There are now over 1,200 native British varieties of apple, perfect for eating, cooking - or cider making. British apples are available nearly all year round, but they really shine in the autumn, with the impeccably