When Gunder Hagg ran 4:01.4 to set a mile world record in 1945, his achievement stood for 3,215 days - almost nine years. Then Roger Bannister ran his historic 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954. Bannister's record lasted just 46 days before John Landy took

When Gunder Hagg ran 4:01.4 to set a mile world record in 1945, his achievement stood for 3,215 days - almost nine years. Then Roger Bannister ran his historic 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954. Bannister's record lasted just 46 days before John Landy took

This extract is from The Runner's World Complete Book of Running by RW USA Editor Amby Burfoot. You can now preview it, free, for two weeks without risk or obligation. All running programmes for beginners are the same: they move you from walking

before. It’s a long-time favourite of snake-oil coaches with credentials from Charlatan University. Of course, real runners know that to become faster you have to log more miles and run intervals until your rear end is dragging on the track behind you

. An upstart named Jason Saeger beat Armstrong by more than two minutes in the mid-event 12-mile mountain-bike leg, but Saeger paid for his audacity. Armstrong comfortably beat him on the concluding three-mile cross-country race, running the fastest leg

. An upstart named Jason Saeger beat Armstrong by more than two minutes in the mid-event 12-mile mountain-bike leg, but Saeger paid for his audacity. Armstrong comfortably beat him on the concluding three-mile cross-country race, running the fastest leg

Most runners want to keep track of their pace. It’s how we measure many sessions. So what happens to your overall pace when you combine running and walking? You slow down, obviously. But not as much as you might think.The following table shows per-mile

likes to put it: “If I said that you could run a five-minute mile with one programme that took 30 miles a week or another programme that took 80 miles a week, which would you choose?” Daniels tries to cut out the waste, maximising improvement

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

therapist and biomechanist Irene Davis from the University of Delaware's Running Injury Clinic. "Your threshold could be at 10 miles a week, or 100, but once you exceed it, you get injured." Various studies have identified injury thresholds at 11, 25, and 40