Many elite runners plan their racing calendars a year or more in advance. There are some right now who know that in order to be on the starting line of an Olympic final in Beijing in August 2008, they need to hit an A-standard qualifying time in a

What is the proper mileage to succeed in distances from 5K to a marathon?" I once asked a colleague who has coached many runners to collegiate and Olympic glory. "That's easy," he said. "You want to run as few miles as you can and still win

Sport.And that's not all: our team also met and trained alongside Lucozade Sport running ambassador and Olympic marathon runner Liz Yelling (don't miss Liz's half-marathon training advice here). Now, with the race behind them, it's time to reflect

progression run means starting out at a slow pace, but finishing at a fast pace. And it can mean the difference between crawling over the finish line and storming through it. Progression runs aren't new. Finland's Paavo Nurmi, who won nine Olympic gold medals

with athletes at Olympic and World Championship level and is an active runner himself, having recently completed the Amsterdam and Lisbon Marathons. What are the objectives of this study?There are two key objectives. The first is to establish how various mental

for a while,” says Benji Durden, a former Olympic marathon runner who now coaches runners of all abilities. “You need to get your running legs under you.”But what exactly does that mean? Novice runners come in all shapes, sizes and pre

. A little more than a year later, they became famous for something else: their Olympic gold medals – Vasala in the 1500m and Viren in the 5000m and 10,000m. Pure coincidence? I don’t think so.By now I’m sure you can use the word fartlek in polite

marathon champion Steve Moneghetti, who can claim to be the world&146;s most consistent marathoner (from 1986, when he won a Commonwealth bronze, until 2000, when he was 10th in the Olympics), has a stock session of 8 x 400m with a 200m fast float. Break

We all have a surpassing faith in the ability of training programmes to help us become fitter and faster. In our endless search for the best regime, we scour the internet, buy books and magazines, and attend clinics staffed by Olympic medallists

-twitch muscle fibres will not in themselves make someone a fast runner. The one thing that is consistently proven to improve fitness (and speed) is training. Generally the more you train the better you get. Less is NOT more! Don't get worked up about what your