Strength exercises are a further, low-impact way of building power. Miling will raise you onto your toes more than longer races, so concentrate on calf raises and, for propulsive power, half squats. Work without weights at first, in three sets of 15 repetitions each
distance for beginners - in fact, you could be toeing the line just a few weeks after you take your first running steps. Find a race Every spring/summer, Britain sees thousands of women line up for the Cancer Research UK Race for Life 5K events
It’s unlikely you’ll win every race you enter but you can be a winner every time you race by setting a new PB (personal best time). The full version of this article contains nine tips that - put simply - work. They go from timing your race right
Start racing faster"To improve your time, you're going to need to run faster throughout the race, not just at the finish. Many racers start too slowly and then end up running too quickly
are bulky creatures and marathon runners are frail waifs. Improving your strength will help to improve your miling, but you need to work on the right muscles. As youll be on your toes more in the mile than in a long-distance race, it will help to strengthen
to your race paces, but heart rate is an equally good guide (especially if you're new and you don't know what your race paces are). The glossary suggests target heart rates, and so even the most basic heart rate monitor (from about £40) will be a valuable
edge on your prodigious fitness to smash your 10K and half-marathon PBs. (After a fortnight's recovery, Bruce Tulloh suggests easing into weekly speedwork such as 4-6 x 800m for half-marathons, and 8-12 x 400m for 10Ks, and thinking about racing from
Every good marathon-training plan should ‘taper’ during the final two or three weeks. That means you run less and rest more. For some people, the idea of backing off on their training just before the big race seems counter-intuitive. "So many
« Two weeks to goDuring the last week of your taper, things can get ugly. Two weeks ago, you ran 20 miles in a single run, but now you shouldn’t even be totalling that distance in the whole week before the race. And as your mileage plummets, your
than 5K race pace. Hold this pace for a 40-minute run. Warm up and cool down for 10 minutes each.When to work an event into your scheduleJust because you're short on training time doesn't mean you can't toe a starting line. "Races are barometers
