increased their levels of physical activity by about 16 per cent. So monitor your progress, because seeing all the sessions you’ve done can be great for building confidence and keeping you going. For ImproversPersonalise your training program Remember

out to good running country, watch TV coverage of big races and cross-country events to become more inspired. And above all, keep reminding yourself of just what fantastic progress you have already made.—Bud Baldaro, coach and RW Contributing Editor

the national long-distance triathlon championships, and decided to take three months unpaid leave from work so that I could train full-time. I ended up finishing tenth. I had a terrible race, and was exhausted from beginning to end. I had overdone my training

training runs and the highest-volume weeks of the schedules. They’re hard weeks, but you can do it.Don’t even think about giving up or easing off now (unless you’re injured). The work you put into the next five key weeks will pay dividends on race day

to follow your current schedule. If you couldn’t race or have missed training through illness and injury: While this is the most important part of the schedule, don’t run through illness or injury and be sensible when you resume training. If you have missed

viewThe typical endurance session is the long or 'over distance' workout. Tackling sessions longer than race distance, or longer than you are accustomed to, helps you physically and mentally.One long training session in each discipline per week

training so you peak in time for a race. What, when and why?Until the Soviet sports scientists got on board, athletes trained at the same intensity all year round. As well as being deeply boring, the constant pressure and physiological demand on the body

progress, and if necessary adjust your target time.Your training schedule should involve a healthy mixture of fast and slow running, one pillar of which is the weekly long run, which you should aim to do comfortably at 45-60 seconds per mile slower than

check out our training-pace calculator for a better indication of how these intensities translate in practice (calculated from a recent race time) or read our ultimate guide to heart-rate training for the most objective way of monitoring your progress

are and therefore what to emphasise in your training. A good way to do this is to note your personal best times from 1500m to marathon and compare them with equivalent times for different races using this race time calculator. If your PBs are comparatively better