There was a time in my life when, if given a choice between quantity and quality, I’d inevitably have chosen the former. The all-you-can-eat buffet would win over the fancy restaurant every time (and yet my wife still married me). Runners often face the quantity-versus-quality co...

Q I have recently discovered that when I’m training and racing hard I end up suffering from a terrible sore throat. I eat a well balanced diet, take multi-vitamins and have tried echinacea. Should I take antibiotics, cut down on the alcohol – I don’t think I drink excessively fo...

programme successful is to get the right balance between the work (volume and effort levels) and opportunity for recovery (sleep, relaxation, easy/rest days etc). The ideal balance will differ for individuals, but lifestyle and age are important factors

Q London will be my first marathon, and after looking at quite a few training schedules, I remain puzzled about one thing. What, precisely, are the benefits of clocking up a high weekly mileage? Surely lots of miles of running will result in an injury. My current routine of two ...

Q. I train four to five times a week, including hills and a couple of interval sessions. However, each time I increase my training, by even a modest distance or pace, my muscles are too stiff and sore to undertake the next day’s session. What can I do?A. You need to ask yoursel...

Q I often read how elite athletes train twice a day, and it’s got me wondering whether double sessions can benefit us mere mortals. Is it a good idea?A Provided that you are not already doing additional cross-training, running twice a day can yield improved fitness and race res...

When it comes to preparing for a race, finding a training schedule is likely to be top of your to-do list. But what if your lifestyle just isn’t suited to following a pattern of prescribed sessions?That's the challenge facing this week's questioner - what advice would you offer h...

Come February, the working week offers two equally miserable choices: run in darkness when you get up in the morning; run in darkness when you get home at night. However, you can turn this lose-lose into a victory by training in your lunch hour. Granted, it may only provide 30 to...

and efficient, with an excellent stroke volume (volume of blood pumped per beat). A useful analogy to help you understand what this means for your body is to imagine using a bucket to bail out a leaky boat. The bigger the bucket, the fewer times you must fill

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