Advice for beginners
Table of Contents
- Clothing
- Diet
- General Advice
- Where to Run
- Warm up and Stretching
- What Shoes To Wear
- Running Style
- Weekly Training Schedules
Clothing
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Your training clothing should be based primarily on the weather and personal comfort. In winter, use proper runners' tights (with a high polyester or Lycra © content) and a running jersey made of polypropylene or similar material against your skin to allow sweat to wick away from the body. Over this you can wear a long-sleeved sports top and, if it's very cold, even a wind-proof jacket. Remember, though, that even in very low temperatures you shouldn't wear too many layers: after a few minutes, your body's core temperature will rise and you'll risk a sweat bath! Gloves provide good protection for hands, which receive little blood and can risk getting cold. If the air is freezing, instead, wear a headband to protect your forehead from sinusitis but don't use a hat, which can actually keep in too much heat.
In mild weather, you can wear a T-shirt (with vest if necessary) and shorts. If you have thick thighs, I recommend wearing cyclists' shorts, which have an elasticised fabric that hugs and protects them against chafing.
When high air temperature and humidity make sweating a problem, run in a vest (perforated perhaps) to expose your body more and help the heat get out. Sweating is the body's main cooling system and you should help it as much as possible. Don't run in non-breathable material (nylon) thinking that you will lose weight through profuse sweating.
You can wear cotton socks, but in hot weather heavy sweating will soak into the fabric and you'll risk rubbing and blisters. The best material is "cool max" which has a double layer that absorbs perspiration and wicks it to the outer layer leaving the skin dry. In rain, the best gear is Gore-tex, with its special membrane fabric that lets your body breathe while keeping out the wind and rain. Gore-tex tops allow you to run for about an hour without getting too sticky. You can also wear Gore-tex trousers although the thickness of its weave may make you too hot. Running tights are usually best.
In very windy conditions you can wear a special wind-stopper jacket, which are also sold sleeveless. The front is treated with plastic to block the wind and reduce chill factor while the back is in a mesh fabric to allow the heat produced to disperse more easily.
Before every session, you should do a warm up of 15-20 minutes slow jogging and 10 minutes of stretching.
Diet
What's a good diet for runners? The first consideration must always be physical well-being so the diet must be balanced. This means that the main dietary components (carbohydrates, fats and proteins) must be balanced as follows:
- carbohydrates (cereals, pasta, bread) 60% of total daily calorie intake,
- fats 20-25%
- proteins the remaining 15-20%.
Many people have an 'unbalanced' diet, which contains too many fats and proteins deriving from meat and processed/conserved foodstuffs. In addition to being balanced, your diet must provide the calories your body needs for its energy consumption. Just as an office worker will need fewer calories than a manual labourer, a 20-minute run will need fewer calories than a 40-minute one . A useful dietary model is the classic Mediterranean diet made up of pasta/rice, fresh fruit and vegetables, a lot of fish and little red meat.
The perspiration from a run will deplete your body's liquids so it's important that their levels are quickly replenished in the hours afterwards. The thirst we feel after training is obviously a sign indicating that the body's fluid level is low. At that stage it's essential you drink water also containing mineral salts (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium) to replace lost electrolytes. A correct and balanced diet, rich in fruit and vegetables, ensures the recovery of these electrolytes.
Don't go running just after you have eaten. Your body needs time for digestion to avoid being over taxed by the dual challenge of digesting and running. If you don't abide by this rule, the risk is your body will simply reject what it has just taken in. It takes at least three hours to digest a normal meal (even longer for fatty or heavily seasoned foods), while 60-90 minutes is normally a long-enough digestion period after a toast/cereal breakfast (but not a full English breakfast!). If you go running after work, in the mid afternoon eat a snack of dry biscuits, crackers, an energy bar or fruit to keep your blood sugar levels up. The same goes for running in your lunch break: a mid-morning snack will help maintain your blood sugar level. After training, if you don't have time for lunch, a sandwich or slice of cake (without cream or custard), a yoghurt, biscuits or fruit, etc. will suffice.
General advice
Running stimulates the cardiovascular system in a unique way, so you ought to undergo a specialised medical examination based primarily on an electrocardiogram.
If you're young, are not overweight and don't smoke, you can begin running directly without having to start with sessions that mix running and walking. If on the other hand you have never done any sport or it's quite some time since you did, you must mix up your training sessions between running and walking, to allow your body to adapt to the rigors of running. By doing this, the walking intervals will let you "catch your breath", allowing you to carry on running without too much effort. Starting running without following the correct build-up methods can be a quick road to a nasty injury. So don't dash off, thinking you can become a champion in a few weeks. If you're rather overweight, for the first few weeks you must limit yourself to fast walking only. You must give your body's joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons time to adapt to the heavier workload that lies ahead.
The day after training it's normal to feel some soreness and stiffness in your legs. But this should also be taken as a warning not to overdo training - above all in the first weeks. I recommend you run every other day to allow for fullest muscle recovery and reduce the risk of injury from overexertion. After some weeks, you'll feel less stiffness in your muscles and joints, a sign that your body's getting used to the new type of exertion.
The intensity of the session - above all when you're running not walking - should be gauged by the breathing effort. If you're a beginner and don't have a high physical efficiency, you should run slowly at a pace that's sustainable for the entire session. At the end, you should feel tired but not too much so. This type of training is called aerobic exercise, which is when the oxygen you breathe is enough to sustain the current effort. How do you know if you're training aerobically? Simple: when you run, you should have enough breath to be able to talk, otherwise the pace is too high, so you must slow down. The goal is to finish the training session with a general feeling of wellbeing.
By using a heart-rate monitor, you can measure your exertion more accurately. The optimal intensity of exercise is 80% of the heart's maximum rate. Very few people know their maximum heart rate despite the fact that you can discover it in one flat-out training session. But if you're either not training regularly or are not in perfect health, you should not risk subjecting yourself to such an intense workout; it's best, then, to calculate your maximum heart-rate by using the formula of 220 minus your age. Then 80% of this figure is the heart rate to aim for during exercise. For example for a person of 45 years: 220 - 45 = 175; then 80% of 175 is 140. That runner should keep to a pace that doesn't make the heart beat faster than 140 beats per minute.
Where to run
It's better to avoid streets that have a lot of traffic, for reasons of both health and safety. It's best to run in natural surroundings, either in the country or, if this is not possible, in a park. You can run on road but it is better to use dirt tracks and grassy paths, as the impact will be less damaging for the body. You must, however, avoid those paths which are particularly uneven as you risk spraining an ankle. Running by the sea in the watermark/foreshore of the beach can be very pleasant. But here too you have to be careful, as when the sand is soft there is no support for the foot. It is also better to do your first few sessions on flattish ground otherwise the effort necessary to run uphill might cause discomfort and reduce you to a very slow pace.
Gymnastics and stretching
Before you start running, it's sensible to do some stretching exercises (trunk rotation, side bends of the torso, pelvis rotation), to loosen your joints and warm up the muscles. The movements must always be controlled, never jerked: start with short-range movements and increase them after progressing through a warm-up. After warming up your muscles and loosening your joints, walk for 2 to 5 minutes, slowly first, then increasing the length and speed of the strides; then you can begin to run.
I also recommend that you perform stretching exercises at the end of your training sessions. These will protect you against injuries as stretching helps muscle fibres return to their natural length. The main muscle groups used during a run are the calves, thighs (front and rear) and the buttocks. Once you've found the stretching position that lightly pulls on a muscle, hold it for 15-20 seconds. As well as stretching, you can usefully train these same muscle groups with some specific exercises: for the calves, do extensions by raising your body weight up on to tiptoes. For the front thighs you can do squats - squatting down and then back up repeatedly. After getting used to these exercises, to increase intensity you can do some reps on one leg at a time. For the buttocks and thighs, step-ups are effective (about 40- 50 cm height difference). For the rear thigh muscles, you can do a football warm-up: short strides, kicking the heels up to touch the buttocks.
Shoes
In the first few weeks of training, when your sessions are made up of walking and jogging, your footwear doesn't need to be specialised. You can use tennis shoes or an old pair of running shoes/sneakers, as long as you don't run on uneven surfaces. Even during this phase of 'light training', be sure that your midsoles are hard enough to stop stones from hurting. When your sessions become entirely running-based, then you should buy a pair of proper running shoes. In choosing them, consider:
- running surface
- your body weight
- the pace and distance of the run.
If you'll be running on grass and footpaths/trails, choose shoes with sole with a rugged tread for good grip on all surfaces. If your routes are smooth roads, the tread must be smoother. For all types of running, though, your shoes must give good support and not "give way" too much internally (hyperpronation) during landing, when all of your body's accelerated weight compresses onto your heel. Stability is given by sole width: the wider it is, the more support it provides. "Stability" shoes will also have soles containing different materials: harder in the midsole of the heel, and perhaps with a stiff support all around the heel.
Another important requirement of a running shoe is shock absorption (particularly for overweight runners), to cushion the impact of the body's weight as the heel hits the ground. How will you know if a shoe is well cushioned? Press the midsole (the sanwiched part between the sole and the upper): the softer it is, the greater the cushioning effect. Be careful, though, not to buy shoe that are too soft in the midsole as this loses stability. Also, think twice before sacrificing support for a lighter shoe as the support will protect against injury. Every time your foot hits the ground, the impact reverberating through the body is very high, and if the support is not stable and cushioned, you'll risk injured joints and inflamed tendons. As a guide, the weight of the shoe should be no lighter than 300 grams, but if you weigh over 80 kilograms it can be as much as 400 grams.
Running style
Should I run more on tiptoe, the flats of my feet or leaning backwards? How high should I lift my knees? What should I do with my arms? Is it better to breathe through the nose or mouth? Important questions for sure, but don't worry: running is a very natural movement.
We come in all shapes and sizes and so do our running styles ; this is because our bodies have decided to create a style that's best for us. But sometimes your mind can interfere with the most economical movement: so don't, for example, run on the balls of your feet, which will overstress your calf muscles and achilles tendons, or "lean backward", which consumes a lot of energy.
You can 'sense' your efficiency and balance from the noise your shoes make when striking the ground. Your foot's movement on the ground should follow a rolling motion: landing on your heel, shifting onto the flat of the foot to complete the landing, then starting and completing the thrust from the balls of your feet (not necessarily from your toes). Let your knees lift naturally: think about moving them "forward" rather than "upward" - unless you're involved in a sprint finish!
When running, bend your arms at right-angles and make a nice synchronized swing with your legs. I recommend focusing occasionally on your shoulder movement: keep them down and relaxed, not hunched and stiff. Now and again drop your hands down to hang loosely for a few seconds: this helps focusing and, therefore, your technique.
Breathing should be relaxed not jerking. It's better to breathe through the mouth than the nose, as you can take in more oxygen. Nose breathing reduces air flow, requiring more breaths to take in the same amount of air. When it's very cold (i.e. below zero), instead, nose breathing helps to warm the air before it reaches your lungs, but even then you can also wear a scarf (or balaclava) to cover your mouth and increase air warmth and humidity.
Weekly training schedules
WEEK 1:
1 minute running, 1 minute walking; repeat 10 times;
10 minutes
WEEK 2:
2 minutes running, 1 minute walking; repeat 6 times;
12 minutes
WEEK 3:
3 minutes running, 1 minute walking; repeat 5 times;
15 minutes
WEEK 4:
4 minutes running, 1 minute walking; repeat 4 times;
16 minutes
WEEK 5:
6 minutes running, 1 minute walking; repeat 3 times;
18 minutes
WEEK 6:
8 minutes running, 1minute walking; repeat twice;
18 minutes
WEEK 7:
10 minutes running, 1 minute walking; repeat twice;
20 minutes
WEEK 8:
20 minutes non-stop running;
20 minutes
WEEK 9:
25 minutes running, 3-5 times a week;
25 minutes
WEEK 10:
30 minutes running, 3-5 times a week;
30 minutes
WEEK 11:
35 minutes running, 3-5 times a week;
35 minutes
WEEK 12:
40 minutes running, 3-5 times a week;
40 minutes
As you'll see in the above training schedule, I recommend doing at least 3 sessions a week. You must think about running at least 3 times a week to reap the benefit of training. Remember, though, to spread your sessions across the week and to be regular: don't run for 3 days on the trot (!) and then rest for the other 4. Ideally, you should train on alternate days, giving yourself a rest day between sessions. If you have the time, you can also train more than 3 times a week, but I would always advise at least one rest day a week.
Italian to English translations by Ivor Coward
