Whether you want to go faster over 5k or a marathon, don’t just focus on adding extra miles to your training. Smaller changes to your running routine and lifestyle could make all the difference to achieving a personal best:
1. Work your core
Improving your core stability will enhance your fitness, balance and racing performance. Your core muscles are in your torso and connect the back, stomach and hips. By making them stronger, you will improve your posture which will help your running technique, making your running effort more efficient and faster. The improved balance it provides will help you run faster over uneven surfaces and on hills. Meanwhile, improved core strength also lessens your chance of picking up an injury which could disrupt your training. Not only that, while you can do core stability work in the gym or at a pilates class, you can also do it for free at home.
One of the best exercises to improve your core that only takes a few minutes of your time is ‘the plank’. Lie face down on the floor and then raise your body up so only your forearms and forefeet and toes are touching the floor. Your back should be straight, not arched, and your head facing the floor. Hold your stomach in (but remember to keep breathing) and hold this position for 30 seconds. If your muscles are weak, you may find you shake slightly while trying to hold the position. Next, move onto the left hand side and raise your hip off the floor so you are balancing this time only your left forearm and side of your foot. Your body should be in a diagonally straight line. Pull your stomach in and again hold the position for 30 seconds. Then do the same on your right side. Try to do these exercises as often as you can a week (but more than once day isn’t necessary). When it starts to get easier, try holding the position for up to a minute. Or to make it even harder, raise one foot off the ground when you are in the face down position and when you are in the side on position, raise the leg of the foot which is not touching the floor.
2. Sleep well
The benefits of a good night’s sleep have been proven time and again for people’s health, skin and mental wellbeing and for anyone training hard, extra sleep is a must. This is the time your body needs to repair and recover after you have been pushing yourself in long runs and sessions.
The average adult is recommended to get at least seven hours of sleep a night so if you are training hard, you will need more sleep than the average person. However, some people can get by on less sleep than others. Try to work out your optimum sleep time by not setting your alarm (so don’t do it on a morning when you have to get to work!) and allowing your body to wake up naturally. This is the point when your body feels well rested and so cannot return to sleep (so if you were abruptly woken by noise or can’t get back to sleep because you are worrying about something, you have not woken naturally). When you have had a ‘natural’ night’s sleep, work out how many hours you have slept for and then try to get this amount of sleep as often as possible, it might mean you have to change your routine by getting to bed earlier. The good news is, when you are running, you shouldn’t have difficulty sleeping, research has shown that athletes get to sleep quicker and have deeper and better quality sleep than those who never do any physical activity.
Studies have shown that afternoon ‘power’ naps can also help people be more productive later in the day. So they are a good – albeit impractical idea – if you have a hard evening run or race planned. As many of us won’t have the opportunity to get our heads down in the afternoon, getting a good night’s sleep is essential – particularly on the nights leading up to a race. If you are able to sleep well the night before a race it will enhance your performance but for many, nerves and the need to get up early to make the start, will prevent this. Instead, get an early night the penultimate night before the race. Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated on race day could make all the difference to you running a p.b.
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The good news is, when you are running, you shouldn’t have difficulty sleeping, research has shown that athletes get to sleep quicker and have deeper and better quality sleep than those who never do any physical activity.
3. Train at race pace
To up your pace in a race and achieve a p.b., you need to get your body used to running faster in training. Work out what split per mile or kilometre you need to run to accomplish your target race time and practise running at this pace in sessions and tempo runs. If you haven’t got a gps watch that can tell you your pace, try timing yourself over a set route you can measure on websites like mapmyrun.com or get down to a track where you can time yourself over a set distance.
4. Drink beetroot juice
A study carried out last year found that cyclists who drank beetroot juice before getting on their bikes were able to exercise for longer than those who didn’t. Scientists believe those who drink beetroot juice can improve their endurance by as much as 16 per cent because it contains nitrate – which turns into nitric oxide in the body and reduces how much oxygen is burned up by exercise - making physical activity less tiring. Beetroot can be an acquired taste but some juices available from supermarkets and health stores have been sweetened with apple or raspberry juice to make them more appetising. Perhaps you might find stomaching it is worth it for a p.b? One word of warning though – it will turn your urine a pink or red colour, a quirky but completely harmless side effect.
5. Kick at the finish
While running an even paced race is the best way to a p.b, always try and call up some extra reserves for a sprint finish. Kicking for the finishing line could be all the difference to shaving some seconds off your time. It is harder to ‘kick’ at the end of a half marathon or marathon when you will be feeling more physically drained, but in short and middle distance events, the athletes who can stride for home in the final metres are the ones who take the prizes. So how can you hone your sprint finish? Practise by doing some strides of around 100m once a week, always after you’ve warmed up. If you can find a football pitch, after a 10-20 minute warm-up, try doing three-five laps of sprinting the length of the pitch and jogging the width behind the goals continuously. Focus on pumping your arms and maintaining your posture (try not to arch your back or lean backwards or forwards).
6. Know the course
You wouldn’t go into a meeting or an exam unprepared so why go into a race? Preparation includes your training and making sure you have what you need organised for race day but it also means knowing what to expect when you get there. Unless you are doing a track race, every course varies. You might have to do multiple laps, turn tight bends, climb steep hills or, in the case of a cross country race, negotiate slippery, muddy paths. Major races like the London Marathon send out maps of course with your race number. Study it carefully as then you’ll know when to expect each mile marker and where drinks stations are. Other races may post a map of the course on their website or you could investigate the area on websites like Google street view. If your race is in a park where you do multiple laps, you could do one of the laps as your warm up so you know what to expect. Knowing the course will give you a mental edge, you’ll know at what point to kick for a sprint finish and you can organise with your family and friends at which points they can cheer you on to give you a boost.
7. Hill train
Incorporating hills into your runs will help your legs become stronger – making you run faster and lessening your risk of injury. It’s also good race practice as most road and cross country races feature hills or undulations at some point. Try and fit running up and down hills into one of your regular running routes. Or you do specific hill training once a week or month. For example, find a hill of at least 200m in length and do repetitions running hard up the hill and jogging back down. Focus on your stride and using your arms to drive towards the top of the hill. On another day, try working hard down the hill as well with a timed recovery between efforts. Learning how to stay in control while running downhill will help keep your momentum going in a race and strengthen other muscle groups to the ones you have worked going up hill.
8. Wear racing shoes
Shoe manufacturers are constantly coming up with new ways to make running trainers sleeker and lighter to help you go faster. Road racing shoes are available that weigh less than every day running shoes so your feet feel lighter and so improve your turn of speed. Lighter shoes could make the difference between achieving a p.b. or not – albeit perhaps only by a few seconds, but a p.b. is a p.b! However, to make the shoe lighter, cushioning and support can be compromised. Therefore, it is not advisable to do long runs in lightweight shoes or races like half marathons and marathons – particularly if you don’t have a neutral or running efficient style eg if you over-pronate. Save wearing your lightweight shoes for races and tempo runs and sessions. Lightweight shoes are ideal for 10k races and shorter. Meanwhile for track or cross country races, spikes are essential footwear to give you extra grip.
9. I think, therefore I am, a fast runner
Many top athletes will attest that their success doesn’t just lie in their physical abilities but also in their mental strength. If you want to run well, you need to have self belief and a positive mental attitude. Sports psychologists recommend a number of techniques to help people reach their potential. One is visualisation. Before a race, think about how you will feel in the final mile, visualise yourself running well, striding out overtaking people around you and speeding towards a p.b. If you prepare your mind for this outcome, it is more likely to be achieved, as studies have shown that thinking about a specific movement produces the same activity in the brain that occurs when that actual movement is performed.
Negative thinking during a race could also derail your p.b. plans. Don’t give in to voices in your head that might say you can’t do it. Instead, give negative thoughts a positive slant. For example, if you think, “my legs are tired” instead tell yourself “my legs are tired because I’m running well”. You could also try chanting a personal mantra to keep you focussed and in a rhythm eg a line from a song or poem or a phrase that gives you motivation. Or simply repeat encouraging words to keep yourself going like “keep pushing”, “one more mile to go”, “you can do it”.
10. Less is more
Once you’ve prepared physically and mentally for a race, the best thing you can then do to give yourself the chance of a p.b is rest. This means decreasing your mileage in the run up to the event and doing nothing or short, easy jogs in the days preceding the race. The length of your taper depends on the distance you are running. For a marathon, three weeks out is when most people start easing down, for a half marathon, two or one week and for a 10k or less, one week or a few days should be sufficient. This rest period in important to allow your body to recover from training and save up energy stores for the day. You can also help yourself during this time by eating well and staying hydrated. Don’t worry about losing fitness, by easing back, you are ensuring your body will be fresh on race day so you’ll be raring to go and all the training you have done will come through.