New to running? Avoid these five common mistakes made by beginners runners and you'll get more enjoyment and make great progress that you'll be able to maintain throughout the year. Fiona Bugler explains.
Too Much Too Soon
It’s great to be enthusiastic and to get fit you do need to overload. But there’s overload and there’s overload. Many new runners get the bug, go hell bent for leather and end up with overuse injuries like shin splints. Try one of our beginner programmes to help get you started. Find 5k training plans here.
Running too fast
“Run slow to run fast” is a mantra that many beginners would do well to listen to. Arthur Lydiard was famous for making this type of training popular amongst the elite marathon runners back in the 1960s. The marathon is an aerobic event, and uses the aerobic energy system; therefore in most cases it’s volume not intensity that should be addressed first to improve performance and many schedules include base building, when you run at low intensity, as the first block of training. When you train at a lower intensity you use fat as fuel, and that’s what we need to get good at using when we do a marathon. Running at a low intensity is a great way to build your endurance base, and gives you a fit platform to lift off from with more intense faster work as you progress.
Not mixing it up enough
The other mistake new runners make is running at the same (often too fast – see above) pace and not adding variety to train different energy systems used in running. “Novice runners tend to self select a pace and stick to it in every session,” explains physiologist from the University of Brighton Alex Bliss. “Performing the same type of run over and over again will lead to boredom and will eventually stop providing a sufficient training stimulus to produce overload, a critical factor for successful training and athletic development”. Speed and interval work, hill training and long slow runs are all essential ingredients in the runner’s recipe for success. Find training schedules and training tools here.
Wearing the wrong shoes
Ever since Chris McDougall’s famous 2009 Born to Run book described the Tarahumara ‘barefoot’ ultra running tribe, and discussed the research by Dr Daniel Lieberman, the need for shoes has been under scrutiny. Lieberman pointed out that it was from 1972 with the invention of the modern athletic shoe that injury rates rose to the current 65 to 80 per cent annual injury rate. Whether we need shoes or not is a debate that lingers on, but there is a consensus that the level of cushioning we choose will make a difference. And many runners opt for extra support when they don’t need it.
A study in 1989 found that runners in the most expensive cushioned shoes were 123 percent more likely to get injured! Most good running shops offer a gait analysis; some more sophisticated than others. Check out how Running Bug Dan got on at the high tech Oxford Gait Analysis Lab here. Shops like Sweatshop offer specialist gait analysis services and often your local running shop will have an experienced runner and seller of shoes who can give you the once over as you run up and down the street outside the shop.
Want to try barefoot running? 10 Tips to Start Barefoot Running.
See our Article, Which Running Shoes Are Best For Me here.
Setting unrealistic goals
Goals are important if you want to succeed, but unrealistic hard to achieve goals will have the opposite effect. For example, running your first marathon is a tough thing to do, so unless you have some real benchmarks i.e. lots of half marathons at consistently similar times leading up to the race, then setting tough time targets can be detrimental. Getting round really is a good option. For more on smart goal setting, read our article, here.
What Next?
Check out our Beginners Running: How to Start Running Guide.
Find a Running Training Plan.
Join a Running Group.