You are so lethargic after a race and can’t seem to beat your personal best. What can you do?
You want to run faster, but no matter what, you cannot seem to break your personal best records in races anymore. As a result, you may be feeling as though running is no longer for you.
But it is definitely possible for any runner, to continue to break his or her own boundaries and become an even faster runner.
Here are some tips on how you can do so.
Exercise your core muscles
Making an effort to exercise and strengthen your core muscles will make you a much more efficient runner too. At the same time, paying attention to these muscles will help you to improve your stability as a runner, prevent pain and reduce your risk of injury.
However, core strength training is a lot more than just doing sit-ups and crunches. Sure, these are core exercises, but they are not the only ones – and they only strengthen certain types of muscles. There are, in fact, a variety of other core training exercises you can do, to strengthen other often-neglected muscles, including overhead claps, lunges and planking.
Do Basic Training Drills
Doing basic workouts will also help you to improve your performance. These types of workouts include High Knee Lifts, Butt Kicks and Left Right Tapping. If you want to improve your running, practise doing these workouts until you are able to perform them smoothly and without looking awkward.
Basic running drills workouts will also help you to strengthen your lower body muscles groups and help you to run faster.
Do Uphill Running
This will help make you more efficient as a runner. Every major marathon, whether road or trail, contains at least one hill, so by approaching them more efficiently, this will ultimately help to improve your speed and therefore your timings.
If you want to do uphill running, do not do so as you would on flat ground. Instead, try going up the hill using a Left Right Tapping technique. In Singapore, some of the good hilly places to train include MacRitchie Reservior and Bukit Timah Hill.
Moving up slopes using the Left Right Tapping technique will help you tackle all hills with least effort and energy. This method will also help you in balancing especially in trail uphill running
Do tempo runs
Do not just simply do a long run at a slow pace. If you do tempo runs, it will push your body much harder by helping you to build up both speed and strength.
So instead of just doing a slow run at an easy pace, it will help if you say, do the first kilometre at a very easy pace that is much slower than your typical race pace. A brisk walk or slow jog would be fine. Then you go out very hard for the next 20 minutes, at a pace that is much faster than your average running pace. For example, if you are usually a six-minute per kilometre runner, try to do this tempo at a pace of four minutes per kilometre and see how long you can last.
When you are no longer able to sustain the speed, you should tone down and go easy on yourself for the next one kilometre.
Get some more tips on how to run!
- How to Train for a Marathon
- How to Cope with Race Fears
- Are you Ready to Run a Marathon
- How to Increase your Running Mileage
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