I've been coaching Runners from beginner to Pro for the last 20 years and I've come up with a list of the 10 hardest hitting things I've had to learn the hard way so that you don't have to and I'm going to share them with you right here right now for free and honestly if you can't watch this video right through to the end and take all this on board I've got news for you you're probably not going to stick it as a runner okay so the first thing I want to talk about specifically is I guess fairly trendy as a topic for runners here on YouTube it's something that I've covered in the past and I know a lot of other creators have but I feel like a big part of the point has been missed we're talking about low heart rate training running slow to run faster this is something that people get really really overwhelmed with really frustrated with and to be honest kind of sick of hearing about it's all valid and it's all true that when it comes to building a solid base of aerobic endurance slowing down focusing on your heart rate really spending a lot of time in zone 2 in particular is where we do the work to build those building blocks now it's important to understand how low heart rate training works of course and I've got videos on the channel about that but there is a big big missing piece of the puzzle that people don't really talk about they talk about the way in which our bodies adapt physiologically so talking about things like cell mitochondria the little organs within the cells that that really power our aerobic exercise they talk about increased capillary beds all those sorts of things you know they're real kind of nuance of the physiology but they don't talk about why slowing down actually benefits us as runners okay now it's not about all these changes that improve from an aerobic training point of view largely those will happen anyway just through consistent running you can optimize for them by getting your pacing absolutely right but for most Runners the V majority of us just getting out on a regular basis will take you from a place where your your aerobic conditioning is really poor through to a place where it is superior to the vast population now what gets us there is not being injured and it's this whole slowing down taking it easier on your body and that's the key taking easier on your body through slowing down that really gets us to the point where we can run without injury and it's running without injury that allows us that consistency where we start to compound the benefits of running week after week month after month year after year with minimal downtime that is is really the key benefit to low heart rate training where everyone's talking about the difference between your plus or minus a few beats of heart rate on your watch it's important to be in the right ballpark but more importantly is how after a long slow easy run at a nice low relaxed effort level so low heart rate more like easy conversational Pace you can wake up the next morning and feel good to go again your knees aren't hurting your shins aren't hurting your lower back isn't hurting you haven't smashed your body stride after stride because you've been trying to do a long run at too fast of a pace instead you've been running at an aerobic appropriate relaxed pace which means wake up good to go again you can continue training you can get perhaps another session in the week the consistency starts to compound that's the real benefit and of course all part and parcel of that when we're talking about aerobic train is the energy systems that we're training yes of course working on those low heart rate slow easy pce runs they are going to help you to metabolize fat better burn fat for fuel that's a whole different conversation it's another video where we talk specifically about running nutrition but what I want to get across is there's a big big difference and no not enough people say this there's a big difference between burning fat for fuel and losing body fat they're not not the same thing so if you're getting into running or you're into running because you're wanting to lose a bit of extra Timber this is not necessarily the the way in which that's going to happen Okay in fact through my experience and the experience of the vast number of Runners that I've trained who are running for these purposes it's got nothing to do with the mileage you're doing nothing to do the amount of time spent aerobic training is all about what happens in the kitchen the food you eat and that just sounds so cliche but it's so so true okay I've run blocks where I'm doing 60 mile weeks and I'm being good with my training uh sorry good with my eating and the weight just melts off me like to the point that family members have asked for something wrong I've also done 60 M blocks you blocks of 60 m per week training where I've eaten kind of badly and my relationship with food isn't great anyway and if I'm not eating well that that mileage won't move the needle in terms of the scale okay so the difference is what you're putting in your body the cliche whole thing of you can't outrun a bad diet is just so so true okay the next thing I want to talk about just quickly as you're starting to see improvements in your training and you're starting to want to just tweak your program bit by bit just to keep those improvements coming especially if you just signed up for uh let's say a half marathon or a marathon and you've got a training plan for this event is don't make wholesale changes all at once please please please just change one thing at a time okay so if you've been doing reasonable mileage for you and all of a sudden you want to add a bit of speed work don't bump up your weekly mileage at the same time keep your mileage where it is just add in a speed session so you're tweaking the intensity all the time I see people who they want to throw in an extra speed session in the week or start doing a bit of speed work and they do it on top of what they're already doing so their mileage increases at the same time as the intensity in the week increases training load just goes through the roof and all of a sudden they found that they've tipped over this threshold where their bodies no longer able to tolerate the training load able to tolerate the the stress The Strain the impact cumulatively week after week after week with this new level of stress and something breaks down again where it is is largely dependent dependent on where their weat link lies but please avoid that at all costs think about right how's my training looking at the moment what can I add in what do I need to di back on to to kind of balance that out and on that note as well when it comes to speed training it's really really important to appreciate that not all speed workouts are created equal there is a big big difference between different typ typ of speed session now if you're new to doing speed work or if you're doing speed work again factoring it in after an injury you have to respect this Continuum it starts out with long heel reps the intensity isn't particularly High because you're working uphill for those longer reps you're not smashing it like you're doing Short Hill Sprints and the fact that you're running uphill actually takes a little bit of the impact off your knees and to be honest also your low back but from there that's when we can start factoring in as the next more stressful form of speed training factoring in our Tempo runs okay so we're not doing hard speed intervals yet those Tempo Tempo runs are just a bit more sustained they're still at a bit more of a a conservative effort so we're talking more like kind of 10k race pace for a lot of people and that is our next step beyond that we're looking at things like unders and overs so again it's a sustained uh sustained run a sustained effort but you're just working above and below a set pace so let's say you're doing 2 minutes at ever so slightly above 10k race Pace 2 minutes ever so slightly below 10k race pace and you're just bouncing between the two for let's say half an hour from there that's where we've got our Kenyon Hills so we're starting to factor Hill back in so we're working uphill flat and downhill let's say a good example example of that is you've got a hilly one mile Loop and you're just working round that Loop uphill sections flat sections downhill sections you're focusing on effort so keeping the effort high so again let's same 10k race effort but you're allowing the heels the inclines the flats the declines to actually dictate the pace that that equates to from there that's where we've got our Hill Sprints as our next level of intensity and then beyond that kind of higher level of intensity that's where we' got our track intervals so we've got our K reps our 800s our 400s our 200s those sorts of interval sessions which are much higher intensity much High harder on the body so speed work is not just speed work think of that as you start out of this end and you can progress through all sorts of different types of sessions respecting all those different types of uh Tons of Speed training through to a point where you are able to do some real high obtain stuff and then of course the question is how much speed work should you be doing in a given training week and honestly for most Runners it's absolutely adequate to be doing one speed session per week most of us don't need any more than that a lot of new Runners if you're just getting into running you're just beginning to add some structure into your training you're perhaps just starting to train for your first 10K half marathon maybe even stepping up to a marathon if you've been running running for a little while you don't you don't need to be doing a lot of speed work all these distances your performance it's largely based on your aerobic capacity okay your aerobic fitness speed work is very much Cherry On Top type stuff once you've built a solid aerobic base that's when adding in that extra speed work session each week can really start to take things onto the next level if you're still working on that first level then don't feel like you need to suddenly do this because this is what everyone's talking about okay so speed work once per week absolutely adequate before we move on I want to say a big thanks to the sponsor of this video chorus I've been using chorus watches for the last couple of years currently using their Pace 3 one of the standout features of the chus pace 3 is its incredible battery life with 24 days of daily use and up to 38 hours of continuous GPS tracking you won't have to worry about using your every night the past3 provides incredibly precise tracking even in challenging environments the optical heart rate monitor offers accurate readings during your workouts and for that extra level of accuracy I found that pairing the watch with the super comfortable chorus heart rate monitor armband really transforms the whole heart rate training experience compared to wearing an unble chest strap but what I really love about the pastry is the level of customization It Off offers you can fully customize your activity screens through the choros app tailoring the data fields to your specific needs the training plans available via the coros training Hub allow you to fully customize your workouts track your progress with detailed insights from evolab including powerful metrics like training load and Base fitness check out the coros PAC three today using the link below in the description and be sure to use code James dun and checkout to get a free watchstrap with your order so let's move on and talk about strength work or injury prevention exercises there are so many different types that you could be doing whether we're talking about the exercises that your physio once gave you and we'll talk about that in a second or you're looking at doing some more heavy gym work looking at Big compound movements like squats deadlifts Etc you're doing you know lifting heavy weights on a bar five sets of five that sort of thing either way it has its place but I for one would rather Reserve this type of work the heavy gym work for periods where you're not being super focused with your running training it's certainly not for when you're in the middle of let's say a half marathon training plan or a marathon training plan if you want to preserve the uh energy in your legs really focus on the recovery between runs and not allow a big heavy low body gym session to start affecting that however what we can be doing are more body weight focused exercises so if that is out andout strength then perhaps where we use the term strength this kind of thing isn't necessarily appropriate we're talking more neuromuscular control Mobility coordination all those sorts of things but they are the factors that a lot of the time let us down as Runners and end up with us getting injured okay there are two ways in which we can we can not get injured as Runners we can either manage our training load better and let's face we could all do with managing our training load a little bit better or anden and or we can increase our body's tolerance to that training load okay so if we keep our training load in check and we start with these exercises to improve our body's capacity for work our tolerance to that training load then we're less likely to get injured and that's really what these exercises are all about now I mentioned earlier physio exercises one of the best ways to get started you if you've ever seen a physio for an injury chances are especially if it's a running injury chances are that injury exposed a weak link anyway the physio if they were worth their salt they gave you some exercises to be getting on with the problem is that us Runners a lot of the time we do our exercises we get bard of our exercises it kind of stops hurting we get back to running the exercises just get forgotten about find that piece of paper with the stick men draw on them because those exercises are the exercises that your body needs to go go from being rehab exercises to them being your maintenance exercises your prevention exercises find time to factor them in and the beauty is they don't need to take 90 minutes two three times per week like a big gym session might you can work 15 20 minutes again two three times per week and just work on these key exercises that your body needs on a little and often basis and it's that little and often basis just getting it in the program making it as important as those midweek runs that will allow you to start building up that resilience and that tolerance to the training load now if you don't know what you need to be working on check out the bulletproof Runners program which works on this little and often principle again 15 20 minutes couple of times a week the link is down in the description it's put together for runners just like you and me we're busy but it covers all your bases next up I want to talk about the 10% rule lots of us will be familiar with the 10% rule not increasing your running by more than 10% week on week because once you step over that 10% line all of a sudden you're opening yourself up to injury well the other way around of looking at it is you can increase by up to 10% and you'll be let you'll be unlikely to hurt yourself I have an issue with that okay I have an issue with with kind of both of those ways around of looking at looking at it because really what most people equate that to is thinking about either mileage or time spent running per week and that's a problem because if we think about weekly mileage and we start out doing 15 miles per week let's say and we add 10% and we had 10% and we had 10% and we had 10% where does that go where does where does that end you've got all of a sudden um a bit of a bit of a problem because it's not a measure that you can just consistently use what I would much rather have you focus on instead of mileage is training load and I've actually put a video together about training load which I'll link to down in the description but training load will be a far better metric because it combines your time spent running and the intensity of those runs and the com comb combination which brings up that training load figure is a figure that you can look at on a week by week basis not stepping up by more than 10% again that will do a far better job of not breaking you again if you want to know more about training low check out the link down in the description okay this one is something that I could genuinely talk all day about I won't I'll keep it brief until the point but running form running form is something that again people online love to talk about and give random bits of advice about and people a lot of the time want to change because we're looking for that kind of marginal gain that that percentage gain through just making this small tweak or that small tweak to how we run problem is we've got to appreciate that how we run is kind of dictated by the way in which our bodies are put together okay areas of strength areas of weakness tightness flexibility um even skeletally you know some people are different to others in terms of how your hips are or how your lower legs are you know some people's feet turn out Etc how you run is largely individual to you now we can certainly tweak that and just start to based on a individual one by one basis figure out what might be slightly better than what your body naturally does and a lot of the time that is based on injury history so if I've got someone who's got a history of runner's knee Patel Emeral pain then I know there are things you can do to start to actually offload that telepal joint that kneecap you can start to work on all the things we usually talk about reducing an overstride working on increasing your Cadence those sorts of things if we got someone who's got a history of Achilles tendon problems Achilles tendonopathy then again we don't want to see that they've got this really long contact Time lots of time under tension for the Achilles which would usually come with a big heavy heel strike and slow cadence we also don't want to see them right up on their toes where they're not allowing the heel to come down and touch the ground because again that's going to equate to putting lots of strain through the Achilles now those things can be guided like I said by injury history but if you're just changing or trying to change your running form through a desire to run faster and improve performance a lot of the time you're going to be working against that path of least resistance so it's really really really important to just take a second and think is this is this a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it is changing your running form actually the thing that's going to take you where you want to get to if we're talking about getting away from Pain and history of injury and a recurring pattern of injury great Lots we can do there if you're looking to just shave a few seconds or minutes or whatever off a personal best chances are you'll be better served either and I'm sorry to say it either to figure out do you need to lose1 or to say well and to say what can I do can I do an extra certain amount in a training volume per week to bump up my aerobic fitness to actually then see the benefits there rather than just trying to find these kind of hacks that that kind of don't exist if it ain't broke don't fix it okay here's one that comes up all the time I felt it you felt it it's that first mile the first mile of a session which a lot of the time can feel really really uncomfortable it almost feels like your body's kind of your heart's racing your lungs you can't get a proper breath it's almost like just taking your body by surprise and to be honest that's exactly what's happened the reason why for a lot of us when we go out for a run let's say we're time poor we' just thrown our shoes on and gone reason why it's uncomfortable is because we haven't done a warmup and I'm not talking about doing a full-on track session type warm-up before you're about to go and do four miles after work on Tuesday I'm talking about just easing into your run the warmup can be a few gentle Mobility exercises perhaps a couple of activation exercises like some bridges or something like that whatever you know your body needs I for one always like to warm my calves up some ankle pumps cuz I know that's an area I get tight if I don't but from there just know that not heading straight out of Target Pace but instead building in through that first mile can make all the difference to how miserable it would otherwise feel okay here's an observation over years of working with all sorts of different types of Runners Trail Runners yes they trip over tree roots and rocks and all those sorts of things they twist their ankles very specific Trail Runner type stuff but when we're looking at running injuries which are overuse in nature so let's say we're talking about things like ITB syndrome I see far far less of it in Trail Runners and I think there's no coincidence there for me the nature of running on Trails the way which compared to running just on the concrete or asphal which is so uniform and flat well the trails just give that much more variety and it's that Variety in how our feet land and load and therefore that translates up the system in terms of how our ankles work how our lower legs knees hips blah blah blah they get a variety in terms of the workout as you go stride by stride mile by mile run by run instead of us road runners same same same same same it's a really um repetitive un whatever the word is unchanging pattern um that if you've got a certain imbalance or a certain weak link you're going to be picking on the same muscle the same area the same tissue over and over again with those very very similar steps Trails because it is so different cuz it is so varied you're getting that varied workout and you're not going to be pinpointing that specific tissue that's just going to get beating with every single uh step that you would do if you didn't have that variation so all that to say it will be well worth and this pretty much goes for all of us well worth thinking how can I get off Road at least once per week maybe twice per week and just start to add a bit of variety into the workout okay not so much that all of a sudden you're feeling like this is really really hard work I went and did a number of years ago I went and did a half marathon that was um it was advertised as being a road half marathon with a little bit a little bit of trail to be honest we were running through plowed Fields it was just brutal and my hips muscular but muscular pain Doms the days the days after it was brutal so it does demand different aspects or different things of your body so don't throw yourself in headlong but just Factor it in and see how your body responds I think you'll find it'll be positive and of course if you do find that there's an ache a pain beginning of an injury start to raise its head please please please don't make the mistake that so many Runners made which is trying to run through it running through pain is stupid okay there's there's no point and US Runners are really headstrong at times we are very very driven and it's what it's what powers us forwards it's it's a it's a double-edged sword because that thing that powers us forward is also often the thing that causes us to go that little step too far just to run through perhaps more than we should do all of a sudden we've got a little case of shin splints that turns into a a full-on stress fracture as an example that's a fairly extreme example but you know what I mean we've got a little bit of a a little bit of soreness which turns into a full-on muscle strain these are the sorts of things that are entirely preventable if you would just listen to your body okay so don't run through pain because I'd much rather you take a couple of days off perhaps even a week off just to give yourself a little bit more recovery you can still swim you can still cycle give yourself a little bit of recovery do that proactively so that you don't have to take a month off 6 weeks off two months off further down the line when you realize that okay this is a real thing this is a proper injury and it sucks so there's that and similar conversation of course when you have taken that time off perhaps you've taken two three days off because you've really felt the the effect of a hard session more than you expected don't feel you have to play catch up okay just allow yourself to say right those sessions they've gone perhaps you could like I said do some stuff on the bike but those run sessions are gone I'm just going to pick up start next week and off we go if you start trying to play catch up and cram sessions in together it's it's just again a recipe for disaster so don't run through pain don't play cat up