Last Saturday i attended a training (half) day, put on by Get Kids Going!, the charity i’m raising money for. The afternoon was hosted by David Butler (or DB for those in the know) at his personal training centre, the London Fitness Centre in Parsons Green. For free.
He introduced us to interval training; the why as well as the how. Which was good. But probably the most useful part was the Q&A session where he patiently provided loads of advice and answered all of our rather silly questions. Some of the best nuggets for me were:
– do your long run on a Sunday morning because that’s when the marathon take place. Your body gets into a routine over the 15 weeks and if your long run is on a Saturday it will expecting to be resting on the big day.
– if you train with energy drinks use Lucozade Sport because that’s what they’ll hand out during the marathon (i can’t imagine many other sponsorships where all the attendants will will be using your product for three months beforehand)
– always take fluid at a water stop
– try and have 5 meals a day, and have protein with each meal
– get a heart rate monitor and train at your marathon pace of about 75% max heart rate for long runs
– once you’ve got a routine you like, don’t change anything. Same energy bars, same kit, same detergent to wash your kit, same food before a long run.
We then heard from an osteopath, whose name i forget (sorry), but who again provided some really useful advice. Like the importance of stretching. Apparently most shin and knee injuries can be prevented by 10-15 mins of stretching each morning and evening. He got down on the floor and showed us exactly what to do, how long for and everything. I should have got a picture but i was a little embarrassed at snapping a lot – i need to get used to taking random blogger photos in public. As it is i only managed to get a few low quality pictures of the day.
This is Jane from Get Kids Going! handing out some forms and generally being re-assuring.
An introduction to interval training.
And an especially blurry image of DB about to impart some running wisdom.
Anyway, thanks to DB, Jane and the unnamed osteopath (sorry) for their time and advice. It was most useful.
"I believe it's jogging or yogging. it might be a soft j...apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It's supposed to be wild." 