What should you eat if you're a runner?

Ah the old dreaded question, that can be answered in a thousand ways! :) It is easy to look at what the top runners in the world are eating and try to emulate that but you should ask yourself, are you from Kenya? Are you an elite runner? Do you train 6 hours per day?

For most of us, the answer will be no to all of these questions. Kenyan runners that run professionally and even semi-professionally train upwards of 140 miles per week and spend a lot of energy training so they can get by eating a lot of refined sugar, often drinking soda after training. If you do the same but only train twice or thrice a week, you will most likely be overweight even though you are exercising. Even western elites eat a lot of carbohydrates because they burn them off during their training.

My advice is to shift your diet a bit and eat more fats and proteins than carbs. You will also need to eat a lot of fiber. If you eat a lot of carbs, you will constantly be hungry and will need to eat every couple of hours or be hungry. By eating fats (healthy fats, that is), you will teach your body to use fat as fuel and you will have a toned body in no time. For most people it will take 4 to 6 months, for others, it might take a bit longer.

So stop eating like a Kenyan elite because you are not Kenyan and not elite! :)

What to do if you have little time to train?

A lot has been said lately about training slow to run fast but what if you can only train twice a week for one hour, should you run slow and expect to race fast?

First of the bat, it will be hard to race fast and/or to your potential if all the time you have to train is 2 hours per week but as life sets in, it is a reality for a lot of people that running is secondary to family and work obligations, more like a hobby. So should you still train slowly and expect to be able to crank up the pace on race day if all you do is run slow for 2 hours per week? My quick answer is a resounding 'No!'

If all you have is 2 hours per week, I would suggest separating your run time into 4 segments and running 4 times a week with 3 easy slow runs at 180-age heart rate or less for 30 minutes each and one faster run which could be a threshold or interval workout. You won't get enough stimulus to your body to help you run at a fast clip if all you do is run slow for 4 runs of 30 min or 2 hours total. So, instead do one fast run per week or two if you can. Make sure you warm-up for at least 10 min and then pick-up the pace. So a 30 min progression run can work too. 10 min easy running then every 2 min go faster and faster. If you don't have time to warm-down, a walk back to your office or house is also fine.

If you don't know what a threshold or interval run is, please look at my other posts. In short, a threshold run is a run where you will run at a pace you can hold for an hour in a race. Certain watches like the new Garmin ones will even help you by showing you the right HR or pace to reach in order to run at your threshold pace.

Intervals should be repetitions of a certain distance such as 400 meter repeats or 800 or 1km or 1 mile. If you have little time to train, I would also suggest jogging the rest period instead of standing still, which will also be beneficial for your overall fitness.

Cross training and its benefits for runners

As runners we like to run. Run, run, run a lot. However, as we age, is that the best way to stay healthy and fit? I want to argue that it is not. In my case, running everyday got me injured and that's why I have started to cross train a lot more. If you don't like cross training, you won't be consistent with it and you won't see any results. I didn't like cycling as much as running so I really didn't do it that often.

Somehow, I was cycling a lot more this year and I developed a lot for it. Suddenly, I was checking bike workouts online and looking at road bikes to upgrade my cross bike that has thick tires (good for training but not so much for racing.) I did do a triathlon with it a couple of years ago but I would to upgrade it now that I want to get back into triathlon racing shape and beat my old PRs!

So, if you want to add to your running arsenal, I would suggest finding the cross training sport that can add to your running fitness and develop a love for it, as you will do it more often. Cycling compliments running quite well as it works the quads more and it's also low impact so you can do workouts more often and not feel beat up by them. When I was training for a marathon this year, I also cycled a lot but I used the cycling as recovery and almost never went fast but long to develop my aerobic system.

The importance of strength training as you get older

I have found the hard way that running at a good level without having a strong structure to do it with (a strong body) can and will lead to injuries. In my case, I developed a double inguinal hernia and a sciatica. I know sitting all day has a lot to do with these injuries too but it's mainly because I was running a lot and my body's structure was not strong enough for that.

So since I found out about the hernias, I've been doing some strength training in combination with some stretching. I have found that it is harder for me to keep up with stretching, though. Also, since I won't be able to get surgery for another two months, I decided to get into the best shape possible before being operated on. This is what the elites do so they can recover faster and get back into training faster after a surgery. The last time I had hernia surgery, 10 years ago, I was cycling at the gym 2 weeks later and a week after that I was already running and playing tennis, albeit with some pain. I am now 10 years older so I figure it will take me at least a month before I can run again without risking to re-injure myself.

The strength exercises I do are actually quite hard for someone that is injured but I feel like strengthening my core and back muscles will definitely shape me into a stronger athlete and help me avoid the issues I've been having in the past.

Can you make running on a treadmill less dreadful?

There is a reason they call it the dreadmill. For someone who is used to running outside, running indoors is quite boring and I constantly need to challenge my brain with different things to focus  on to be able to complete a workout on the dread.

I am terrible at running for longer than 15 to 20 minutes at slow speeds on the treadmill. I will find a way to get off and either take a swig of water, check my phone or go to the bathroom at every occasion I get. If I can manage to break down the run in smaller segments, I am able to run indoors for 45 to 60 minutes without thinking about it.

One of my favorite workouts is to do a fartlek session (Swedish word for Speed Play) where you run different intervals at different paces. For my workout today, I did a 10 min easy warm-up and then a session of 3  times (3 min fast - 1 min slow - 2 min fast - 1 min slow - 1 min fast - 1 min slow.)  So in total it was 9 fast intervals and 9 slow ones. I ran the fast ones at increasing speeds. Started at 12km/h-13-14, then 13-14-15 and 14-15-16 to finish. It was quite a hard workout as 1 min of recovery jog is quite short.

After that, I did a 5 min cool down and called it a day. Total 7km or 4.5 miles and 6km/h average because of the warm-up and cool down. Here is the Strava Link to this activity :

The famous dreadmill in my pain cave!

Terrible weather outside!