Jan & Vaughn's Running Page


Welcome to our running page. We hope to pass on a modest amount of information about our running experience.
The standard warning applies to all of the words that appear here: These tips apply and seem to work for two out of two people we know.

Training

Running is simple to do. Just put on your running gear and off you go. You don't need special equipment, you don't need a special venue, you just go. When you are starting out from nothing, it is probably sensible to have a plan, otherwise, the potential for failure and disappointment is high. Our recommendation is to use a stepped approach which involves mixing running and walking. Walk to warm up your leg muscles, then jog for a bit, then walk again. If you continue this for a set period or distance and vary the length of time walking and jogging, you will be eventually be able to join the dots and drop the walking and just jog the whole way.
What has worked for us is to use lamp posts to measure the walk-jog-walk distances. A Gym Boss beeper would work in the same way too.
To demonstrate, if you start with 2 lamp posts worth of walking then one of jogging, repeated over the distance you have mapped out, this may be enough to get you started. From then you could progress to 2-2-2 then 2-3-2 then 1-3-1.
An important note for the novice here: Some days will be really good and you feel that you could run for hours. Other days will be a struggle and you feel terrible during your run and/or at the end. From the outset, you have to accept that this is running. To paraphrase Forrest Gump's mum, running is like a box of chocolates, you never know what sort of run you will get.
Measure your progress. Record what you have completed. We have used a website called "Map My Run" to track our progess. You could a pen and paper to get the same result.
Running by yourself can be a chore. If you can find someone to run with, you can use each other as motivation to run more and, perhaps, run faster. The simple act of talking while you are running is helpful in so may ways: If not only to exercise your lungs more. Our advice is to get a partner or join a running club.