Just a quick jot down of important things in running I learnt over the years.
- If you want to prevent injury do warm up before you run, even 5 minute is fine. Doing dynamic stretching or movement before you start running helps you prevent injury. Sometimes, when I don’t really want to dedicate 10 minute for warm up, I do leg swings in elevator when it’s going down (it takes like 30 seconds for our elevator to reach 1st floor), butt kicks for 30 seconds, 10 lunges on each leg and leg swings for 30 seconds each leg holding on a tree. These are bare minimum that I do and it is absolutely a great warm up for me.
- If you want to enjoy your run and run for longer period of time, start your run with a slow run. I know, everyone wants to go full speed when they start because you have lots of energy and you want to start great. But hear me out. If you start running fast in the beginning, you will quickly loose your energy and by the middle of your run you will just want to finish before even reaching your imaginary finish line, be it your home or other destination. Our body needs time to adjust its systems that’s why it is crucial to go easy. Running slow actually has more benefits that running fast. I usually try to take it easy the first 3K-5K of my run. Of course, sometimes I start too fast too quickly, perhaps, music is driving me faster or due to other factors, I know for sure those runs where I start too fast too early, not as joyful as an easy start. I love negative split runs where I finish second half of the run faster than the first half of the run.
- If you don’t want to get muscle cramp after your finish your run (especially those runs where you finish with fast pace), never stop immediately after your run. Brisk walk or just walk for 5 minutes after you finish running. It will give your muscles time to adjust and prevent muscle cramp.
- If you want to speed up your recovery and feel fresh for your next day run do a cooldown. Whenever you do static stretching after your run, I guarantee you will exponentially speed up your recovery process. Doing static stretching for 5-10 minutes helps you loosen up those tight muscles and when you get out the next run, you will feel much more fresh.
I like to call these “the essentials” of my run. Because so much of my running wouldn’t be possible if I neglected these practices. Nobody is perfect, so neither me. Some days if I just don’t feel like doing one of them, I try to change with another movement but adhering to it and staying consistent is what helps me in my running journey.
Cheers until next week.
- Night Runner
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