Strength training for masters runners
If you are over 40 and do one thing beyond running this year, make it this. Heavy, not light, twice a week — and a 40-minute session you can do at home.
Does strength training make runners faster?
Yes — but not in the way most runners expect. It improves running economy, not your engine, and the bigger benefit may be the weeks of training it saves.
Running hills in Wellington
You do not have to go looking for hills in this city. The question is how to make them work for you — three sessions, the climbs to use, and how to race them.
What should I do the week before a marathon?
Race week cannot make you fitter. It can absolutely make you slower. A day-by-day plan, the checklist, and why feeling terrible on Wednesday is normal.
How fast should I run 1km intervals?
Three different sessions use the same rep. The pace depends entirely on which one you are running — and most runners default to the wrong one.
Recovery for masters runners
Seventy-two hours between hard sessions, not forty-eight. The change that matters most after 40, and why the recovery tools that actually work are the unglamorous ones.
Wellington running tracks and trails
The word means two different things here, and both are worth knowing. Where the synthetic tracks are, which trails hold up in winter, and what each surface does to your pace.
Best strength exercises for runners
Six movements. Everything else is a variation on one of them or a distraction from all of them — and the distractions are what fill most runners' gym sessions.
How to train for a 10K
Nowhere to hide, and no distance that responds better to plain, consistent work. The ten to fourteen week shape of it, the session that matters most, and why the third quarter is the hard part.
What is VO2 max pace?
The pace runners most enjoy talking about and most often get wrong. A narrow band close to 3km race pace — and if you can hold it for 25 minutes, you are doing threshold work with a fancier name.
What is threshold pace?
The most useful pace in distance running, and the one with the most names attached to it. What it is, how to find yours, and why I use long reps with float recoveries rather than short intervals with standing rest.
How to train for a 5K
Short enough that people underestimate it, long enough that speed alone will not get you there. An eight to twelve week block, the two sessions that matter, and how to race it without paying for the first kilometre.
Running sessions at Karori Park
Wellington's default session venue, and the one thing about the loop nearly everybody gets wrong. Measured with a calibrated wheel it is about 965 metres, and the GPS there will not tell you otherwise.
How often should runners strength train?
Twice a week for almost everyone. The interesting part is what to do when that is not possible — and why the gym is the first thing runners drop at exactly the point their bodies need it most.
Can you still get faster after 40?
Yes — and for most runners over 40 the gains available are large, because they have never actually trained properly. What the decline really looks like, and where the improvement is hiding.
How often should a beginner run?
Three times a week on non-consecutive days — for longer than most new runners want to hear. Why the gaps are where the fitness is made, and when it is safe to add a fourth day.
How to train for a marathon
Months of unremarkable running done properly, then a small number of very specific sessions.
What pace should I run my easy runs?
The biggest lever most runners have, and the one almost everyone gets wrong in the same direction.
Best running routes in Wellington
The routes I actually send people to, and what each one is good for.
How should training change after 40?
Less than people fear, and differently than people expect. Four changes, and what should stay the same.