I am not gonna lie, the first runs are tough. The body does not know how to breathe or move, but the good news is, it only gets better, truly!
So congrats on reading this post, you are one step closer to achieving great things!
In 4 months, I went from running twice a week averaging 6 km per week, to 5 or 6 days a week averaging 40 km per week. So I will tell you a bit about my experience, my mistakes, and how important it is to take things slow and steady.
Running Motivation
The best way to start is to have a motivation behind it. Whether you want to lose weight or do a competitive race, a motivation to achieve a goal is the best way to get started. It will help you keep the training consistency needed to improve, and it is the best advice I can give in order to build the habit of running. For me, the goal was to start doing OCR races (Obstacle course races) competitively.
Baseline – First 2 weeks of running
Time to build your base. Your body needs to adapt to the new exercise load so the first two weeks are meant to be slow and steady.
When I started, I was living a sedentary life for some months and my body was not used to the load. The first 2 weeks were rough, I was having quad soreness, calf cramps, and an increased appetite. Then everything started to get better each week. The first changes I noticed were in my breathing and leg muscles. Breathing was becoming more controlled and deep into my lungs, which was a great feeling!
In this phase aim to keep things simple, go at a slow pace, and avoid hills. Every person is different, there is no magic formula to what pace you should go. Just start at whatever pace you are comfortable with for 10 to 20 minutes. Begin by running only 2 days per week and spread them 2 or 3 days apart because your body will need some time to recover.
During your workouts, it is okay if you need to stop and walk for a while, just don’t stop completely. Walk, catch your breath, and then resume normally. Just remember, don’t push yourself too hard in the beginning. The goal is to establish a consistent routine that you enjoy and has a sustainable load for your body.
Increase the running load – 2 to 4 weeks
After the first two weeks, your thighs will start to recover much faster, breathing will be deeper and cleaner, and you will feel more and more excited at the end of each training!
To keep improving your baseline, add a new workout day to the week. This day is meant to be a bit more intense to develop more tolerance to higher paces and distances.
A common approach is to spread your workouts 1 or 2 days apart, like going on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday.
Using this split you can have the following training week:
- Monday: Continue with a slow run like the ones from the first two weeks, but try to increase either the workout duration by 2 to 5 minutes or the distance by 500 meters to 1 km.
Just remember, keep the pace slow. - Wednesday: Let’s start increasing those paces!
After warmup (5-10 minutes of running for instance), pick one of the exercises below- Go at a low to moderate pace for 2 to 5 minutes, then run 30 seconds to 1 minute faster (don’t sprint, just push a bit). Repeat for 3 to 6 times.
- Go at a low to moderate pace for 800 meters, then do 200 meters a bit faster. Repeat this 3 to 6 times.
- Shuttles – Do 100 to 200 meters at a much faster pace than you usually do, then rest for 1 to 2 minutes. Start with 4 sets and increase the sets each week.
These are examples of Interval training. Do not push too hard at this moment, just moderately increase the intensity on this day.
- Friday or Saturday: Go on a slow run again, like on Mondays, trying to increase either the running time or the running distance each week.
A new running habit was born!
After 1 and a half months of training, it is safe to assume that a new habit was born! You have less fatigue after running, leg muscles recover much faster. Now it is time to decide where you want to take your running to!
Running for fun
If you just want to run for fun, to lose some weight, or just to exercise your body, then all you need is to decide how long you would like to run each day, how far, how fast, and slowly increase the running time, distance, or pace a bit every week.
Increase the running days if you feel motivated, but the main message is: just enjoy running.
Running to reach a goal
Races, running objectives, competitive running. If this is your goal, then this is the time when things get serious!
You start thinking about running shoes, gear, clothes, nutrition, and things to help you improve. But remember, it takes time to become good at running. It is better to take things slow to not get injured, so patience is needed. The first month is just the first step to help your body start a new habit. Now it’s time to train for your goals!
Run for a goal
You set your goal, let’s train for it!
Depending on your objectives, the type of training will be very different. Training for a 5km is different from a marathon, an ultra trail, or competing in a championship.
Research the best training plan available for your objectives or get help from a running coach. Coaches will help you build your running season to become the best runner possible at every race.
If you are like me and like to research in order to understand how things work, I will give you some tips that helped me build my initial training plan and evolve in the beginning.
My goal was to start competing in OCR championships. The OCR category I registered involves 10 – 15 km of running, usually on trails, but it can also be on roads or sand. No matter the terrain, the base is the same, I need to be able to run 10 – 15 km each race, plus overcoming obstacles.
So my goal is set, I want to be able to do 15 km comfortably.
January was the month I started training. The championship started right away at the end of February, so I did not have much time to prepare for the first race. It was only in July that I started seeing bigger improvements, so it took me almost 7 months to build my base and get closer to the athletes in the upper half of my league’s table.
Here is what I did each month:
January
Building the base. I was only running 3 days a week, 4 or 5 km per workout at a very slow pace at 6’00”/km or above. The focus was to try to keep my breath under control. In this phase, on each workout, I needed to stop and walk 2 or 3 times to catch my breath, and that was okay because the body needs time to adapt. Then at the end of the month, I was able to do a full 6 km without stopping.
February
I kept running 3 days a week and started to increase the pace. The goal was to increase the pace by small amounts each day and also increase the distance. At the end of the month, I already had my first OCR race with 10 km, so I needed to be able to at least finish it.
In the last training before the race, I was able to do 8 km at a pace of around 5’00”/km. In that race, I walked a lot because I was not ready for the hills the race had 😂 .
But it was all fine, it was very pleasant and motivational, and I was just starting a new sport so I was very happy to be able to finish it!
March
After my first OCR race, the motivation was so high that I started to read more and more about how to run longer and faster.
I knew January and February were not well planned, I was just running at the same intensity every training day. After some research, I saw many people talking about how interval training helped them increase their pace and running distance, so I needed to try it out.
I decided to train 4 days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
- Monday was for a long slow run on trail terrain or a hill road. I started with 8 km and increased 1 km each week. At the end of the month, I was doing 12 km.
- Tuesday was interval day. Started with 4 series of 300 meters fast and 1-minute rest, increasing 1 or 2 sets each week.
- Thursday was for a Tempo run, which is a training type where you usually feel “comfortably hard” while running. You should do this mostly on plain terrains, especially at the beginning to be able to keep the pace since. In this type of training, I needed to push myself and increase the pace each week by small amounts. Started with 8 km and each week I tried to increase 500 meters.
- Friday was another interval day. This time I was doing the 800 meters slow to moderate pace, 200 meters fast, repeating 4 times. Each week I tried to increase the pace and if possible do 700 meters slow plus 300 meters hard instead.
April
This month I did many things wrong! I just kept doing the same training layout as in March, but it was flawed and some frustration appeared because I was not able to increase either my pace or the running distance. Something was missing in my training.
At the end of the month, after seeing no improvements it was time for more research. I was introduced to concepts like heart rate zones, lactate threshold, VO2 max. Things that we need to learn and develop to be more competitive.
May
Having new knowledge about how to improve running, I adapted my training plan. A common approach to follow is the 80-20 rule, where we have around 80% of easy runs and 20 % intense runs. This method helps prevent overtraining and is also much more effective in generating long-term progress.
I decided to train every weekday with this guideline in mind and rest on weekends.
- Monday Slow long run (at least 10 km, increasing every week) on trail terrain (Zone 2/3 heart rate)
- Tuesday Interval training
- Wednesday Slow 6 to 8 km or 1 hour (Zone 2 heart rate)
- Thursday Slow 6 to 8 km or 1 hour (Zone 2 heart rate) or rest if I am too tired
- Friday Interval training
This month I also had 3 OCR races, which caused more fatigue. Sometimes I needed to change and have an easy day on Friday instead of intervals, or have a rest day during the week to recover. But at the end of the month, I was feeling more powerful! Breathing while running was becoming easier, running longer distances was less painful and my legs were starting to go on autopilot, I was having less fatigue during and after runs.
Unfortunately, it took me 4 months to learn some running basics and start seeing big improvements. Hope you already start in a good way so that you don’t make the same mistakes as I did!
On another note, this is why a running coach would help at the start, maybe he would have helped me to not waste those 4 months and start with a good base from the beginning. Anyway, precious lessons were learned!
June/July
The foundation was done and I was seeing progress, so I kept doing what I did and learned in May.
Every week I was feeling comfortable to push harder on the intense days. I was doing 15 or 16 km on a trail or hilly roads with ease until a real test came in July where I ran my fastest 10-km OCR race ever, just some minutes after the best athletes of my OCR league, proving to myself that it is possible to be even closer to them if consistency, persistence, and research are done.
Final thoughts
Having a goal is the best way to motivate yourself into getting the habit of running. Either to compete or to move your body and feel good, the first step is to start! Age, weight, or height do not matter. What matters is your desire to achieve great things and enjoy what you are doing.
Global Triathlon Channel has a video with some great advice for beginners.
Let’s lace up those running shoes and hit the roads and trails!
Hope to see you out there running.
