Runners

042 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK JULY 2018HOW TO RUN RIGHT ON CUESimple cues can help instil and maintain good form. Here are Gareth Cole’s top tips for sprinting with ease``````Maintaingood posture andavoids the sinkingat the hips thatcompromises form.``````Generate moreforce through theground, maximisingyour drive.``````Quickerfoot pick-up and itminimises groundcontact time.``````Maintainstiffness in thestride for greaterpropulsion.``````Cadence. Yourleg speed will matchyour arm speed.Surprisingly effective.``````The Transformation IssueFasterseconds) and number of reps at 10 –Magness recommends introducingalternate weeks of f lat sprints,gradually building up the distance ofthese to 100m. Once you’ve reachedthat stage, you will have developed agood speed base and can maintainyour gains with a sprint session everytwo to four weeks. ‘Distance runnersdon’t need to sprint too often,’ saysFitzgerald. ‘Doing so would just taketime away from more beneficialworkouts.’ But adding strides (shortbut relaxed bursts of quick running) tothe end of a regular run once or twicea week is a great way to help you retaintop-end speed, believes Hutchinson.‘It could just be four or five sprints oraccelerations of 10-15 seconds each.’Despite the high intensity of thesprint workouts suggested on thesepages, you won’t need to devote daysto recover after each one because theoverall volume is so low. ‘You may feela little sore after the first sprintsessions, but as you get more used tothem you’ll be surprised how freshyour legs feel the following day,’ saysCole. ‘In fact, many coaches scheduleshort sprint sessions the day beforeathletes’ tougher workouts to ensurethey go in with plenty of bounce.’GETTING SPECIFICIn traditional running terms, afterbuilding an endurance base, youwould start to gear your sessionsmore specifically towards the paceyou plan to run over the race distanceyou are targeting. In precisely thesame way, once you’ve developed yourspeed base, you need to progress tothe right kind of speedwork for yourchosen race distance. ‘Getting fasterover a half marathon requires a verydifferent approach than does speedingup your one-mile time-trial PB,’ saysCole. And neither can be conquered ona diet of sprints.‘The concept of speed is totallycontext-dependent,’ says Hutchinson.‘In any distance event, the “fastest”runner at the end of the race is theone who has simply tired the least. Inthat sense, the biggest limiting factorfor most runners is endurance. Evenfor a 5K race, around 97 per cent ofthe energy you require comes fromaerobic sources, which means thebest advice for many runners couldsimply be “run more.”’That’s particularly true for newrunners, who often begin to addspeedwork and tempo runs beforethey’ve built a solid base of easyrunning – ‘run before you can walk’syndrome. But it’s equally applicableto runners who train sporadically, butmistakenly try to ‘get the most’ out oftheir infrequent sessions by makingthem all intensely challenging. ‘Mostelites do about 80 per cent of theirtraining at relatively slow paces,focusing on covering long distanceswithout worrying about pace,’explains Hutchinson. ‘The other20 per cent is done at threshold paceor faster, meaning that it feels hard.This mix is a powerful way of workingon your race speed from both ends ofthe spectrum.’And it ties in nicely with theconcept of the speed base. To worktowards your chosen race, youstart your build-up by logging easymiles, combined with pure speeddevelopment. While maintaining