Clinic physiotherapist, Claire gives us her top tips for starting running: –So the new year has arrived and THIS is the year that you are going to start running!.The beauty of using running as a way of staying fit is that it is free, can be done at any time of the day, and is an activity that can be started at any age. All you need to get started is a good pair of running shoes ( and a good sports bra if you are a lady!) and you are away.At the beginning, to enure that you do go running, plan your week. Plan the times that you have avilable to go for a run and map out your routes.If you are just starting and you want to build up your fitness and avoid injury first start by walking your routes. As the days pass you can purposefully increase the speed that you are walking. Once ready you can do small amount of running in your walk. Once confident with the run/walk pattern start to increase the time that you are running and decrease your walking until you are able to run the enitire route without stopping. If at any time you start to feel any pain anywhere decrease your speed or distance until things settle. Then try to increase again. Once you have achieved this then you are away!!!After each session it is good practice to do a short walk to cool down and to do a few stretches such as theses:
As a beginner running regularly, such as twice per week, will improve your running quicker and decrease your chance of injury than running 6 times one week and none the week after.A good way to motivate yourself to continue with the running (especially on these chilly Inverness nights) is to enter a local event such as a 5 or 10K. The weekly inverness park run is free and you can go every week or just when you want, https://www.parkrun.org.uk/inverness/
This will ensure that your motivation is high on the weeks leading up to the event. Why not ask one of your friends to enter with you and then you have a running buddy to persuade you to go out on nights you don’t want to and vice versa. If none of your friends fancy running then joining a local jogging/running group is a great way to socialise when running and also a great way to learn new routes locally and take part in different types of training.Examples of these locally are:
So what are you waiting for? Get those running shoes on and go for it!