Major milestone:
Completing my first marathon!
What is the secret to your success?
Consistency, Runcoach app, and the support of friends and family.
What is the most rewarding part of training?
The most rewarding part for me was seeing how each week I was hitting new distances and new times.
What advice would you give to other members of the Runcoach community?
Stay consistent with your training, don't let a bad training day ruin other days, and just keep going.
What feedback would you offer on the Runcoach experience?
The app was great for my training, It helped keep me consistent and really helped me stay on track towards my goal. The speed and threshold workouts were great.
1-Wash your hands! It’s simple, takes one minute, and can protect you from germs that hand sanitizer can’t kill.
2-Get a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise 5 times per week. Getting the blood flowing re-oxygenates your body and helps boost your immune system.
3-Stay well hydrated. In the cooler weather, we forget that hydration is still important!
4-When you travel, change your clothes and take a shower after every flight to get rid of the germs you encountered en route.
5-Don’t skimp on sleep! Rest is essential for your health.
6-Mediatation, yoga, or a short walk to start your day and put your mind in the right place can significantly improve your day.
7-Cut back on sugary foods and increase your vegetable and protein intake to boost your energy and your immune system.
8-Spend time outside getting fresh air on a daily basis.
9-Avoid sitting down for long periods of time. If you get up every hour to get a drink, walk around, or stretch, your body will thank you.
10-Smile, laugh, and be happy. One of the most important, but easily forgotten, components of health is happiness!
help everyone remain accountable in the pursuit of their goals. But most importantly, Uma shares the benefit of the coach-athlete relationship and we at Runcoach are grateful for all of the runners we get to support.What is the most rewarding part of training?
Self awareness - Realizing that I am stronger than I thought - physically and mentally.
What advice would you give to other members of the Runcoach community?
Stick to the schedule that the Runcoach app gives you. Report back to the coaches via email. It creates a commitment. Don't skip out on speed work. It was very challenging for me, and I had no track nearby where I felt safe to train alone in the dark hours of the morning. I tried to get in as many speed workouts as I could and that helped a lot to improve my pace.
Anything else you would like to share?
I would like to say that the timely encouragement from Coach Cawood and Coach Hiruni went a very long way to help me PR my race. I felt like they were my personal coaches. During a difficult phase during the race, when I wanted to walk the bridge, I told myself that I would not let Coach Cawood and Coach Hiruni down, I would run that bridge. And I did it!
What feedback would you offer on the Runcoach experience?
The overall experience was very awesome. I will do it again. The app needs some upgrades. For tempo workouts, I reported warm up, cool down, drills+strides, speed run and cool down separately so coaches could see my pace, but the app did not total them correctly. So I had to delete all of that and enter one aggregate number which did not show the effort I put into the workout.
Share your story here!
There’s no denying that winter will be here soon.. and while we are all enjoying the awesome fall weather, it’s good to get
prepared for the not-so-fun winter miles that are ahead. Having good cold weather gear is essential, and here are some of my favorites that allow me to run unrestricted outside all year round!
Thermal Top
This lightweight top is surprisingly warm. Layered with a wind proof shell, and you can run in sub 20 degrees comfortably with full range of arm motion. It comes in both Men’s & Women’s styles.
Running Tights
Good tights make all the difference! These ones are lined and designed to keep our muscles warm despite winter’s efforts to thwart our ability to train outside. They come in both Men’s & Women’s tights.
Wind Jacket
Cover up that thermal top with a wind proof jacket. This one comes in both Men’s & Women’s, and will hold your body heat in, the wind out, and it’s reflective for safety!
Tall Socks
A must! Tall socks are my go-to in the winter to cover up the ankles… for some reason cold ankles make the rest of my body cold too. Unisex based off shoe size.
Mittens & Hat
Mittens are the way to go! If it is under 20 degrees, hot hands are good to have around to keep your mittened hands warm through all your miles.
You can also go through my store on the AthleteBiz website for more apparel ideas.
You may have heard it, but we will say it again: The long run is the most important run of your week.
Personally, the long run is my favorite run of the week too. It doesn’t always feel good, but I am always proud of myself once it’s completed because I know fitness was gained and mental strength too. But why is the long run so important? Why does the training plan have up and down weeks with total mileage/minutes? Is it really possible to finish a marathon if my long run never covers the entire distance in training? Here are our answers.
First, the importance of the long run stems from the cells. Runs exceeding 60 minutes help create more capillaries within the system, the more capillaries in your body, the more efficient oxygen can be transported and delivered to your muscles. Thus, increasing your endurance level and ability to run faster and further. As you feel stronger, and you accomplish mileage you never thought possible, you gain confidence. You start to learn that you can push harder and longer than ever before, and that is huge for the mental game come race day.
Next, the up and down weeks of mileage may look random, but we have a plan. We train you to run 2 weeks hard, 1 week easy. This cycle of training prepares the body as you work to build up fatigue, push through fatigue, and then recover. The adaptations that build fitness come when we soak up the training during the down week before increasing the mileage higher than before. For our marathon runners, these two challenging long run weeks back to back can help simulate the second half of the marathon with the accumulation of fatigue.
Last, the long run is more about time on feet than actual miles covered. Exceeding more than 3.5 hours of running during training has been known to have diminishing returns. Meaning that running longer than 210 minutes can negatively affect your body’s ability to have quality in training and could leave you sick, overly fatigued, or injured. Depending on your pace, any run 16 miles and over will allow you to successfully finish the marathon distance. It’s important to trust the process and know that with a taper, you will feel strong and ready to conquer 26.2 miles at the peak of your training program.
If you’re like me, you can’t wait for the next long run to get out the door and increase your body’s efficiency now that you know the goal of your most important run of the week.
