heart rate zones are important
I've picked up running again in early august and ran an official 11.5k 8 days ago. This is after 20 months of no running. I did run regularly in 2022, but mistakes in my training made that do more harm than good. In this post I want to give some running advice that I wish I had known in 2022.
If you're completely unfamiliar with the concept, watch this youtube short and then read on.
My primary mistake in my running throughout 2022 was that I never did any walking breaks. The result of this stubbornness was that I always ran at a pretty high effort. "Run slower" is advice you frequently hear from running elites trying their best to give advice to beginners. This, in my opinion, is out of touch with the reality of a running beginner. Running, at all, put me well outside the upper bounds of zone 2 after a few minutes.
Never taking walk breaks in 2022 not only hindered my progress and made me plateau after a couple of months, it gave me heart rhythm issues and almost daily discomfort related to it. Heart stitches, pressure in my chest, palpitations, were all common during that time and only stopped (and abruptly at that) when I gave up running in 2023. Yes, I visited a cardiologist during the summer of that year, who took a good look at me and my heart before declaring me healthy. I just over-trained my heart. Don't do that.
In contrast, my first run on august 3rd this year was a 1.7k run with 4 walk breaks to allow my heart rate to come down. I kept doing walk breaks as I built up to 3k during that month, being able to finally run a full 3k in zone 2 without walk breaks on the 27th, on my 9th run. I occasionally still take a short walking break when my heart rate gets too high.
Here I once again have to disagree with the well intentioned elites that prescribe 3 runs a week, or every other day as "beginners advice". In early 2022 I used to be sore for 3-4 days after a run, as my calves have never been used so much in my life. Now, in 2024 the soreness is a lot less pronounced, as I seem to have retained a lot of the muscle I put on in 2022, but my joints (especially knees and feet) took more than a day to recover at first.
I say run when you're not sore anymore and no more than every third day in the first 2-3 months. Then listen to the "beginners advice" given by youtube elites.
A smartwatch, to me, is most important, as heart rate training was the difference between heart arrhythmia and healthy progress.
Running shoes are pretty important to not fuck up your joints. I like my hoka clifton 9s, but your best bet is getting consultation by a sales rep at a sports store.
Running shorts and shirt are much less important, but nice if you have the money. I like the shorts and shirt from the adidas "Own The Run" line, and also own the long sleeved variants.
That should be enough for a while.
Rhytmic breathing is nice, ideally breathing through the nose.
Bring a tissue on the run, especially in colder weather.
Binge watch running form tutorials for an afternoon and you should be good.
Avoid GTN (Global Triathlon Network) on youtube, their vids are consistently underwhelming.
A thorough warmup before a run and thorough stretching after help a lot in the beginning and for races.
Bring a chocolate bar, a snickers or sth, on your first 10k for a celebratory half-way point.
If you don't like running after a few weeks, stop and choose a different sport.