LEARNING HOW TO RUN

GET STARTED IN RUNNING BY FOLLOWING THIS SIMPLE TRAINING PLAN

WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO START RUNNING

Running is one of the physical activities that gives the most satisfaction to its practitioners but also one of the hardest when it comes to starting. The sensations experienced the first times you go running can be so hard and unpleasant that they destroy all our motivation and make us give up during the first sessions. Therefore, although it may seem strange, the first thing we must do is learn to run.

Beforehand, running does not entail major technical difficulties and seems like an affordable activity for anyone. So what does it mean that we should learn to run? Many people associate the fatigue caused by running with breathing difficulties, hence the famous phrase “I have to learn to breathe when I run.” However, although learning to breathe can be important, at the beginning, there is another factor that greatly affects our ability to resist the effort. This factor is intensity.

Intensity is the factor that allows us to determine the level of effort that this activity requires of us individually. Intensity is an individual factor, since, for example, running at a speed of 6 kilometers/hour for one person may be a very hard activity and for another a very gentle one. There are basically two ways to measure intensity while running: speed, which is usually measured in km/hour or min/km; and heart rate, which is measured in beats per minute. Both units are difficult to calculate if you are a beginner, since in both cases we will need electronic devices, such as a mobile phone in the first case or a heart rate monitor in the second. A simple trick that can help us get started is to run at a speed that allows us to talk while running.

At the beginning of any running plan focused on improving aerobic endurance, our objective will be to gradually increase the training volume, that is, the number of meters or minutes that we dedicate to run without resting. Usually, when we start running we fundamentally make two mistakes: running faster than we should and running for longer periods of time than we can handle. The way to solve this is to start using fractional training methods and downplaying the running speed, since as we said at the beginning our main objective will be to gradually increase the number of meters or minutes that we are able to run without resting.

TASK DESCRIPTION

This task consists of proposing to students a running training plan to improve aerobic endurance, which fundamentally serves to learn to manage the concepts of volume (time or distance) and intensity (speed or heart rate). This plan will be carried out both within and outside of school hours and its monitoring will allow us to achieve a series of very affordable quarterly milestones, which will obviously be adapted to the age of the children. Furthermore, putting this training plan into practice will help us to learn about other content such as: the importance of warming up, the body’s energy systems, endurance training methods, heart rate and how to control it…

MILESTONES WE WANT TO REACH

FIRST AND SECOND OF ESO

First term: 7 continuous minutes
Second term: 11 continuous minutes
Third term: 15 continuous minutes

THIRD AND FOURTH OF THE ESO

First term: 9 continuous minutes
Second term: 14 continuous minutes
Third term: 20 continuous minutes

FIRST OF BACCALAUREATE

First term: 12 continuous minutes
Second term: 18 continuous minutes
Third term: 25 continuous minutes

RUNNING TRAINING PLAN

STEP BY STEP TASK

Download your training plan, on a sheet of paper or on your mobile phone.
Carry out the three weekly training sessions trying to intersperse whenever you can a day of rest between sessions and two days of rest at the end of the last session.
Forget running speed. Focus on not walking or standing during the periods of time when you should be running.
Even if you know that you will be able to recover between periods of work, do not run at a pace that does not allow you to talk while you run. If you do, you may become too fatigued and not complete the workout.
Remember to wear appropriate running clothing.
Warm up before you start and as soon as you finish, wrap yourself up so you don’t catch a cold and stretch.
Write down in your plan the sessions you have to do on your own and the sessions you do in class. Check your teacher’s planning to know how to organize your training week.