Mike, On Recovery Runs: “The day after a hard workout or race make sure you listen to your body.  Your muscles will be sore and need an easy distance run both to remove the lactic acid and to help deal with the soreness left over from the race.”

Jon, On Tempo Runs: “Tempo runs are a good way to get stronger and to help build your endurance in the building up period of your training. The uses of a heart rate monitor in a tempo will help you know what your lactic threshold is and how hard you should be running. A tempo run should be a solid 75% to 85% effort.”

Matt, On Rotating Shoes: “Make sure to change shoes every 350 to 500 miles to avoid getting injured from running on broken down shoes.  Additionally, rotating two pairs of shoes during heavy training will make your shoes last much longer.”

The Long Run:  Incorporating a long run into your weekly training is an essential aspect of training.  The long run should be fifteen to twenty percent of your total weekly mileage. Many runners do their long run on Saturday or Sunday to cap off the week’s training.

Increasing Mileage:  When attempting to increase your weekly mileage it is important to do it in small, steady increases rather than dramatic spikes.  By increasing your mileage each week ten percent your body will comfortably adjust to the added volume without becoming overly sore.

Interval Workouts: Interval workouts are a key aspect of hard training.  Start out with something not to challenging like 6 X 400M.  If your goal pace for a 5k is six minute miles, then you should try to run your intervals at just off race pace.  90 seconds per 400 meters equates to six minute pace so try running your intervals at 94-96 seconds.  As you become more comfortable with the interval workouts try increasing the number of intervals and dropping the pace of each interval to make the workouts more challenging.

Assessing Injuries: Listening to your body when you feel an injury coming on is just as important as any other aspect of training.  If you take care of injury with ice, rest, and stretching you can significantly decrease the amount of time missed.  Trying to run through an injury will almost always lead to more missed time training than if it the injury is properly treated at its initial onset.