Running, or popularly known as running, is one of the most popular sports among the population. It consists of running a certain distance at the pace you want. It is very practiced because it does not cost money, it can be done at any time of the day, and it can be carried out individually or accompanied. This requires cardiovascular endurance and optimal fitness.
What is running endurance?
The resistance when running is necessary since it will determine the time and pace that we can impose during our practice. Going for a run can have several goals. Some seek fat burning to get a good figure, others play sports and improve their level of health, while others prepare races such as, for example, running a half marathon.
When we run, the level of beats in our heart increases. The more trained you are, the longer you will endure a certain pace. The challenges are to increase this resistance little by little and, above all, constantly. One day you may think that running a certain distance may be impossible, while, after a while, that distance will seem like a piece of cake. That day you will have managed to improve your endurance when running.
However, do not be too ambitious when running. In the sport of running, the phenomenon of sudden death is well known. This means that a person loses his life unexpectedly due to heart failure. It’s not at all usual. In fact, every year one in every 50,000-100,000 athletes dies from this cause. In spite of everything, we must use our heads when we go for a run. We should never go beyond our limit and, above all, if we notice any symptoms of fatigue or discomfort stop for a long time and never suddenly, hydrate and recover energy to prevent any type of pain.
Advantages of having good resistance
Having a good resistance to run has multiple advantages, not only for sports, but also for life in general. The most prominent advantages of having optimal cardiovascular endurance are the following:
- Running prevents cardiovascular diseases and all their related risk factors. Some diseases such as hypertension are less common among those who have good physical endurance. Running also provides a greater number of immune cells reducing the risk of acute diseases.
- Increases muscle mass despite not performing gym exercises. In addition to losing weight, there are studies that confirm that running activates muscle metabolism and tones all the muscles of the body in a few days.
- The respiratory capacity of the athlete is improved. Running allows us to breathe better. The volume of the diaphragm is increased, which allows you to breathe deeper and attract a greater amount of oxygen. In addition, the body creates more red blood cells, which are needed to take oxygen from the lungs.
- The resistance of the heart is also increased. It should not be forgotten that the heart, in addition to giving life to any human being, is a muscle. Like any muscular organ, it increases in volume by doing sports and giving it a correct recovery phase. Therefore, improving endurance when running is to improve the level of pulsations both at rest and doing sports.
Tricks to improve running endurance
Improving running endurance should be the primary goal for any athlete preparing a certain distance, a half marathon, a marathon or even any type of triathlon test. As in fitness, such as breast training, variety is the key to success. You should not maintain the same type of training for a long time as we fall into the risk of falling into stagnation. Therefore, the variety in running training will allow us to work different types of resistance such as aerobic, anaerobic, as well as accustom the body to work at high pulsations in conditions of high fatigue.
Triathlon events can be beneficial, even for those athletes who just want to run. Swimming and cycling will allow us to give the final push to improve our endurance. In just two weeks we will begin to notice the first symptoms of improvement, which will increase our motivation. In a month we will be able to run 10 kilometers in a row with hardly any fatigue, and in less than half a year we will have enough conditions to prepare any type of race. However, it doesn’t all come down to going for a regular run. A correct improvement requires good planning on the part of the athlete or his coach if he wants to improve the endurance running.
The first step is to choose how many days of the week will be dedicated to athletics. Three to begin with will be enough, which can be increased to four or five depending on the objectives of each. You just have to respect several rules. The first leave a rest day between workouts, and a minimum of two for those days that are of greater intensity. Subsequently, set a distance that our body can assume depending on our cardiovascular endurance. If you start completely from scratch, about 6-10 kilometers will be enough, and if there is some base you can reach 15-20 kilometers a week. From then on, and depending on our results, we will increase the mileage between 5 and 10% every week.
Examples of workouts to improve our pace:
With these inputs, a week of training to improve our endurance when running could be as follows:
- Monday: 5 kilometers at a gentle pace. You should not end up very fatigued since you have the whole week ahead.
- Tuesday: Rest
- Wednesday: Run at a jogging pace to warm up, and from here, 5 sets of 300 meters at a high pace.
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: 3.5 kilometers of continuous running in which fatigue should be noticed at the end of training, but not extreme.
- Saturday: Rest
- Sunday: Rest
From here, every week you should print something more hardness to our training. On Monday, instead of running 5 kilometers, we will go to running 8, while on Wednesday we will increase the five series to 400 meters each. Finally, on Friday we will pass from 3.5 to 6 kilometers. Even, if desired, you can introduce a fourth day of training that could be Sunday. You should always look for something different. In this case, a continuous race of 5 kilometers with changes of pace every three minutes to start working the changes of rhythm in our body, and continue to improve the fatigue capacity of our body. Another variable that can be introduced to training is to play with the terrain where we train. It should not always be flat, but introducing some slope will also help improve the physical shape of our body and, therefore, the resistance when running.
- However, if regularity is maintained and a correct diet is applied, the results will be noticed in a short space of time that can range from 10 days to four weeks. Obviously, each race requires its type of training but in all cases, you should always vary the distances and intensities to achieve the expected results and lower the marks in the shortest possible time.