Last week’s article, “How to Run a Strong Marathon” seemed to be quite controversial.
 
As I shared the article with the R&RT group, the community members started voicing their opinions. On one hand a few runners were surprised by the concept of running the full race distance in training but agreed that this concept made sense… on the other hand, a few members were skeptical and shared their concerns about running too much during training, stating that this could increase risk of injury.

Running isn’t just running. If you want to run fast, you need to run fast. If you want to run further, you need to increase your total running time. I bet you didn’t know this, but the same rules apply to stretching! Stretching has always been a strange and uncertain concept in running, leaving most runners unsure whether they should stretch before or after a workout for example. 

​Hills, our favourite upward flat sections!
I recently published three posts about three essential workouts runners need to incorporate into their training each week; speed work, tempo runs, and the long run. However, while these runs will help us to become more efficient, build endurance and speed, we still need to be strong runners. This is where our fourth element to this training comes in. If there was a “strength training” element for runners that didn’t involve time in the gym, it would be hill running.