Training Terms Explained

Warm-up/Cool down: It is advisable to warm your muscles up before you start exercising hard, this will make it easier to perform and will help in prevention of injury. The cool down brings the body back to normal after exercise and helps stimulate blood flow to remove the waste created in the muscles during exercise - this will reduce the onset of stiffness the day after exercise and also help guard against injury.

If you are setting off for a walk or run, take the first 5 to 10mins at a very easy pace and gradually build up into your intended training pace. As the level of intensity of your training run increases then so does the need for a warm-up. A typical warm-up would be 5mins walking, 10mins jogging followed by gentle stretching of the main muscle groups. If you are going to be running full out in the session, 2 or 3 short sprints between the warm-up and just before starting the session will encourage a full range of motion.

After hard have exercise you will have a certain amount of waste left in the muscles and the muscles will shorten a little, a gentle jog cool down followed by some gentle stretching of the main muscle groups will help encourage blood flow to remove waste and return the muscles to their normal length.

Easy run pace: This should be very comfortable running speed and may actually be walking pace at first. Most of your running in the early stages should be at this level of effort - you are not being soft on yourself, you are forming a base so you can train harder later. Once you are established in your training routine this pace is used as active recovery between harder training days.

The effort is equal to 50 to 60% training level if working with a heart rate monitor. At this level of effort you are encouraging the body to use the fats in the blood as energy - this is an important process in making you a more efficient user of energy thus increasing the distance you can run before becoming depleted of the body's usual energy source: glycogen.

Steady Run: Running with more effort, but you should be in control and able to talk to people while running - often called ‘conversation pace'. The long runs should be done at steady pace once you have developed your base fitness at the ‘Easy Running Speed'. Equal to 60 to 75% training level if working with a heart rate monitor.

Tempo or Threshold Running: These runs are done at a speed that you can just about maintain for a long period of time - tempo running is specific to the speed you might run a race, i.e. projected marathon pace, half marathon pace or 10km race pace. Threshold pace is the pace that you can maintain for 1 hr without becoming anaerobic - it means that your heart is supplying exactly the oxygen needs of the working muscles - anything faster and you would produce lactic acid and be forced to slow down. For most people it is around 85% of working heart rate or equal to your 10 mile or half marathon speed.

Repetition Running: These are sustained efforts at 10km speed or faster which are held for 3 to 10mins. In between the efforts you should take 3 to 5mins recovery (best taken as a slow jog rather than standing still) - repeat the efforts 4 to 6 times.

Interval Running: Short faster bursts of speed (1 mile to 5km speed) held for between 1 and 3mins. Recovery jog should be equal to the effort time (i.e. 1 min fast - 1 min slow - 1 min fast, etc) - repeat 10 to 20 times depending on length of the effort.

Fartlek: Swedish word meaning speed play. This is an ad hoc form of interval training where you run fast and slow as you feel - taking in sprints up hills, down hills, different surfaces (grass, sand, road).

Hill Running: This can take two forms:

Hill Repetitions - usually on a moderate slope that you can run up without dramatically altering your running style. You simply sprint up and jog down - typically the hill will be around 400m long.

Kenyan Hills - run on a circuit of between 800m to 1,000m with an equal amount of ascent and descent. You will run in a continuous fashion around the circuit for a period of time, typically 20mins, maintaining the same effort on both the up and down sections.