Sometimes all it takes to get your running out of a rut is to spice it up with something new you haven’t tried before. Even if you only do the new thing for a week or two, then go back to your regular ways, you will probably find a new spring in your step and that your running routine no longer feels like it’s in a rut. Here are some ways to spice-up your running routine.

Change your technology. If you’re a techie runner, go minimalist with nothing more than a watch. If you’re a minimalist, try adding some technology to your runs. If you use technology some, but find that it’s no longer helping your motivation or enjoyment, try adding something new (or try going without it). (By technology, I mean watches, GPS watches, heart-rate monitors, smart phones, smart phone apps, etc.)

Change who you run with. If you already run with somebody or a group all the time, try running by yourself. If you always run by yourself, find somebody or a group to run with. If you would like to find somebody to run with, start with trying to find out if there’s a running group or club in your area. You can also try going to local health clubs to see if they have a running group or know of any. You can also try signing up for a local road race and making connections with local runners to run with there.

Change your training. If you vary your training a lot with difference types of workouts at different distances and paces, try doing the same (easy to medium) thing for every run (remember, this is very short-term). If you have no variety in your running at all (always the same distance and/or the same pace), try learning about different types of workouts by asking a coach, experienced runners, or reliable online sources, and try a different kind of run every day for a while.

Change your exercise. Instead of running, switch to some other form of exercise (remember, this is just for a short time and will help you in the long run - no pun intended!). Pick something like cycling, swimming, elliptical, rowing, rollerblading, a group exercise class, or a home workout such as TurboFire or Insanity (you might also be able to find a local group that does these DVD workouts in groups, oftentimes for free!).

Change your audio. If you always listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks, try going without any electronic audio. If you haven’t tried listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks, give it a try (just make sure you do it safely; keep the volume low enough so that you can hear nearby sounds, and be especially careful around traffic).

Change your scenery. Try coming up with new routes from your home, or drive somewhere else where you rarely or never run.

Have fun mixing it up and be safe!

Whether a casual jogger or a competitive runner, most of us want to get faster. But, how exactly do you get faster? 

The way to get faster is simply by maximizing the combination of stride frequency and stride length. There are factors that help or hinder this, like cardiovascular efficiency, body weight, strength, lean muscle mass and body fat percentage, and of course mental factors such as confidence or doubt.

Doing certain types of hard workouts such as intervals and fartlek helps you to improve stride frequency, which refers to how many steps you take. If you do fast running intervals of relatively short distances about once a week, it will help teach your muscles and brain about moving your legs faster. You can even work on it during easy runs by sprinting short distances every so-often.

During your runs, think about your stride. Everybody has their own natural way of running, and some people’s way is closer to the “ideal” than others. Some people say to leave people’s natural form alone; others say to try and make people get as close to this “ideal” as possible. Regardless of which way you believe, it would be beneficial to think about your form as you run. If it seems like you can make your stride longer without decreasing frequency, try to teach that to your body (and/or visa-versa). Think about propelling your body forward when you push off the ground. However, do not do anything that causes you pain. Do not strike your heels on the ground when you land to achieve this. Just give it some thought and try to improve it as much as possible within reason.

Just like you make your muscles stronger by making them work, which breaks them down so that they build-up stronger, your heart and lungs are similar. By running fast intervals that make your heart speed up, and by running long distances that give you an elevated heart rate for an extended period of time, you train your heart and lungs to become better at what they do and more efficient. This will help you be able to run faster, as the blood and oxygen move more efficiently throughout your body.

Another helpful tool to assist in maximizing your stride length and frequency would be to film yourself running naturally at slow, medium, and fast speeds. By viewing the film, you might be able to see some ways you can improve your stride. You could also try to find a running coach to assist you with critiquing your form.

It never hurts to break down the factors that go into running speed. This will take the mysteriousness out of wondering how to get faster, make it more interesting, and help you understand what to shoot for.

There is something about running that, no matter how great of shape you’re in for other activities, running still feels hard to most people if you’re not in-shape for it. The best way to make running feel good is to stay consistent with it, stay positive when it doesn’t feel great, realize that over time it’s going to get easier, and think about what a wonderful thing it is that you’re doing for your body, as well as the other enjoyable aspects of running.

However, there are steps to follow and measures you can take that will optimize your enjoyment of running, and help you get in running shape faster, avoid injury, and stay in-shape.

The first step is the 10% Rule. This rule suggests that almost across-the-board with running training, it is not a good idea to increase your weekly mileage by more than 10 percent per week. You have to start somewhere, so up to around 10 miles per week, you will have to smartly build up faster than that. (i.e., Nobody would expect you to run 1 mile one week, 1.1 miles the next, 1.21 miles the next, etc.) For the first one to four miles per week, you should run one or two times per week. For five to nine miles per week, run three times per week. For 10 to 14 miles, run four times per week. For 15 to 24 or so miles per week, run five times per week. Once you get to 25 or 30 miles per week, run six times per week. If you reach a point of running about 40 miles a week or more, I would recommend adding a seventh run on a day that you already have an easy run, making a “two-a-day,” and leaving one day per week as a running rest day. If you continue to increase your mileage and still need to add more runs over time, keep adding more two-a-days, and leave one day per week as a running rest day.

Now that we have the mileage structure out of the way, let’s talk about what to do. At nine miles or less per week, just get out and run. When you’re running four to five days per week, you should have one “hard workout” day, one “long run” day, one “secondary long run” day, and the other day(s) should be basic, easy to medium days. The long run should be 25 to 33 percent of weekly mileage. The secondary long run should be 60 to 80 percent of the long run. The total mileage of the hard running should be about 10 to 15 percent of the total weekly mileage.

Think of this framework as a foundation to build upon. Few of these guidelines are meant to be set-in-stone, but they are a good framework with which to get started.

You should know that the entire purpose of this business is to help YOU establish reasonable goals and achieve them! When it comes down to it, this is really about your hopes and dreams as they pertain to running. What are you wiling to do to improve, and maybe even achieve your running hopes and dreams? I know whenever I have had dreams that are truly deep in my heart, those dreams that feel like they're a part of my soul, I put a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into working to achieve those goals! 

However when people develop goals, rarely can they achieve them by themselves. Nobody is an island. We need to look for tools and resources to help us make those goals come to pass. It is important for your personal well-being to seek out and employ the resources that will help you get there. In the end, improving your previous best, or achieving goals, is really the spice of life. It's what makes the day-to-day exciting. It is SO worth it!

As people, setting goals and working to achieve them helps boost our confidence, helps us in other areas of life, helps our mental, physical, and emotional health to improve, helps us sleep better, and also helps us think about what we can do to assist others. Setting and working towards goals is probably just as important or more important than meeting the goal itself (of course that part FEELS really good).

When it comes to distance running goals, a coach is a huge benefit for most people. Just think about it: even the best runners in the world, most of whom have enough knowledge to be coaches, almost all have coaches. They realize that a coach will help them to stay accountable, understand and carry-out what they need to do, take care of figuring out the training, help them see what they're capable of, help them set goals, provide counseling about their training, etc., etc. The list could go on and on. You could have this kind of support available to you when you hire your own personal coach. Even a lot of coaches have their own coach, because they believe in it so much.

It's time to make a decision. What do you want to do with your running, and what do you want your running to do for you? Coaching is one of those things you can try for a short time, and if you don't like it, it doesn't help you how you wanted, or if you meet your goal and want to take a break from coaching, you can do that! But one thing is for sure: whatever coaching plan you decide to go with WILL be worth it, if for no other reason than just to try and see if it works. But most likely, it will be worth it because of much more than that! Contact me when you're ready to make me YOUR coach!

*Melanie Hevel is a certified coach with a great deal of distance running experience and knowledge. She is equipped to coach you through the entire spectrum of standard distance running training and racing.*

When it comes to training this time of year, it can be tough to stay motivated. Personally, living in northern Minnesota, the winter still has a strong grasp, but it’s been going for a while so it’s lost its appeal, however spring still seems far away. What seems even farther away are the events in which I’m thinking about competing, and the one event to which I have already committed! Do not allow yourself to talk yourself into a false sense of security this time of year. Time flies, and your events will be here before you know it!

Actually, regardless of where you live (perhaps weather isn’t a concern for you), this is a wonderful time of year to train! This is the time of year when you can allow yourself to put in some easy, long miles with no pressure. Consider running without your watch, or at least not caring what it says as you run. Just put on your running shoes, head out the door, run at the pace your body feels like it wants to, observe the plants, animals, other people, or whatever scenery surrounds you! Take it in and enjoy it.

Another way to stay motivated during your winter mileage, along with the no-pressure runs, is to “play games” with yourself for your hard workouts. Instead of always planning track workouts (impossible here with the snow covering the tracks from December through March!), or regimented fartlek, repeats, or tempo run sessions, plan an unstructured hard run. Ponder what you’d like to do as you warm-up and stretch. Think outside of the box! You can tell yourself that you’re going to run hard from this bush to that tree, then easy from the tree to the lamp post, then hard again from the lamp post to the snow bank, and on and on it can go. Another fun way to get some hard running in is to count your steps as you run. Just today, I was getting a little bored just “running along,” and I also felt like I was lollygagging more than I should, so for about the last mile of the run, I ran hard for 100 steps, easy for 100 steps, hard 100 steps, easy 100 steps, and so and and so forth until I finished my run! It was amazing how well it passed the time, how much faster I ran even though it wasn’t a purposeful “hard run,” how much more fun it was, and how funny it was that it started to become tough to count to 100 the last few times! You can come up with all sorts of ideas like these, and if you listen to music while you run, you can incorporate that, too. For instance, you can run hard to the songs’ choruses, and easy during the verses (or visa-versa).

If you run on a treadmill, make sure you get out and do some outside running, too. But you can play similar games on a treadmill, using distances, incline, and/or music (if you’re listening to it). If you’re watching TV, you can even use TV shows: run easy or medium during the show segments, and hard during the commercials, for example.

There are also a number of other things you can do to help your fitness level expand during the winter months, such as cross training by swimming at an indoor pool, cycling (indoor stationary or outdoor depending on conditions), elliptical machine, stair-climber, rowing machine, etc. Don’t forget about strength-training as well. When your running may be limited by weather, which happens more often this time of year than the rest of the year, let that be an opportunity to get another type of exercise in, rather than an excuse to not work out. There are even quite a few home exercise options such as workouts found on www.ExerciseTV.tv, and home DVD exercise programs such as P90X.

Ultimately, the goal is to get your body active and moving at least several times a week for at least half an hour (emphasis on “at least”). Consider the benefits this time of year brings, rather than the negatives. Be inspired by it! Look forward to spring, but won’t spring be so much nicer if you’re in really great shape for it!? You won’t regret the work you put in this winter! Put the money in the bank now, and you’ll be amazed how much more you’ll have to withdraw when you are out on the courses of your summer and fall events!