Great North Run Training

The Great North Run is coming up! For some of us, that means running greater distances than we have before. For all of us, that means that training might get a bit more intense. Terry recently sent us some advice for preparing to run a long distance, much like that.

Before the run, it would be a good idea to have run a longer distance than a 5k, such as a 10k on flat roads. This website is very useful for finding running routes in the North East http://northeastraces.com/. Once on the website, you should choose a date to run on and check out a race. The results from that race last year are then the most important thing to look at. This is because it will give you an idea as to how you can do across that distance.

Let’s say you ran the 10k in 67 minutes at Newton Aycliffe last year, beating 63 people. If you had run in the Kirkley Hall 10k, only beating 4 people with that time and at the 10k in Durham you would have beaten 500 – though Durham is rather hilly.

A good GNR warm up race is the Darlington 10k in August. It’s all road, relatively flat and most of you would probably have done rather well at this race last year. These are all things that you may want to consider when deciding on your own warm up race. Similarly, you should also consider when it is happening in relation to the GNR. While the Tees Pride 10k in September may be a great, big race, it is a bit too close to the GNR to be of much value. Thus, you probably want to look for nice races in your area that are happening a month or so before you are set to race.

For a more sophisticated prediction for your results than guesswork, go to https://www.fetcheveryone.com/training-calculators-wava.php. Just input your time and age and you will get predictions for running different distances.

Another way to do this is to spy on your opponents. You do this from the Power of Ten website at https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/athleteslookup.aspx. This will give you linked access to athlete profile pages, allowing you to see times in longer races. You can try and find someone that finishes near you in parkruns or Power of Ten and look at how they do over long distances. This will give you an idea of how you might do over these distances and help you decide on a potential race. You might also waste a lot of time, which you might want to spend running which could be an advantage depending on how you look at it!

Good luck and see you at the Great North Run!