30's Bucket List

Holy crap, next year is my big 4-oh!

I was thinking back to how mixed success my 20s bucket list was and I gave myself like 5 years to do them. I want to do at least one of those failed challenges from that list; the Olympic Triathlon.

That's a 1.5km swim followed by a 40km cycle and finishing with a 10km run.

I lost 10 kilos last year and was running 5k every week from August, so I'm not concerned about the bike or run, but my swimming is like a fish (out of water)! 

Cue a bi-weekly swimming course, a proper training plan, and the main event, taking less time and stress at work! 

Already signed up for a Sprint Triathlon and a 10k run. Wish me luck!

Fit by Thirty - (Five). -22kg in 12 weeks

 I'm 35 in 12 weeks. I'm 122 kg and rising for the last weeks after a spell of losing weight. So I'm yo-yo dieting, but it always ends up higher like the staircase trick . Now I will at least try to do one of those yo-yo tricks where the yo-yo sticks to the ground!

Now 22kg is probably too much. In fact is 170,000 calories of fat to burn (and/or not consume). It's 817 beers, 157 big Mac meals,. 700 scoops of chocolate ice cream (I had two today already).  

It's also only 344 hours of walking, or 137 hours of straight kettlebell workouts, 250 cycling hours out of 2023 hours in the challenge. Yeah I'll be sleeping for 674 of them (in truth more like 500) but that leaves 1350 to act.

It's not crazy.

It's ambitious.

I'll fail, but be happy with half.

Well, it's out there. On the internet. Let's see how I do.

Euro Velo - Donau - T minus one day. A 38 Km warmup

So I was in Passau two days early. The main plan is to cycle along the Donau to Vienna and maybe further to Bratislava and Budapest depending on Covid and if I still have the legs.

The sun was shining so I took the opportunity to take the bike for a spin without the extra weight of the paniers and followed the river Inn south to get an ice cream.

Next time I may just cycle along the Inn Velo route.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3921970291

Euro Velo - Donau - T minus 2 days

 Do you ever get that nagging feeling that you need to do something today? It can't be just me.

I planned my summer cycle tour down to the day and hotels giving myself plenty of time to go where I need to in the day. On the 16th of August I will go to Passau and the next day start cycling along the Donau towards Vienna. 

A week later a fellow touring cyclist told me that the Isar cycle route is also nice so I thought I would extend the trip by two days and cycle Munich to Passau and get the full Munich to Vienna cycle under my belt.

I hadn't organised those two days but they were stuck in my head to the point where I conflated the two start days.

Stupid me, I went to Passau two days early.

Lucky me, two days extra holiday!

Passau is lovely, even in the rain.

Barcelona

Barcelona is memorable to me for many reasons, first of all it was the location of my first marathon and second for one of the maddest weekends I've ever had!

Most of the events cannot actually be put in a blog that my parents and family might read, so unfortunately I'll have to stick to the "family safe" stories.

I've already mentioned the marathon and the (truly amazing) Sagrada Familia. So I think I'll start with the morning after the marathon, as you can imagine my legs were pretty sore and did not want to do much walking. So guess what we decided to do? Yeah, we went to the Nou Camp! What a place though, was well worth the agony of getting up and down the stairs!

Me and the Nou Camp "More than a Club"

I enjoyed reading the history of the famous Barcelona club, but for one massive oversight, they didn't even mention the legend Sir Bobby Robson who managed for one season and won 3 trophies! Nonetheless it was a very impressive stadium, with such a trophy room as to be the envy of every club in Europe! (Especially my club, Newcastle who now haven't won a trophy in 43 years!)

This is a panorama shot I took of Barcelona's 6 trophies from the 08-09 season, with Erik and Jamie

If you've done the Nou Camp tour yourself then you will know how many steps yo have to go up and down, and my knee was killing me! It was worth it though and I'm glad I did it, I don't know which is my favourite out of the Nou Camp and the Santiago Bernabeu, but my Spanish team is Real Madrid so I guess the Bernabeu.

The next stop was to go back to the hotel room and get changed to go out for a meal. Instead we found a Tapas place that I will never forget! Their offer was one beer and one Tapas stick for 3€, so Erik suggested we have one then go get changed to go out. We ended up having 7! That was Erik's idea too.

Erik and Jamie in our favourite tapas place

It was only 7 PM, so we still had plenty of time to go to a restaurant, so we eventually made it back to the hotel. I was absolutely shattered though and a little bit drunk, so I decided to get a power nap, people in Barcelona don't go out till 10 anyway. The next thing I knew it was 4 AM. It was the best nights sleep I've ever had.

That day we went to the Sagrada Familia, an amazing place that warranted its own blog post (LINK).

After that Erik and I went to the seaside, there was a man made wharf that had a shopping centre on it, it had a bar/restaurant that served maß beer!

After two of those maß beers the madness began. It is definitely not a family friendly story, but we ended up walking up and down the famous La Rambla street looking for "buenos chicas". That was when my phone got stolen. What a crazy night.

We went out drinking with our marathon winners medals, so proud we had to show them off!

Me and Jamie snogging our medals

I want to thank Erik especially for convincing me to run the marathon and give me an excuse to visit this amazing place, also thanks to Dave and Jamie for making it such a memorable trip!

Viel Spaß homies!

Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia is probably the most amazing building I have ever seen. The scope of imagination it would take just to even plan one of the spires is absolutely mind boggling!

They originally thought that it would take a few hundred years to complete the church, but thanks to modern technology and construction techniques it is estimated to be completed around 2026, 100 years after the Architect Antoni Gaudi died. The guy managed to envisage this building, and build this scale model of it:

Now I am not a Christian, but being in and around this masterpiece gave me a new sense of belief about the power and creativity of man. Everyone should visit it and see what I mean. I will definitely come back to see it when it is finished.

One picture, or even a hundred could not describe all the unique details in the exterior or the extravagant beauty of the interior, but I had a go. Check out my album in the link below:

https://plus.google.com/photos/116611446148642353119/albums/5727824403845464801

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon #1 (Barcelona)

So my first marathon has been successfully completed!

Today I ran the Barcelona Marathon in 5 hours 5 minutes. My knees and quads are in absolute agony right now, but the sense of achievement is astonishing. To be honest, considering how poor and interrupted my preparation was I am happy that I just managed to finish it. Next time I will aim to substantially improve my time and hopefully completely avoid having to walk.

I ran it with my friend Erik from eriksmarathon and 2 of his friends. The first half marathon 3 of us basically stuck together, which was nice as we got to see the Nou Camp and the Sagrada Família together, but the pace we were running wasn't exactly ideal for my race strategy and I ended up dropping back just before the half was completed and couldn't catch up either.

The last 10k was very tough, as my knees were burning, so I had to walk at least half of the time of that distance.Given that the most I had trained was 19 miles (31k) and that was intervals with walking and running I am pretty pleased with that I could complete it, and hope that the next one goes a lot smoother on the knees!

The pic at the top is the 4 of us at the finish line showing off our medals and our pecs, below is a closeup of the medal.

It was a good day so far, but now I need to leave and have a celebratory beer and stuff! :)

A full blog about Barcelona will appear soon.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: A Mini Update

Hi All!

I am pleased to announce that I am quitting being a quitter; I'm going to run (or at least attempt) the Barcelona Marathon as originally planned!

I got my flight tickets yesterday, and will travel very early on Saturday morning and spend an afternoon in Barcelona and the next day explore the city in my favorite way, running!

I hope I can do it, but as my training was cut short due to the harsh winter conditions for running I'm not in as good a shape as I should be to tackle my first marathon. I hope to do it even if there is a bit of walking involved. I'm looking forward to sharing a beer with Erik, Dave and Jamie with our medals after the run!

Viel Spaß homies!

Today's office; (Vienna, AT)

A week after my trip to Bern came another work trip, and once again to a city that I hadn't been to before, Vienna!

I had one night there and the next day I had to work, so there was some time for exploring the city and having a Wienerschnitzel :D

I travelled to Vienna from Munich by train, which accomplished 2 things; I could get some work done on the train, and also see the amazing views of the Alpine mountains and lakes. Next time I go I'll take the train again, so I don't miss out on seeing these views!

A view of the Chimsee from the train

I love travelling over land :)

My friend Birgit recommended a restaurant to have a Wienerschnitzel, so I went there as soon as I checked in. It was the Figlmüller in the centre of town, and you don't just get one schnitzel, you get two!

A pair of schnitzels, a nice salad and my fifth or sixth beer of the day

Then I just went to the hotel and got an early night, so I could be up early and finish the work faster. I was to meet an engineer at the T-Mobile office and work together. While we were working this engineer told me a few interesting facts about Vienna, for instance I asked him how why the water tasted so nice, and he informed me that Vienna's water is actually taken from the alpine streams, funnelled over 200 miles to the city. Seriously the tap water there is better than Evian bottled water!

After the work was done I had a couple of hours to kill before my train, so I had a walk around the city. It is such a nice place, and just one day doesn't do it justice, so I am going to go back at the earliest opportunity! I created a Google album of the pictures I took using my Sony Xperia S phone, the picture quality is awesome for a phone. I wonder if my company will sponsor this post? Anyway, here is the album if you want to check it out.

I'll go back at some point this year for a long weekend, or maybe do another cycle tour, like the Passau to Vienna along the fabulous Donau river. I'm excited already thinking about it!

Viel Spaß homies

Today's Office (Bern, CH)

It has been a while since I shared with you guys some of the cool places I go to work, largely because I have been stuck in the office for months! Well, my first Field Test trip abroad in a while happened to be to a city I had never been before, Bern!

Bern is the capital city of Switzerland, although only the fourth most populist city. It was here that I learned why the international country code of Switzerland is "CH". It stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, which is Latin for Swiss Confederation. There you go!

My visit to Bern was to go and work with the engineers at Swisscom on on of our Sony products, which turned out to be more problematic than I anticipated and even had to stay an extra night to ensure the work could be completed. O woe is me!

Actually I only had time to see the city centre once because the working was pretty intense, so I visited the Bern old town and had a walk around in the dark and went to a specialty Rösti restaurant. Rösti is, I guess, where we got our inspiration for hash browns... Grated and deep fried potato. But I have to say they do it better. The best hash brown I've ever had is not even in the same league as what I had at this restaurant:

The boiled pear was an interesting touch however, but it meant I did not have to order a desert.

Something I really wanted to see was the "Bear Pit", but I don't think that would be worth it unless there is someone with me that would understand the inevitable Anchorman quotes :-). The main reason I didn't go was that I was informed that the Bears would most likely be hiding inside the cave,so I thought I would save that for my next trip :)

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: Winter Training Is A Killer

I started drafting this post a little while ago to try and explain the difficulties of training in cold winter conditions and how I overcame them. Unfortunately I don't have such a success story.
At it's worst the temperature in Munich was -25 degrees and the surface was icy for over 6 weeks. In the end that proved too much for me, it got too dangerous for me to train during this time, so I made the sad decision to drop out of the Barcelona marathon.
I'm disappointed in this because of all the effort that has gone into it, but at the time of writing I have only a month to train for this marathon and I realise it is out of my reach to train properly for.
This doesn't mean I won't run a marathon though, I only have to delay it for another time.
I did however get some really nice pics of running around Munich in the winter from before I gave up. Hopefully next year will be a warmer winter so I can train then. For those of you that are still training in winter, remember the saying "winter miles, summer smiles!"
Viel Spaß homies

Marathon Mini Series: Intervals

I decided to adopt a different training gestalt for my Marathon, this is basically because I thought I wouldn't be able to build up to running for 4 and a half hours in just the 9 weeks that were left when I started it.

What I'm doing now is increasing the amount of time I'm out for each workout (over 3 hours) and adding in a rest period. This gives my body some time to recover before the next 'work phase', and I can stay out longer and get my body acclimatized to being out for the amount of time I will need to.

I am working in blocks of 15 minutes, where 11 minutes is running and 4 is walking. Every week I will increase the workout by 15 minutes and also take 30 seconds off the rest time and add it to the running. By doing this I will (hopefully) at least be able to complete the marathon, even if it involves a bit of walking. Today I did 14 blocks of 15, and did 19.1 miles.

Intervals are also useful for other areas of running training. For instance, if you can already run the distanceyou're aiming for, but you want to improve your time, then you can do intervals of slow and fast rrunning. This will improve your stamina, and help you to run the distance faster. Another useful tip is for when you have to tackle a hilly run, you can do intervals of up and down hills, with some flats mixed in as well.

Viel Spaß homies!

Goodbye 2011

What a year 2011 was! For me it was full of proud achievements and great friends (new and old). First and foremost the thing I'm most proud of is getting through what is probably the most stressful period of my life; the first 4 months of living in Munich.

Moving abroad is an incredibly large step and not one that should be taken lightly, or with any doubt in your ability to achieve what is necessary to stay. Of this, I think, I can speak from experience. When I moved I had neither the financial security to guarantee safety or the confidence in my ability to confidently assume my new position at Sony Ericsson. Throw in the requirement to pass a driving test in Germany within a very short time-frame or I would lose the job, and you have a melting pot of stress, anxiety and sleepless nights that even looking back on it now curdles my gut.

Well; all's well that ends well. For that my first mention is Mara Börger, my driving instructor, who was instrumental in me fulfilling this requirement. She's one of the only people that knew the stress I was under, and could tell when I was so uncharacteristically nervous when she picked me up for my test! I got a bit of good fortune that day, because unknown to me, we booked my test on her birthday. The examiner knew this and, as a present to her, made my test relatively short.

After this things were really looking up. I'd made a good impression at work, made a lot of friends and was enjoying literally every hour of my days. This is thanks in a large part to everyone's favourite "Stammtisch", Dienstag Drinks, organised by Magda Dubiel and Erin Beaton.

In addition to the new friends I've made, what made me happiest I think was that I hadn't lost my friends from England, I would see them when I went home and my closest friends have all visited me! So a special thanks go out to Erik Orrgarde and Sarah Nicholson for the most mental of all visits and to Holly Adams, Chris Morrison, for being visiting TWICE! I guess Mike Fearon also deserves a special mention, but most of the events from that tip can't be told because we might go to jail!

So here are my favourite events:

• Very stupidly getting lost cycling up a mountain in Austria
• Erik's bongo drumming in the crazy bongo club
• My Bavarians & Barbarians housewarming party
• Oktoberfest
• Getting caught with my trousers down in a hospital ward...
• Throwing rocks off a mountain with Aditi, Jamin and Erin
• Prague with Magda and Birgit Hillebrand

This picture has not made it on my blog yet, mostly because it happened before I started the blog. The guy on the left is Erik at the bongo club. The other guy desperately wanted his picture taken with us. Erik is like WTF...

Thanks to my GPS tracker I can tell you how far I've cycled and ran this year. I've ran 267 miles (the equivalent of running from Munich to Bern in Switzerland) and I've cycled 609 miles (in total like cycling from Munich back to London!)

What a fun year, thanks a lot to all those that made it special :) 

Viel Spaß homies

Prague Part 1 - Holland Declares War against the Czech Republic!

Once again my wanderlust took control of me, and with the aid of some friends of mime who share this particular character trait we decided that Prague would be the next city we visit! My companions for the trip would be my friends Birgit and Magdalena in the above picture.

After some research into the travel choices I realised that it was not only cheaper to take the bus, but also faster than the train! No brainer really. What can go wrong? Well, as it turns out a lot (it wouldn't be one of my blogs if everything went right ;) ). The ticket said we would travel from Hauptbahnhof Arnulfstraße (main station on the street Arnulfstraße). I assumed this meant Munich's main bus station, which is on that street. Lesson 1, don't assume anything!

So when I got to the main bus station Magda was already there, and told me we go from platform 4. Great, I thought. Time for a drink then! Then Birgit joined the party, looking like she was going to war! Unfortunately I can't show you a picture yet, I guess she deleted them...

After poking some fun at her for her bag and attire we went down to where the buses depart, about 25 minutes before departure. Platform 4 had a train to Istanbul, probably not stopping in Prague then! I saw that there was one going to Poland via the Czech Republic departing the same time as ours. So I assumed that was the correct one. Remember lesson 1?

We waited and waited but the bus did not come, then 20 minutes after scheduled departure the sign changed to a different departure. Now we were at panic stations, and very angry with the Deutsche Bahn (with whom I booked the tickets). I asked Magda if she could talk on the phone to the DB service line to find out what happened. They said we had no idea (all 5 people and the machine!) and said we had to talk to someone at the DB service point in the main train station.

So we queued up, but that did not mean we had to stop partying! We had already started drinking some of the hot glüwein that Birgit brought. That was probably the most fun I've had in a queue. Well we eventually made it to the front and Magda talked to the guy (because my German is not good and hers is perfect). We discovered (as you might have guessed) that the bus didn't actually go from the main bus station but from a drop-off/taxi point. He did agree however that the ticket was misleading and did us the great favour (which he did not have to do) and signed and stamped the reverse of our tickets saying that we can take a train.

Excellent! We even got to travel with in the comfort of a train compartment. WIN! Until the ticket collector came and said that it wasn't valid. Well, actually she said it was like buying chips at McDonald's and claiming them at Burger King. Bugger, we had to pay, but the ticket girl said we could get the Deutsche Bahn to pay it back. That reminds me, I need to go and sort that out...

Well, as it happened it wasn't expensive ( less than 25 € pp ) and we got to travel in comfort, and we actually made it to Prague that night. We were all to knackered to party that night because we arrived after 12 and the girls had already slept on the train. Thankfully, we did have enough energy between us for a night cap at the hotel bar. Lovely Jonny Walker Black Label, and the same price as the Red :)

That makes day 1 of the trip, and a natural end to part 1 of this already lengthy blog. I promise more pictures for the next one!

Viel Spaß homies!

Why Kettlebells Rock

Hello Readers!

This is an exciting exercise week for me (if such a thing is allowed!) because I have received my order for some new kettlebells. These are the exercise tool that, alongside ChiRunning, got me out of a major down point in my life. The situation was that I was quite overweight at around 16 stone (over 100Kg) and none of it was muscle.

My parents had membership to a posh gym, where they met Roger and Claire, who were personal trainers there. Due to a disagreement with the management there they left there and started their own studio gym, for just them to train (and punish!) willing candidates. I was one of these candidates.

Claire got straight to work on me, and discovered that the reason I got so many injuries while running was that my core stability muscles were very weak, and I was asking small muscle groups to do difficult tasks, which leads to injury. One example of this is shin splints; if you get shin splints then you are probably using the small muscle on the front of your shin to do part of the pushing forward when you run. This is an incredibly small muscle for that kind of task and so gets fatigued quickly and can no longer perform its primary function when you run, which is to aid in keeping your foot stable on the floor under the impact of your stride.

In order to fix this for me I was trained on how to use kettlebells, which helped me to become strong and flexible enough to be able to successfully change my running technique. Since then I actually have never actually had an injury from running, so it seems to have worked!

So how does it work?

This is the all important swing, if you play the video you can see how the swing uses all muscle groups in the legs. It increases strength, endurance and flexibility all in one. Also, you can see that the movement is aimed at driving your body forward, all important for running. I have already noticed an improvement in my power and speed, having just ran a new distance personal best of 15 miles, and managed to keep it under 10 minutes per mile. The training is really starting to pay off!

This is the website for their studio, located in Bracknell, England. Drop them a line if you're interested in learning the techniques.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: Updated Training Plan

So the change to my training plan has come about because of 2 things; the speedier progress up to the half marathon than I predicted, and the arrival of my new kettlebells!

My next post will explain why kettlebell training is excellent for runners, but bear with me until then. The working week starts on Monday, but the running week starts on Sunday, so I'll start there:

Sunday
On Sundays is when I will do my long runs. The goal is for every time to increase my maximum running distance by 1 mile, but it is also OK to consider it a recovery run every now and then if my body is fatigued, and save that longer one for the next week. Hopefully this tactic will help me stave off injuries, especially in the critical last 6 weeks of the training.

Monday
Will always be a rest day.

Tuesday
Kettlebell VO2 Max training. Is really good for improving how efficiently oxygen can be delivered to the working muscles, making you a more efficient runner.

Wednesday
This will be for medium runs, usually about half of the distance of the previous long run, but about 30 sec/mile faster. This is to hopefully make me able to run the race at a faster pace.

Thursday
Kettlebell strength training, will build core, lower and upper body strength. It's helpful to give me an extra training day but without adding running miles and reducing the change of impact injuries.

Friday
Fridays are for a short recovery run to expel some of that built up lactic acid to put me in top condition for the long run on Sunday

Saturday
A well earned rest day, but if I have plans for Sunday then I can swap the long run to Saturday

16 weeks of following most of this program and then 2 weeks tone down and recovery should put me in tip-top condition for race day. I can't wait now, I'm even looking forward to the long run on Sunday, planning for 15 miles :)

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: 50% down, 80% to go

Before I start, no I haven't forgotten how to do maths!

So yesterday I ran 14 miles, which was my furthest ever run, and my fastest ever half marathon. The half marathon time was 2:13:57, which was faster than my only other half marathon by over 10 minutes! I think this time will get faster as I get more miles in my legs.

That is 50% of the distance that I need to run in one go, but I believe I have only put in about 20% of the effort so far in order to reach my goal. The rest of the 80% is made up of the next 18 weeks in which I will be running about 400 miles, that's a long way to go! Even just writing that figure is daunting, considering only 26 are actually required for the run.

That said however, I only need to add 12 miles to my long run and have 18 weeks to do so, that puts a kind of better slant on it right?

I'm still enjoying the runs, no injuries, so it seems I am making regular and uneventful progress. Not exactly good for writing a blog about it :)

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: 6-week sitrep

So far I have mostly been posting about my plans and very little on the progress that I have actually made, so here is an update.

6 weeks is a long time when it comes to training plans and quite a lot has happened, but thankfully it was largely uneventful progress. There was one week where I was set back with a sprained ankle, which meant I had to skip one long run. Believe it or not the ankle sprain was not when I was out on a run, or playing football or anything like that, it was running for the bus! So another run-in with a bus got me injured. What am I like eh?

In total I have ran 95.5 miles in these 6 weeks, with the longest one of these being yesterday, a 12 miler completed in 1:57:56. I am very pleased because I managed to keep up a good pace the entire run and also have enough energy for a fast finish. Take a look at the split times (time to complete each mile):

The last 3 miles were my fastest ones, this demonstrates a big change in my running gestalt, where previously I would run to fast too early and not be able to make it through the difficult endurance periods. Now even for long distances I can moderate my energy expenditure better and pay attention to what my heart rate is telling me for a much better long distance running style.

In this time my motivation and determination have not wavered, and every week after my long run I get more and more confident that I can complete the marathon next March.

My message to my readers is that our bodies limitations are only set by your mind, which you yourself have complete control over. If you have a target or a goal for something believe in yourself and anything is possible.

Viel Spaß homies!

Stupid Sexy Flanders

Do any of you remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer and Flanders go skiing together? Flanders turns up in skin-tight ski gear and tells Homer that "It feels like I'm wearing nothing at all" and Homer later imagines him saying that in a thought bubble shaking his arse. This sketch often comes to mind when I'm out running in Munich (and no I'm not coming out!)

I was taken by surprise by the number of runners wearing skin-tight ruining clothes. Especially compared to places I have ran in England and to a lesser extent America. Perhaps the Germans (or continental Europeans) like more showing off their glutes! As I'm feeling more and more absorbed into the culture and I'm training for a marathon this winter I thought I'd get in on that spandex action! So on my run today I was rocking the spandex 3/4 length trousers, and let me tell you, it does feel like you're wearing nothing at all!

 Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: Chi Running

I think it is safe to say that this challenge would have been impossible if I had not discovered Chi Running.

Running used to be a kind of therapy for me, until I got injured, bringing back all of the stress that I left with every single stride on the pavements and trails. These injuries eventually got so common that I gave up. They were not always the same injuries either; knee pain, back pain, shin splints, ankle pain. The list goes on.

How then, can I now even consider running a marathon? The answer came from a book I saw in a smoothie shop in San Francisco called "Chi Running". I saw it on the same day I went for a run and got shin splints after just 2 miles and was a little down in the dumps. I would have got anything that could help, as it turned out I found the perfect thing to fix my problem!

So Chi Running is both a running technique and a running philosophy, both aimed at reducing your rate of injury from running and also gradually increasing the distance.

There are 10 components to the "Chi Running" principle:

• Flexibility: Does not extend just to the muscles, but also the tendons, ligaments and joints. You move a lot more efficiently if your body is flexible, and it makes it easier for you to modify your technique if you get injuries
• Posture: When running you need a good posture. If you're slouching too far forward you will use more energy holding yourself up. It also can restrict blood to your brain and other organs
• Good Leg Motion: Overstriding in your running pace is one of the main causes of knee, hamstring and ankle injuries. When you land your feet just under your body it greatly decreases the force of the impact on your ankle
• Cadence: Most people have too slow a cadence, a faster cadence helps to reduce the amount of time your foot spends on the ground. When your foot is on the ground when running it is enduring a 2-4G worth of pressure. The idea is to reduce this time by increasing your cadence. The ideal is 85 to 90 steps per minute
• Body Sensing: This is a kind of self-analysis of your body after a run, and note everything down. If you notice some pain in your ankle or knee after a run then you can take steps to improve for your next run, and increase your recovery days if necessary
• Mental Focus: This kind of goes without saying, but it is more than the focus you need to get through a long run, it takes a lot of mental focus to make an effective change. You need to re-educate your muscles and control them, this is the mental focus you need to change. Eventually your muscles will initiate your change naturally, and the battle is won
• Coordination between halves: You should use roughly use 50% of your energy in your top half, most of this in your core so you keep a strong posture and a good twist in your top half. Good technique is when your top half and bottom half are working together instead of against each other
• Good Breathing: Runners should use Belly Breathing instead of chest breathing, as chest breathing does not engage the most of the bottom (larger) half of the lungs, for that you need to expand your diaphragm. When you are fatigued, you will probably notice that your breathing is very fast and you don't actually take much air in, over time that will really reduce your capacity for running. Concentrate on expanding your diaphragm, especially when you're fatigued
• Knee and Elbow Bends: It sounds counter-productive, but the more you bend your knee and elbow the less energy you will use. When they are bent they swing much easier, thus losing less energy in your stride.
• Staying Relaxed: When you are relaxed you are less likely to strain a muscle, try to keep your muscles relaxed when running. This can be easily achieved with a smile, or a good song :)

So if you have any kind of problems with injuries when running check out this site, it helped me a lot. http://www.chirunning.com/

Viel Spaß homies!