jogging tips and guidelines

Dress for runs as if its 10 degrees warmer than the thermometer actually reads. To put it another way, dress for how warm youll feel at mid run not the first mile, when your body is still heating up. This means choosing the right apparel. See the Dress for Success table On cold days, the new soft shell tops and tights are light, warm, and breathable, says Emily Walzer, fabrics editor for Sporting Goods Business Magazine. On warm days, wear a lightweight performance fabric next to your skin, which will disperse sweat through evaporation. The Exception Theres a limit to how many clothes you can take off without getting arrested, so if its in the 70s or warmer, wear minimal lightweight, light colored apparel.

The most effective pace for VO2 max interval training is about 20 seconds faster per mile than your 5 K race pace. The best way to increase your aerobic capacity and long distance speed is through VO2 max interval training. A pioneer of VO2 max training is Jack Daniels, Ph.D., coach at the Center for High Altitude Training in Flagstaff, Arizona. By stressing your aerobic system, he says, this pace optimizes the volume of blood thats pumped and the amount of oxygen that your muscle fibers can use. The Exception The exact pace is closer to 10 seconds faster per mile than 5 K race pace for fast runners, and 30 seconds faster per mile for slower runners.

Lactate threshold or tempo run pace is about the pace you can maintain when running all out for one hour. This pace is about 20 seconds slower per mile than your 10 K race pace, or 30 seconds slower per mile than 5 K race pace. The key benefit of this pace is that its fast enough to improve your threshold for hard endurance running, yet slow enough that you dont overload your muscles, says Daniels. The ideal duration of a tempo run is 20 to 25 minutes. The Exception The exact pace is less than 20 seconds slower per mile than 10 K race pace for faster runners and slightly more than 30 seconds slower per mile than 10 K race pace for slower runners.

Do your longest training runs at least three minutes per mile slower than your 5 K race pace. You really cant go too slow on long runs, says RW Starting Line columnist Jeff Galloway, because there are no drawbacks to running them slowly. Running them too fast, however, can compromise your recovery time and raise your injury risk. The Exception Galloway says you should run even slower on hot days.

The longer the race, the slower your pace. How much slower? Jack Daniels and J.R. Gilbert spent years compiling a table see Predict Your Performance that shows how much you should expect to slow down from one race distance to the next. We did some curve fitting to come up with a formula that generates a pseudo VO2 max for each race time, says Daniels. They sweated the math; now you just need to sweat the race. The Exception Terrain, weather, or how you feel on race day could all throw off the tables accuracy.

Your body will do the work you ask of it. You just need to accommodate its signals for you to back off. When you start jogging, you are using muscles in your legs that were not fully used probably for a very long time. They are weak, small and flabby. Too much too soon and you will surely hurt yourself.

You are an individual. There is no one else exactly like you. Only you have your experiences and memories. Remember high school track or cross country? You had the summer off, and then 2 weeks after school starts you have your first cross country race. That is how the program ran, no time for light jogging. Few if any kids ran through summer. It wasnt good for you then and certainly isnt at 50 plus. Not to put a damper on your ambitions you can decide to run a 5k when you are ready. But dont pick one just yet. You have a lot of body conditioning to do ahead of time. It may take you 2 to 4 months or longer before you could race. A 5k fun run is an exciting way to gauge your progress without pressure of performance.

This is so true. You may want to try out your new jogging gear. Or, you will find that your heart and lung capacity increases faster than your leg strength. Particularly true when you remain active on your non jogging days. You must be patient and not overdo it. Let your legs gain strength.

Although jogging can be done anytime, but in fact the best time to jog is in the morning, approximately at 530 am to 800 am.

If you seriously want to burn fat quickly, you should not eat breakfast before jogging, but you need to drink a large glass of water. By not eating breakfast first, your body will use fat reserves to burn into energy to be needed when jogging. Useful addition to maintaining a healthy weight, jogging is also very good for heart health. In addition, bring clean drinking water mineral water bottled water is also good , or it can also bring isotonic drinks. For more details read my article about the ideal drinks for jogging.