Resting heart rate is the number of beats per minute your heart makes when you are completely relaxed. It is one of the simplest indicators of your fitness and recovery: it drops as you train and rises when you are tired, ill or stressed. Together with heart rate variability (HRV), which almost every watch now…
Overtraining is what happens when your training load exceeds your ability to recover for too long. It goes well beyond a bad day or a hard week: it is a state in which you perform worse even when you rest, you feel exhausted and it takes weeks or months to feel well again. Luckily, it…
Pace and speed measure the same thing in two different ways, and it helps to know how to go from one to the other. Pace is the time it takes you to cover a kilometer or a mile (for example, 5:00 min/km), and it is what runners and watches use. Speed is the distance you…
Running in the heat is one of the situations that hurts performance most and, if you aren’t careful, your health too. The cold, on the other hand, is easier to handle, but it has its own tricks so you are neither too cold nor too hot. In this guide I explain what happens to your…
A warm up before running is one of those things almost everyone skips on easy runs and then misses in intervals and races. With stretching it is the other way round: many people stretch a lot before heading out, which isn’t the best time. In this guide I explain what warming up is for, how…
Choosing a GPS running watch can be overwhelming: there are dozens of models, each with a huge list of features and prices that range from under 150 to over 800 euros. Luckily, for most runners only a few things matter. In this guide I explain what to look for when buying a GPS running watch,…
Running clothes seem like a minor detail until a blister, thigh chafing or a soaked shirt ruins a long run or a race. You don’t need to spend much, but you do need to choose the right fabrics, socks and a few small tricks. In this guide I explain which running clothes to wear, how…
Getting your training paces right is what separates training with a plan from just going out for a run. From what I see around me, most recreational runners make the same mistake: they run their easy days too fast and their hard days too slow. They end up in that “no man’s land” where they…
Getting back into running after a break sounds like the easiest thing in the world, but it’s actually the moment when most runners end up on the physio’s table. The scene repeats itself every September, season after season: you come back rested, motivated, with your autumn races circled in red on the calendar, and what…