New Years Resolution Include Running? Avoid these Common Mistakes

A running coach, with a great YouTube channel shares with you the Top Five blunders to avoid - that will allow you to have an injury-free and even better 2024!

The running coach is Nick Bester. He shares with you ways to train smarter - not harder. Here’s to an injury-free faster and more fit 2024!

Mistake #1: Doing too many runs at the same pace

If you want to improve your running you should try to incorporate at least two hard days into your weekly training. On these days you are breaking out of your comfort zone and this is when the magic happens.

But, on your other days make sure you run easier. This will allow your body to rebuild stronger. If you push the pace on your easy/recovery days - you’ll spoil the great improvement that you were supposed to get! Run easy on your easy days. Don’t worry about what others will think of Strava. We’ll get that too, in just a bit.

Mistake #2: Neglecting Your Strength and Conditioning

This is something that I’ll need to start doing - along with you in the coming weeks and months in 2024. 

Maintaining and building your muscles is a very important element of staying injury-free in the coming year. If you only focus on running and neglect giving love to your weaker areas, it will likely be a matter of time before something breaks down.

Coach Nick encourages you and me to do two weighted strength sessions a week. There are great exercises that will help you keep your resolution and not get injured, like jump squats, jumping lunges and calf raises. Nick encourages us to do these every single day.

Mistake #3: Doing Speed workouts, and running higher mileage - too soon!

Your body can do amazing things - If you take your time and allow it to adapt slowly to the contact sport of running. Many people think of football, hockey, or rugby as contact sports. Running is also a contact sport. It wreaks havoc on your legs, tendons, shins, knees, and IT bands. You have to slowly introduce small amounts of running. Take your time to build on the mileage. The more you’re patient - the less chance you’ll get an injury that will knock out your hard-earned fitness. can take a while to adapt to improvements in your running - it doesn’t just happen overnight. On many occasions, I’ve seen athletes start to follow structured training, see drastic improvements, and then ramp things up too quickly eventually resulting in an injury.

Coach Nick encourages us to train smart and not get carried away. Remember to increase the volume or quality of your training or mileage by no more than 10% from the week before. This reduces your chance of getting injured.

Mistake #4: Not practicing with Nutrition and Gels during training

When it comes to race day, you never want to be trying something new. For eventual runs longer than 90 minutes, you’ll need to fuel your body with food/and, or gels. Find out what works best for you on your training runs - before race day.

Mistake #5: Getting obsessed with social media

This is my kryptonite. I do the awful thing of comparing my runs and my pace to other talented runners in our area - who are younger and who have been putting in the hard work that got them the great fitness - and the fast pace. Remember. Consistent running will allow you to grow and get faster. Don’t let the mistake of comparing yourself to others demoralize you.

Check out these tips and other great running topics on Coach Nick’s YouTube Channel

INFO: Coash Nick Bester, Strava