Running from Zombies

I’m not really one for training plans. When running becomes too much like work and not enough like fun then I’m not as enthusiastic about it. Knowing that on this particular day I have to go out and do this many intervals isn’t nearly as good as knowing that I can go out and do whatever I like. This might slow down my progress slightly but that’s not really something that bothers me. I know that sometimes I have to do speed sessions and I know that I can’t keep avoiding hills, and that’s enough for me.

This is the Anglicised version. They say 'trainers' instead of 'sneakers'.

Consequently, a whole chapter of this book was a bit wasted on me. Yes, I knew that the book was going to have training plans in it when I bought it so that’s not really a problem. I was quite interested to see what they said, as I’ll probably use some sort of training plan if I ever do longer distances. As far as the other chapters go we have ‘Getting Started’, ‘Mind and Body’, ‘Fuel’, ‘The Big Day’ and ‘What’s Next?’.

The first three of the above chapters were pretty much old news to me. They reiterated a lot of the stuff I already knew, from either previous experience or picking it up from magazines, Ally or the internet. Some of the information about fuelling during marathon tapering was interesting and I’ll be going back to that as and when I need it. The ‘Mind and Body’ chapter seemed to be mostly stretches and some core strength exercises which, again, I knew. The chapter on preparaing for the day itself was predominantly common sense with suggestions like checking the start time the day before, finding out where you can park etc. The final chapter is a list of the more popular running events such as the Race for Life series, Great North Run and World Series Marathons.

Overall, this book seems to be stuck somewhere between a book for beginners and ‘how to’ for running. While it brushes over picking out technical kit and the right sort of shoes it misses out on other aspects of beginning to run. It assumes a certain amount of experience running but doesn’t get too technical. I get the impression it’s trying to speak to a wider audience (the tag line “Run your first (or fastest) 5-k, 10-k, half-marathon or marathon” makes sure that every road runner is accomodated for) when really it should have stuck to one or the other. On the plus side, it’s easy to follow and will make a good reference book for the future, but it wasn’t as useful as I was hoping it would be.