Ten Running Mistakes For Beginners To Avoid

My biggest running achievement was a first place finish in the steeplechase, when I was aged about 10 years old.

Late in the race I fought off a kick from my best friend at the time, to arrive at the finish line first.

I haven’t managed to recreate that early success again, and these days I tend to finish solidly middle-of-the-pack. If I’m unsure what my finishing time in a race will be I just take the median time from the previous year. Usually I’m right.

Like all great stars I retired from running straight after my greatest victory, even though I was barely out of primary school. Well, I continued to run as much as any other kid did.

On the playground I ran as much as I could. I played rugby. Basically I liked to play games, especially ones involving running.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot about this love for running and instead turned to booze and late nights out to satisfy my need for play.

The nights were more fun, my belly grew and my breathing became more laboured when climbing stairs.

I became unfit. Terribly unfit.

I’ll write another article about some earlier attempts at running but let’s start at the point which I took back control.

In December 2013 I decided to put on some running shoes and go for a run around Hyde Park in London.

This was the first foray back into the running game as an adult.

Thousands of miles later, here are my top ten mistakes that beginner runners make:

All the gear, and no idea.

Putting off running until you have the right gear is like putting off breakfast until you have established the provenance of the eggs you are about to eat.

In the early days you do not need £150 running shoes and moisture-wicking race shorts. You do not need to clutch a noisy bottle of isotonic electrolytes for your two-mile jog around the park.

Just put on what you have and get out the door. You’ll soon learn what equipment you really need once you have put in a few miles!

Water, water everywhere.

There’s an enormous amount of advice out there: Two litres per day. Six-eight ounces while running, and more every hour after. Drink two cups an hour before you run and rehydrate as soon as you finish. Don’t drink too much! Don’t drink too little! If you are thirsty then it’s too late to rehydrate!

How on earth can anyone work out how much water a runner should drink?

Bottom line. Drink when you are thirsty.

It’s incredibly rare for a recreational runner to collapse from dehydration when doing a lap of their local park. Yes, it happens on a hot marathon day when a runner is out for 4–5 hours in the heat of the sun.

But another real risk in these race conditions is hyponatremia.

Essentially, this state is triggered when your body does not have the means to process the volume of water you are drinking.

It’s not uncommon for recreational users of ecstasy to face the same problem when trying to avoid dehydration. Without the electrolytes needed for cells to absorb water, the user essentially drowns.

Drink water when you are thirsty.

Are your lips dry? Take some fluids onboard.

In the mountains where I run I can usually tell when I’m thirsty because when I see a river or lake I get the ultimate urge to dive in and drink it dry. So I take a couple of sips.

Too much too soon.

In our ultra-consumerist culture we want everything immediately. This goes for fitness too, if the ‘six-minute ab’ magazine covers are to be believed.

Whether six-minute abs, or six-minute miles, you need to a consistent and long term approach to reach your goals.

This means you shouldn’t transition from 0 miles per week to 30 miles immediately. You’ll be left injured and telling people (wrongly) that running is not for you.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t throw yourself into the sport with gusto. It just means that you should be slow, consistent and aim for lifetime fitness rather than beach-body-ready-in-three-months-fitness.

Begin with a manageable distance each week to prepare your ‘base fitness’ and never increase it by more than 10% each week in order to stay injury-free.

The hills.

Many beginner runners avoid hills. It’s normal. You want to avoid pain wherever possible.

The thing is, hills are a gift from god when it comes to fitness and injury prevention!

In the early days, schedule a mid-week hill session. Essentially you need to run up a hill a few times and recover after each repeat.

You’ll notice a jump in your fitness and soon find yourself being able to do more and more repeats. The benefit is that you will be comfortable running over a much more varied range of terrain!

Additionally, hill running forces you to run slower, and on the balls of your feet. This means that rather than trudging along a concrete road and straining your tendons for hours, you are forced to recruit and engage important muscles to complete the session. Not to mention the great work your lungs and heart are expected to do.

Training these big muscles like the glutes and the hamstrings will decrease the likelihood of injury, increase muscle mass, burn fat for longer and prepare you for big running sessions in the mountains (should you wish to do so).

Having run a thousand miles or so in the hills and mountains of the English Lake District I can tell you that the strength and fitness benefits of hill running are enormous.

Breathe it in.

“I don’t like to hear myself breathing” – this is a popular refrain among those who are shy about their level of fitness in the early days of running.

The problem with this attitude is that your breathing is a key indicator of how your body is reacting to training.

Assuming that you are not planning a balls-out-max-effort 800 metre session, you should be running at a comfortable pace. You’ll know it’s a comfortable pace because you can talk easily, or at least in prolonged spurts.

If you can’t talk, or breathe relatively normally then walk until you can. Once you have your breathing under control then start running again.

You’ll see that as your fitness increases you won’t feel the need to drown out your breathing with music.

Running will become more comfortable and as you increase your efforts during training it will become a useful measure of your exertion and fitness.

Tennis shoes and basketball shorts.

Ok, I know I said that you don’t need lots of expensive equipment when you are starting out. You don’t. Check this guy out, for example, wearing a shirt to run around his neighborhood.

However, once you’re pounding out the miles, you will inevitably need to address the topic of what to wear.

Find shoes that are comfortable to run in. Try them out (COVID-permitting) until you find a pair that feel good.

Wear shorts that don’t flap around and cause unnecessary chafing to your inner things. The best kind are those with fewer seams around the crotch. They will minimise the soreness, especially on wet days.

Tape up your nipples if you’re running longer distances. If you have ever stood at the finish line of a marathon you’ll see men finishing the race with streams of blood emanating from their nipples. Nipple chafe is real, and it is bloody uncomfortable. I simply tape some household sellotape over each nipple. I lose a few hairs when I take them off but better this than red-raw nips.

I could (should) write a more expansive article solely on gear but, to be honest, being comfortable and chafe free is essential above all else.

Less talk, more action.

Watching films about running is not running. Talking about training plans is not running. Selecting new running shoes is not running.

Get out there and run!

Finish reading my article though.

Over-pronating, forefoot-striking and hip-flexing.

If you’re running while trying to guess what angle your ankle is at, while ensuring that your elbows are tucked at 45 degrees relative to your posterior chain, then you are thinking too much.

Would you tell a child playing football in the playground to ensure they buy stability running shoes to ensure that their high arches don’t cause plantar fasciitis during P.E?

Of course you wouldn’t. Stop being your own physio.

Patience, dear Watson.

Rome was not built in a day. It can take and miles to feel comfortable with running. It took me about a year of consistent training before I felt like it was something I could enjoy.

That said, why not think of running time in a different way?

Instead of dreading the 30 minutes it takes you to jog a lap of the village, treat it as valuable ‘me time.

When was the last time you listened to an entire album from start to finish? Use your running time to do just that.

Heard of a TED talk you’d like to listen to? Save it for your run.

Got Audible credits to spend? By some audiobooks and allow yourself the freedom to be lost in a book while you run.

Complaining Jane.

Have some confidence in yourself. And stop complaining about how slow you run, or how nightmarish you believe your next race to be. You can do it, and you will do it!

Thanks for reading my top ten tips for beginner runners.

I have been running for a few years now and I do still feel, in many ways, like I am still a beginner. But I am able to finish a half marathon with a moments notice and I actively seek out opportunities to run in new surroundings.

With a bit of luck, running will be a saviour to you as it was for me!