I am not a super ultra runner (but I would love to be) or any kind of very professional runner, but it seems that I can give some good advice to beginners

I know that there are thousands and thousands of different running tips.. from start slowly, listen to your body, do not eat before running at least 2 hours and so on… but just these days I realised one more pretty new running tip for keeping better motivation

This tip can sound pretty awkward, because it’s not related to nutrition, healthy food or nature

The tip is to LIKE as many Facebook running pages as you can! Why?

Because they give you inspiration every day. You join Facebook and you see some nice pictures with motivational quotes and you feel like today you don’t want to miss your training. You want to run. You want to feel how it is written on that beautiful picture That really helps me, it will really help you

There are quite many running pages on Facebook

This one I like very much: https://www.facebook.com/benefitsofgiving?ref=ts&fref=ts

This is my running page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-joy-of-running/432692666804888

Just search “running” and you will find a lot

I hope this will help you to get up and run every day

I haven’t been here for a while How are you doing?

I am great. Running running and running

Last weeks were very good for me. I have my new running plan which was written by my friend. He is now living and running in London.

The plan is made for 15weeks for me to get ready for a marathon on the 9th of September.

I started to do more fartleks, tempo running and uphill. The toughest for me is to run 30 minutes tempo, I am not used to it now, but I do my best Running uphill->downhill->uphill for 30 minutes is tough as well

Two days ago I ran 36km, it was quite tough in the end. Good that I had some water with me, so it was more easy. After 33km I stopped by the church and asked a priest for more water He was glad to help I think I looked terrible and exhausted

In the evening I went to sauna. It was awesome And very relaxing.

So last week I did 77k. The week before – 70k, and these two weeks before wasn’t very good for me, because I missed some of my trainings. I ran about 30-40k during these weeks.

This week I am going to do uphill running and fartlek Will see how it goes

Good luck to you

Never give up!

Last week was pretty good for me. The most important thing was 5k competition in NIKE running event. It was really amazing.

I came earlier to see how people run 10k, because 5k start was two hours later, but it was really awesome to see so many people running in one place. Before start the announcer asked how many people are running 10k for the first time in their life and about one third raised their arms Great!

The first place time was about 34.30.

After that we had 5k competition in which I participated. Before the start the mayor of Vilnius came to give a start to the runners and the announcer asked him to try to run 5k, he said no, but all the runners started to shout “Run, run, run” and he decided “Why not if people are asking” He ran and wasn’t the last

My aim was to run 5k in 20 minutes. In the beginning, of course, everybody starts to run like crazy, but I got my pace and I ran the first kilometer in 3min40s. I tried to keep such pace, but after 4k I got pain in my stomach (I think because I talked with one guy when running) and the last kilometer was pretty bad for me. I finished in 19.17! Yeah! I was really happy Out of 1048 runners I finished the 14th Not so bad, next year I will take the 5th place

My best personal for 5k is 18.05, but I did it about 8 years ago when I was at school. I did much more fartlek and strength running than now, but I will try to recover

Keep running! Never give up

How are you? Hope that you are just fine.

I couldn’t write to my blog, because something was wrong with my domain server.

Week 20 was pretty good for me. I couldn’t run for two days in the middle of the week, so the mileage was not big – just 50k.

All the week I was just simply running and on Tuesday I did fartlek with 7 fast run of 1 minute and 1 minute rest in between. It was very good, it wasn’t exhausting or anything like that.

Tomorrow I am going to participate in NIKE competition in Vilnius. I am going to run 5k I am really waiting for it Hope everything will be just good

See you soon!

How are you ?

I am pretty good, last week was very good for me. I started to run in the morning (just  2k) and doing exercises for my abs and arms. After that I always feel very good and fresh, I love morning exercises 2k takes about 10minutes, abs – 8 minutes, arms – 8 minutes. So in total it’s about 26 minutes, perfect for a morning workout.

So let’s have a look at my week:

Tuesday: 2k in the morning and 12k in the evening with fartlek of 5*1min with 1min rest in between of all these fast runs.

Wednesday: 2k in the morning and 12k in the evening.

Thursday: 2k in the morning and 12k in the evening with 15 minutes fast runs uphill.

Friday: 2k in the morning and 10k in the evening.

Saturday: 28k of walking I participated in big hiking of maybe 200 people. It was really nice, walking in very beautiful places.

In total: 52k runing + 28k walking = 80k.

It was easy and nice week Today I am feeling great! Next week I think I am going to increase the number of fast runs in fartlek and instead of running uphill I will do tempo, we’ll see how it goes

Have a nice week!

Wednesday: I ran 12 k slowly in the park.

Thursday: 12 k with 15 minutes running uphill (and downhill afterwards). It felt really great, I like to feel the speed

Friday: I got up at 6.30 a.m. and ran 10 k. At first I thought that I will feel sleepy all the day, but it was vica versa. All the day I felt so good and powerful So it means – a little bit less sleep and you feel much better

Saturday: 23k in the morning. The weather was very very good. It was raining at night, so in the morning the air was very fresh. I was running with handheld bottle – it is very useful and comfortable to use. When I am thirsty, I take few sips and feel refreshed again:)

Sunday – easy 10 k in the morning

In total I ran 67k. Feeling great! What about you?

I don’t want to scary, but yes, sometimes running is very demanding. Well, running is the most efficient sport when burning calories, so you need to sweat for that, work really hard. I am not talking about simple slow running, I am  talking about fartlek or tempo running, or very long weekend run.

One thing you have to do is not to give up. If you feel very tired, do not run too much next day or skip one day (but not more! (unless you have injury)). Just listen to your body, it’s very very important. If you are beginner – do not push it too much. You have all your lifetime to do as many running training as you want, as many competitions  as you want

One very important thing for beginner is not to increase your mileage too fast. I believe that after two weeks of running 20 or 30 minutes slow running is very easy, but do not rush to increase your running time too much. The rule says that you should increase your mileage about ten percent per week. So if you did 40 km last week, next week you should run not more than 44km. This way you shouldn’t get any injuries, because sometimes a lot of beginners’ muscles are not ready for long distances and they get really serious injuries.

If you do not hurry up in the long time you are going to win. If you rush too much, you get injury, and you have to skip one month or even more. So better to do it slowly and run all the time, than to skip a lot of time.

And just after you feel you are ready and strong enough – include fartlek and tempo running in your training. After that you can include fast running uphill and very long weekend runs.

It’s better to have that straight line to your success than the second one which takes a lot of time, disappointments and injuries

Good luck!

Monday – 14k. It was a simple not fast run.

Tuesday – 12k with 6 fast runs of 30 seconds. I do it like this: in the beginning I run 20minutes quite slowly to warm up and after that I begin to do my fast runs: 6*30 secs with 1 minute slow slow running in between All training takes about 60 minutes.

Wednesday – slow 3k in the morning. As well on Wednesday I began to do 8 min abs program:

It’s really effective! Try it

Thursday – 12k with running uphill and downhill for 15 minutes. I do it like this, I run 35 minutes slowly to warm up and after this I do 7 runs uphill and downhill what takes about 15 minutes:) It’s really good one to increase your speed.

Saturday – 20k in the morning. Love it! Very sunny day

Sunday – 10k in the morning. Very good weather and sunny Awesome

So overall last week I did 71k. I would like to keep such mileage for 4-6 weeks and after that I will increase it to 80-90k per week

Maybe today for you a marathon sounds impossible, but there are people who are looking even further. And those people have a name – ULTRARUNNERS. There are no boundaries for them. 50k? Easy. 100k? Fair enough. 200k? Now we are talking

There are a lot of people who can run 100k, 200k, or even 1000k or 1000 miles and even more.

If you really want to try yourself in ultra marathon – look at this website: UltraRace.co.uk

There are quite a lot of different races from 50k to 860 miles(!).

I am sure, once you do an ultra, you will want more and more I know few persons who do them. Despite the fact that after 100k they feel terrible, they want more. It’s like a drug. And if saying the truth – I want to do an ultra too:) I love such challenges! Do you:)?

I really understand this, because if you start really fast, you get tired very fast – the same can happen with everyone, even with elite runners. Why they don’t get tired so fast in the competition? Because they do a really slow warm-up.

And the secret of really joyful running is very simple – start as slow as you can. Don’t rush. Take your time. Your warm-up can last for 1k or even to 7 or 10k. Sometimes I feel better just after 3k or  sometimes after 10k. Take your time until you feel that you can run faster. Nobody is chasing you. You are on your own, so don’t rush and be happy when running. The pace should about 6-7minutes/km.

Believe me, if you run very slowly in the beginning, later it will be much easier to run fast. Much easier. The same is with fartlek or tempo running. Take it easy in the beginning. Make your muscles warm, let them understand what is happening here:)