Anything that translates more will put some strain on your calves and achilles, I suspect. Strength training is probably your best bet. Single leg work, squats, lunges, Romanian deadlifts, and loads of calf raises. Then once you start running make sure to do stretching and massage/rollers on your rest days.

I assume you already do some cycling and swimming if you want to do a triathlon? Those will help build your cardio base. Along with strength training specific for running that should help you get back faster.

For cycling, check the position of your cleats are good. I think having your feet a bit more to the front on the pedals (so cleats more towards the centre of the foot) can help spare your calve muscles and focus cycling more on the upper leg, which helps them stay fresh for running and avoiding tight calves.

What i learned from back-of-the-pack runners from tail-walking an ultra marathon

Make sure you have some good recovery food and drinks and warm clothes for after the finish. The race sometimes provides it but it might not be what you need/crave when you’ve put in a hard effort.

I feel like a lot of runners are stuck in an echo chamber of runners and 99% of people just think running a marathon is miraculous and don’t care about your time.

I wish there was a parkrun near me! Good luck with your goals.

Nice! I love your slow approach. Too many influencers pretend like you can train for a marathon from scratch in one season. I decided two years ago to build up to an ironman triathlon, with a half planned this year (with half marathon) and then a marathon next year to prepare for a full iron man either next year or the year after. I have loved having this massive goal but I also make sure to have a smaller goal every 2-3 months to add onto the motivation. Are you adding any 5/10k races in your build up for the half?

Although you probably have amazing cardio, your legs need to readapt to running. A run-walk program like the one in couch-to-5k will let your legs slowly adapt, even though it might feel boring. Basically accept that for the first few weeks your running can’t get you to a high fatigue level because your legs won’t like it and trust me when I say the injuries and niggles are not worth getting to that 10k a few months early. Add some good run-specific strength work (lots of bodyweight or low equipment options on youtube) to help your legs get stronger too.

Surely this is not a huge problem unless hundreds of men start using this loophole? And even then they would have to explain to their friends/family how they got in, which might get embarrasing as an absolute cisgender man who has never felt non-binary to have to admit they cheated their way in.

Ah… I didn’t watch the video again, my mistake.

First try they came out very liquid, so I’m going to add a bit more pectine next time. I replaced 10 ml water with lemon juice and the taste is just slightly lemony sugar, so a bit more wouldn’t hurt I guess. But the recipe was easy and we’ll see how fast I go this weekend!

Thanks for sharing this! I saw it a few weeks ago and enthousiastically ordered everything I need, which has been sitting in my cupboards. This post has given me the motivation (and the written recipe) to actually start trying to make it today.

Have you tried wearing a cap? That works really well for me in the rain.

So with sub-10k weeks I don’t have issues and I have done a 10k race this year already. My problem is that I want to follow a plan for a slightly faster 10k but all the plans go way to high in distance. I hope to build up to 20-30k weeks and have done 16k weeks before.