With the running festival in September the bulk of your training will be during the winter months - which usually means more cold and wet days. And with the amount of rain that we’ve had lately, I know I’ve had to tweak my training schedule a bit. So if it’s bucketing down outside for days on end what can we do instead of just waiting it out?
If you happen to be a member of a gym, or have a treadmill at home, this will be the obvious alternative. Now I personally prefer to run outdoors and can find a treadmill uninspiring, but I will use a wet day as an opportunity to mix up my routine, and a treadmill can be great in that way.
The treadmill is great for interval training where you can do short bursts at increased speed instead of running at a steady continuous pace. How does this help? Well, it increases your overall pace and helps to improve your results come race day.
But what if you don’t have the option of a gym or treadmill? There are still activities that you can do so that you’re not at risk of losing your momentum.
Treat wet weather as an opportune time to do some resistance and strength training. You need minimal to no equipment for this and can do it in the comfort of your own home. Exercises like lunges, squats, push-ups and triceps dips to name a few are great to build lean muscle and improve strength.
With a large number of exercise DVDs on the market, a home yoga or Pilates session is a great way to improve your flexibility - which had benefits for your running. I know when I haven’t kept my stretching up I can feel the effects of tight muscles when I run.
You can even keep up your cardio indoors at home. Skipping with a rope is fantastic way to get your heart rate going and even a short session of 15 minutes can burn as many kilojoules as the run you were planning on doing before the rain started to come down.
So how do you train when it’s raining?
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