Training Tips

Most of the adult runners that I’ve coached tell me that they had various levels of childhood trauma from school cross country. It’s the day when school sick days spike, injuries come out of nowhere (then magically heal at the 3pm bell), and it’s perhaps the one time in the New Zealand curriculum when competing[…]

Good running technique can improve your speed, endurance and resilience to injury, but it can often be hard to know how to intentionally go about improving it. So how can you structure your week or what tools can you utilised to help keep improving your technique? Here are some tips: Run Fast, Fresh, Often: Running[…]

By Hayden Shearman It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, so how do we decipher the smart way to choose a running shoe from the marketing messages and hype? Here are four tips that I give to runners to help them on their shoe hunting journey. Buy several shoes, not just one. This is great news for[…]

By Hayden Shearman A hill session cranks up a couple of key training stress dials. And, as we all know, we should recover as hard as we train, so how in particular should we recover from a challenging hill session? Easy, flat active recovery running. After a demanding hill session you’ll want to switch the[…]

By Hayden Shearman Much of running training is going at an easy, controlled pace; but there are times when we need to crank up the dial and really get after it. This can quite daunting to do in training, so I wanted to share some tips on how to get yourself in the zone to[…]

By Hayden Shearman This is one of the holy grails of running success: can you learn to be comfortable despite experiencing discomfort? Understand the Different Degrees of Discomfort: If you’ve ever walked with a two-year-old, you would have experienced their abundant energy at the start only to hit rock bottom, petrol light on, running on[…]

By Hayden Shearman Many of us avoid hills like the plague. But hidden amidst the slog and grind of running uphill are all sorts of rewards for the runner, including fitness and the most epic scenery a runner can find. So, here are five tips to help you enjoy hills as much as possible. 1)[…]

By Hayden Shearman We all understand that to get fitter you need to do work. Long runs, workouts, mileage, cross training—all this stuff makes us fitter. But that’s only 50% of the game. The other half of the fitness equation is recovery. And knowing when the balance between training and recovery is getting out of[…]

By Hayden Shearman We’ve just passed the 100-day mark to the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. For those athletes selected and competing, the next 100 days represents the final stage in their lifelong goal of competing at the Games. This 100 days is the final stage of at least 12 years of competing and training and is[…]

By Hayden Shearman Hills add another dimension to your training that can lead to injury if you’re not careful about recovering properly. Here are four tips to make sure you’re banking away the savings from a great hill session.   48 Hours Easy … At Least! The absolute key to recovering from any hard running[…]

The world needs more running coaches! They help runners of all types get the most from their sport and navigate all those pitfalls like injury and self-doubt. So, how do you become a running coach? Here are a few tips from my journey: Start by Coaching Yourself: Become a student of your own sport. Keep[…]

By Hayden Shearman When you do an easy run, you’re primarily burning fat. When you do a workout or shorter race, you’re primarily burning glycogen. So, what’s best? Not to disappoint right off the bat, but asking what’s best is probably the wrong question here, because the truth is that both energy systems have their[…]

By Hayden Shearman // When you encounter hills in a workout or race, how should you tackle it? How should your technique change? And what about downhill is that different to uphill? Here’s five points to give you more confidence to be strong in the hills. Look Up & Stand Tall: Avoid the temptation to[…]

By Hayden Shearman // One of the biggest mistakes we can make as runners is having too many goals, entering too many races and, as a result, confusing our training with competing goals. This is where the newly crowned 5000m world record holder can help us out. I recently heard an interview with Joshua Cheptegei[…]

// By Hayden Shearman // In the space of 14 days I’ve lost four days out with a cold and two (so far) with a tweaked neck. Super frustrating! But, as runners, it can be easy to get down about these setbacks. So how can we deal with them when they do come along? Here[…]

By Hayden Shearman Last weekend, in Monaco, the men’s 5000m world record was broken by Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda in running a mind-exploding 12:35! However, within hours, the inevitable rhetoric came out online that it could be doping or that it was the shoes. As fans of athletics, it can be tricky to decipher the[…]

By Hayden Shearman // One of the many frustrating things about running is the incredibly vague and contradicting uses of the terms “hilly”, “undulating”, “rolling”, and “flat”. Every runner has a different take on what these terms mean and even with a course elevation profile it’s difficult to make out the real magnitude of the hills on[…]

By Hayden Shearman // A quick Google search revealed 825 million results for “marathon training plan” in just 0.36 seconds. That’s a lot of choice. And a lot of noise. And unfortunately not every training plan is made equal. And, worse, unfortunately not every runner is made equal … which complicates the heck out of[…]

By Hayden Shearman // The obvious answer to the question above is that something in your body—whether it be bone or soft tissue—can’t handle the stress you’re putting it under. For distance runners, that stress isn’t usually from a one-off exertion but a small repeated exertion over time. In other words, running injuries are usually[…]

By Hayden Shearman For many of us, we were attracted to running initially because of its convenience. And, luckily, we can get a hang of a lot done to build fitness through just a 30-minute workout. So here are some of my favourite 30-minute smash-it sessions. They should each include at least 10-15 minutes of[…]

The gym isn’t just about using the treadmill when the weather turns to custard or riding the elliptical on physio orders. Instead, runners can garner so much from the gym that will ultimately make them faster, smoother, more durable runners. So, I wanted to dispel some popular myths or behavioural tendencies that I see from[…]

To carry on our race recovery theme, the other day I was live on Facbook (see below) sharing tips for bringing your body back from the hell you’ve just thrust it into by racing a half or full marathon. I mentioned the golden rule that for every mile raced you need a day of rest[…]

By Hayden Shearman Two weeks ago I raced a half marathon. Thanks to a good downhill battle to chase down the leader over the final few KMs (btw, I just missed the win by an agonising 5 seconds) my body was left pretty beat up.  But my mind was ready to knuckle down into the training[…]

Thanks to the stresses and commitments of life, you can only run three times per week, how can your maximise that limited time, become as fit as possible and enjoy every step of your running training? Hayden spelt out how he typically recommends people to make the most of a 3-run training week in the[…]

Haoting Ma is a familiar face at Auckland running races. His youthful smile and ever-present determination have seen him cross the finish line in countless half marathons and 10k events, but at the recent Christchurch Marathon, and at only 17 years old, he stepped up to the big 42 kilometre challenge … and dominated, running a[…]