Amateur Endurance Triathlon Magazine

Do you run six to seven days a week and ignore the existence of any other sport or fitness activity? Does running give you a clear head, the longer you run the better you feel? This used to describe me until IT band syndrome and ankle tendinitis reared their ugly heads.

Running is one of the tougher sports for the human body to manage without injury. If you currently do as much running as you like without injury, great! If injuries are starting to dim the glory of running a bit, it might be time to think about cross training. It’s really your best bet to save the part of running that you enjoy without losing your cardiovascular fitness.

While there’s no guarantee of avoiding injury with cross-training, you can seriously increase your odds. Worried about losing your distance capacity and speed on the days you run? A well-executed cross-training program will potentially enable you to run faster and farther than a solely running focused one.

This is posited in the book Run Less, Run Faster by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr, and Ray Moss. The authors describe their own transition from runners to triathletes, where the demands of triathlon meant fewer running days. What they discovered was that instead of losing ground by incorporating swimming and cycling training, their running actually improved. They discovered that they enjoyed the diversified training better because it was more interesting, less stressful, and just as effective.

There was a time when I would have found it difficult to consider alternate activities to running. Now, on the days I run it’s as good as it’s ever been, actually better since I no longer suffer from IT band pain and the tendinitis acts up mildly and rarely. My new activities: a combination of cycling, Bikram yoga, and weight training have become fun and interesting pursuits in and of themselves. Combined I’m considerably stronger, most definitely faster, more flexible and in overall better condition than in my days of running alone.

Read about the science behind Run Less, Run Faster for the specifics to back up the author’s concept and discover their intensive training program that gets you to do exactly as the title states.

Written by Victoria Nordgren. Victoria Nordgren, the founder of nordgren – women’s performance activewear at http://www.nordgrenactive.com/ is an avid cross trainer living in New York City. Her weekly fitness blog can be found at http://nordgrenactive.com/wordpress2/
Please feel free to contact Victoria at [email protected]