This Summer, 1,000 TRIBE runners and riders will run and ride 2,000km from Sarajevo to London to raise £1 million to fight human trafficking: Run for Love. We turned to the coaching experts at Full Potential to prepare training plans for runners and riders. In this blog, Richard Coates introduces the Run for Love training plans
Taking on an ultra-distance run or ride like Run for Love is a fantastic challenge physically and mentally. The sense of achievement you’ll have once you’ve completed the training and the challenge will be immense. A huge high!
Running or riding long distance challenges like Run for Love over consecutive days requires plenty of time training beforehand though. Even for fit experienced endurance athletes, the training shouldn’t be taken for granted.
The training plans we’ve put together for Run for Love are for experienced endurance athletes who are used exercising 5 or 6 times per week for long periods at a time. They are suitable for Run For Love participants tackling multiple long days of the challenge.
Whilst a marathon or 100-mile ride can be completed with build-up of long training runs or rides once a week, your training for Run for Love will need multiple long runs or rides, sometimes on back-to-back days to help simulate the fatigue that you’ll encounter.
As you’ll be spending very long days on your legs or in the saddle, it’s essential to include regular strength and conditioning work throughout your training so that you have sufficient muscular strength endurance. Even two or three 15 – 20 minute sessions during a hectic week will help.
To handle the high training volume, make sure to give your body regular MOTs via stretching, mobilisation, foam rolling, self-massage or sport’s massages. Get regular quality sleep too as this will help your body to repair itself from the rigours of training.
Finally, a word on nutrition. Treat your body like a high-performance car. Feed it with high quality food and drink to get the most from your training. Poor fuelling will often produce poor training!
If you have any questions about the plans or training in general, then please e-mail Rich and Ben at info@fullpotential.co.uk
Best of luck!