Dymock Half Marathon/ pain tolerance

In one of my first Blog posts I stated that running = pain. After weeks and weeks of training and racing, I feel strong. But, last weekend at Dymock I got a good reminder of how running CAN be pain full!

The key physical factors to this pain were;

  • Heat
  • undulating course
  • heavy traffic
  • bunching of racers
  • sun in your eyes
Then of cause you have the psychological factors;

  • faster runners
  • off pace for a Pb
  • feeling "under trained"
The brain is a powerful organ it is responsible for controlling all of your functions in your body, including your muscles. Your brain even controls how fatigue you feel (I found this out 20 miles into my first marathon.)

Your brain will often tell you that your more tired than you really are. When we talk about athletes, we think of physical strength, this is not always the case.

How can I train my brain alongside my body?


pain tolerance

After 3 years of running I have learnt with a bit of grunting and swearing, you can over come pain. Its not that athletes naturally have a better tolerance than non athletes, its just were more trained to deal with different pains. If we can adapt our bodies to this pain, then as an athlete, you've cracked it!

What to do to increase pain tolerance?

Obviously, this depends where you are. Can you run to the end of your street? Or can you run a marathon? Of cause, just because someone can run a marathon doesn't mean that they don't feel pain when running a 10k race.
From what I can gather, one of the best way to increase pain tolerance while running is hill repeats. Doesn't matter if you can only run to the end of your street, a hill repeat will get you working to your vo2 max and will be beneficial to your muscles. Going back to brain training, this exercise will also increase your pain tolerance and make you get used to pain! (without trying to sound like a stereotypical athlete!)


 step 1- find a hill!

You don't need to, but I always think a hill about a mile away from my house works well.. personally I use Lincoln hill.

step 2- Run it!


You don't have to be a top sprinter, you just need to be working to 90% (Can't talk, out of breath!)

step 3- turn around

Find a good landmark to turn around, like a tree or a sign post. I always find man hole covers are good!

Step 4- recover

run or walk back down the hill to recover and get yourself back together! Taking deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. (this is to get as much oxygen as possible into your lungs!)

Step 5- turn around and repeat

At the bottom of the hill, find a good landmark to turn around at. Again it could be a signpost, manhole cover, you name it!

Make sure you jog or walk to the hill that you want to repeat on, this will get your heart rate pumping and your muscles working! I would recommend repeating this exercise once a week. By upping the rep by one every 3 weeks, your never going to get bored!

After the exercice, cool off! Grab a drink (bannana milkshake always does it for me!) and take a jog/walk home to ease off your heart rate and revover your muscles. Its always a good idea to stretch after exercise. Here is some ideas on static stretches which are good for post work out.

Personally, some of the strongest athletes I have met use this technique. For example, One person I know started running in October last year. He was in his mid forty something and a bit of a couch potato. This man used a training program, very similar to the one I have written above.

Well, put it this way, he finished 6th on Sunday!

 So, time to down that coffee, train hard.. and then race hard this summer!


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