Mothers Day Classic

‘I’m a runner ‘– interview Mary Delahunty by Claire Burke

Read Mary Delahunty’s story in Runner’s World Australia & New Zealand, April 2008 edition Click Here

Hi everyone,

Well it’s now five weeks away from the big day so I thought I might encourage you with your training and preparation for the MDC with a bit of a program.  Thanks Andrea for posting your request for training tips – we’ve received several requests for information about preparing for the 4K run event so here you go.

If you aren’t a regular runner, it’s important firstly to stay realistic about the goal of running all the way in the 4K.  It’s a great goal to have and now you have to put in place a strategy for training to make the goal a reality in 5 weeks time.  If you have never run 4K before you have to gradually build-up your stamina over the 5 weeks to ensure you make the distance on race day. 

I believe in controlling your training through your heart rate.  What does this mean?  Simply check your heart rate through a monitor and keep your HR between 125 at 155 beats per minute during exercise.  So if you start out walking four days a week for 4K each time, around 45 minutes of work, keeping your HR between 125 to 155, by the end of the second week you will be able to start light jogging.  When you start to lightly jog, again keep HR between 125-155, and see how far you jog before your HR gets too high and you return to walking again.  Keep repeating this jog/walk according to your HR for the 4k session.  The aim is to let your fitness build naturally by staying in the right HR zone.  By week four you will be jogging more than walking and staying in a healthy HR zone.

The danger in starting any walking/jogging/running program is too much too soon, which makes us sore and sorry.  5 weeks is plenty of time to enjoy increasing your workload without too much stress on the body.  Good luck.

ps – that’s great to hear from Cate who posted that AIS swimmers will be supporting Mothers Day Classic in Canberra. Well done guys!