Most runners want to get faster. Not everyone can afford to hire a coach, and not everyone has time to train for a marathon, but most runners hope to set new PR’s on a regular basis. This is absolutely possible, but you need to know how to direct your time. Most people have full-time jobs. You probably do, or you’re a full-time parent. Your time is limited; so, you need to know the best most efficient way to spend your running training time.
In this episode, I explain three things that virtually every runner at every level can do to run faster.
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It’s the little things that often have the greatest impact, and so it is with the concept of focusing on the fact that when running, you are always, 100 percent of the time, putting the full weight of your body on just one foot or the other. Oddly, you don’t hear much about this, and if you go to the gym, you’ll notice that most people are doing exercises with both feet firmly planted on the floor. 
We all think of ourselves as intelligent runners, of course, but even the most experienced, veteran runners sometimes lose sight of the wise and effective path to their goals. Why does this happen? I think because we get caught up in the here and now, the ‘today,’ instead of keeping our eyes on the long term goal, not just our long term running goals but sometimes even our life goals. Yes, running can sometimes distract us from our most far-reaching life goals. That’s bad, but on the flip side, running can make us into the person we need to be to achieve those goals, right?
This is it! You’ve been learning about what to do for nine days. Think of this as graduation day, the day you get the last, but most critical, piece of the puzzle. Today, you find out exactly what you should do, and I mean you, personally, should do on Day 1 of your running journey. Today, is you diagnostic run.
Weight loss or management plays a role in the life of virtually every runner. Either they start running to lose weight or they’ve alreaady lost weight, and the want to become a runner to help them maintain that weight loss or they’re worried that their weight will gradually creep up if they don’t get lots of exercise. 
The two main reasons why beginner runners don’t succeed are these:
Many beginner runners don’t warm-up because they think the only reason to warm-up is to prepare to run fast; they know they don’t run fast, so they skip the warm-up. 
The single most common beginner runner complaint I hear from beginner runners is that they can’t breathe. Often new runners say they struggle to breathe because they feel like they’re breathing through a straw; they say they just can’t get enough air.
It’s not unusual for coaches of beginner runners to disregard form in lieu of total emphasis on building endurance. I believe the opposite is the far better, more effective route. 
