Crush your parkrun PB

Run a faster 5K with our top tips to help you find your inner athlete

This year, we’re celebrating 20 years of parkrun, the free weekly community event that brings runners, walkers and volunteers of all ages, abilities and backgrounds together for a dose of feel good movement. While it’s not all about speed, let’s be honest: we all enjoy getting that “well done on a new PB” notification. Get ready to run your best 5K with top tips from parkrun

Get your warm-up right
A proper warm-up lets you hit the ground running by boosting blood flow to working muscles, bringing heart rate up, increasing motor neurone firing and raising baseline VO2max. Try a brisk walk or some dynamic stretches (leg swings, hamstring sweeps) followed by 5 minutes of form drills (high knees, bum kicks, skipping) and a few minutes of easy running with 4 sets of 10 second strides. For bonus points, a topical heat therapy like Deep Heat Muscle Massage Roll-on Lotion will help to loosen and soften muscles, so they move more easily.

Embrace speedwork
It’s important to build a good base level of aerobic fitness by running most of your training miles at an easy pace, but if you want to run faster, you need to practise running faster, too. A weekly interval session will improve your VO2max, allowing you to push harder when it really matters. Try 5 x 1K reps at your goal 5K pace, with a 3-4 minute recovery walk or jog between each rep. It’s also worth throwing in a 30 minute tempo run or “threshold workout” to help improve your lactate threshold: your threshold pace is roughly 25-30 seconds per mile slower than your current 5K pace.

Nip niggles in the bud
Niggles are a warning sign that something needs attention: ignore them and they can turn into injuries, throw off your form and derail your training. Listen to your body: if pain or soreness persists for more than a week or two, or running makes it worse, some time off your feet and a trip to your GP or physio could be in order. But sometimes, a little TLC makes all the difference. Deep Freeze Glide-on Gel works like ice to provide fast-acting, scientifically proven cooling and soothing relief from minor muscle and joint aches.

The Deep Heat and Deep Freeze ranges are available from most high street community pharmacies,  grocery stores nationwide and Amazon.

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