25 Golden Rules of Running

Today I saw this posted on pinterest - 25 golden rules of running.  These are from Runner's World and I love these rules.  There is a lot for me to learn from these.  Here are some that really spoke to me.

1. The 10-minute rule.  I'm really bad at doing an official warm up.  Once I hit start on the garmin it's time to go.  I'm always slower my first mile, but I don't really treat it like a warm up. 

2.  The Race-Recovery Rule.  Obviously, I don't follow this rule.  I ran Ragnar 6 days after my marathon....not 26 days later.  No wonder it hurt so bad and I ended up taking weeks off after Ragnar!

3. The Heads-Beats-Tails Rule. This made me feel much better about my marathon since it says a headwind adds 15-25 seconds to each mile.  And boy did we have a headwind that day!

4. The Conversation Rule.  No problem here I'm a group runner and we love to chat for the majority of the run (except when we go uphills and do the tough stuff).  I rarely run with music when training because I'd much rather talk :)

5. The Seven-Year Rule.  I had no idea that runners improve for 7 years.  I wonder when my official start as a "runner" is for this?  Hopefully I have a few years left before I taper off.  I have run off and on for years and years but I didn't really start training hard until a few years ago.  And so far I've gotten faster each year for the last 3 years.....I'd love to have 4 more years in me.

6. The Sleep Rule.  I tend to sleep a lot but I didn't know you need one extra minute per each mile you run every week.  I guess I need a bit more sleep.  The funny thing is that as my mileage increases I have to get up earlier to get my miles in so I probably get about that much less sleep instead of more.  Ha.

7. The Refueling Rule.  I'm pretty good about this.  I love my protein shake and it has a good amount of carbs in it too.  I need to check if I'm a 4-1 ratio on my carbs to protein.

8. The New Shoe Rule.  I knew this rule but I think my shoes have been wearing out faster than 400-500 miles.  I usually go through 2 pair for every 500-600 miles but maybe that's because they are such light neutral shoes.

9. The Speedwork-Pace Rule.  If my max training is 20 seconds faster than my 5-K pace I should do my speed work at a 7:00 - 7:15 pace. 

10. The Tempo-Pace Rule.  So for tempo runs it says I should be going 30 seconds slower than my 5-K pace which would put me at 8:00 min/mile.  Exactly where I am on pace - but it says to run this for an hour.  I've been doing 5 miles which is 40 minutes.  Can I do it for an hour?

11.  The Long-Run Pace Rule.  This isn't something I'm good at.  I've read over and over that you should run long runs slower than your race pace and it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I'm definitely not running my long runs 3 minutes slower than my 5K pace.  They are slower and I don't mind stopping to take my GU's or grab a drink on these runs....but my overall pace is more like 1 minute off my 5K pace.

12. The Finishing-Time Rule.  If this rule holds true I can achieve my goal of qualifying for Boston.  With the chart listed my marathon time should be 3:39:42.  We shall see if this holds true for me next month.