GET STRONG

THE OLD WAY Running high mileage was strength training.

THE NEW WAY Smart runners hit the gym (or the exercise mat).

THE BEST WAY While strength training was a foreign concept to most runners of the first boom, many modern runners won’t stay healthy without it. ‘ When I was racing the 800 ma san 18- year-old, I was doing two-and-a-half-hour runs every week during the base phase,’ says Lorraine Moller, who won bronze in the 1992 Olympic Marathon. But times have changed and so has the average recreational runner, who tends to be heavier and slower (and therefore at a higher risk of being injured) than many of those the sport attracted in the 1970s and 1980s.

Add strength training to your weekly routine on easy-running days to help make your body more injury-resistant, says Luke Humphrey, coauthor of Hansons Marathon method and hans ons Half marathon method( Velopress). ‘Even doing body-weight exercises twice a week is adequate; my 20-minute strength-training routine works all the major muscle groups with exercises such as lunges, press-ups and planks. Start with those before progressing to squats and lifting weights.’