Laura is preparing for Helsinki Half Marathon with the help of Runner's High running school. In this article series we follow Laura's training towards her goal. 

Part 2: The training season has begun with HHM-club practice

It's been a while since the last post, but I've finally got a proper start for the training season and I've been able to participate in some of the training organized by the running school. This week I also attended a lecture about running technique in longer distances and did a heart rate test, where the coaches measured the heart rate levels for the upcoming training. I will tell you more about these during the next weeks.     

We also update my training schedule for the spring with the help of the coaches at Runner´s High. It is important to participate in planning the schedule as you know your own timetables, which must be taken into account so that you don't end up doing too much. This is how my training program for the next week looks like: 

The program includes some physical exercise of your choice, a lot of running and enough rest. On Thursdays I will always be dancing for three hours and I am not willing to give that up even though my main focus is on running now. In the end, dancing is also a very good form of basic training. It is a good idea to have diverse workouts in order to keep motivated, even though they do say that you only become a runner by running. One shouldn't forget about muscle strength, recovery and good technique. These will also be a part of my spring's training on some level.

Last Saturday I had my first training session with the group. My training program includes some practices conducted by the HHM Club. HHM Club is the inner circle of all the runners registered to Helsinki Half Marathon and you will be part of it automatically after the registration. The point is to share information about the things happening around the run and to support your journey toward the Helsinki Half Marathon.

The HHM Club will organize a few training sessions during the spring for all the runners registered for the HHM. On Saturday we were about 150 runners in the Esport center (the only long indoor track in Southern Finland). Even though there was a lot of people, the group was well divided and everyone got training tips from the coaches if needed.

I started the training with the group concentrating on running technique. We went through the basic technique with different coordination exercises. I will tell more about the running technique in the next post. I am familiar with all this since I've been running for over 10 years, but there is a slight difference in running a half marathon and 400 hurdles, especially in the running technique, so I have to work on that as well. The best thing in the training session was to train together in a group. It is not always fun to run by yourself, let along try and work on your technique without having someone telling you if you are doing it wrong or right. You get good energy from the other runners who have the same target as you do! If you want to join the training sessions, you can find the next HHM Club training sessions here. The site is only in Finnish, but you can see the dates there and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the location and dates.

I've started the training season quite calmly otherwise so that my body and especially my poor lungs get used to running again. I am also looking forward to the results of the heart rate test, so that I can run at the right speed and don´t get too carried away while running. As a 400 meters runner I am used to running shorter distances fast and usually my head could take more than my body can. Now I have to learn to run for a longer period of time and slow enough, which is going to be a challenge at the beginning but it will definitely be fun.

Have a great training week!