Ron Bowman: Hi! I am Ron Bowman. And today we are talking about beginning running tips. And now we are going to talk about some of the middle aspects of running. The middle aspect of running can be as important as picking the correct shoes. The main thing is to try to remember when you just starting out running is not to compare yourself to others. You will progress better at your pace and your rate rather than trying to keep up with someone else. Dont try to keep up with others who are quicker, its a sure way to get discouraged and/or injured. Find what motivates you whether its a coach, a friend, a memory, a photo, make a drawing or have a something you can look at to remind you of what your long-term goal is and why you are doing this and what you want to achieve out of it. You will get stronger and faster and that can be motivation itself as you go along. The one thing that I want to make sure that you take away from this is that you learn to listen to your body. What works for someone else may not work for you. You want to try things like running on a treadmill, running on dirt paths, running on bike paths and find what is most comfortable for you and what you get the most enjoyment out of. And that's what you do. You want to keep a log; its a good visual way to see your progress. Learn how you react to different kind of conditions like the heat, the cold, etcetera. What you wore when you were doing that and what works for you and what does not work for you. What you want to keep in your log is basic distance, the time that you ran, the length of time that you ran, the time of day that you ran, the temperatures for the run whether it was humid, windy. And how you felt before and after the run, did you go and depressed and felt better afterwards or was there something that particularly kept you motivated doing that run.

The key things to that when you run that route again during those conditions, you can look back and say, okay, this is what I wore on that day, so this is what I can look at today, how long it took me. And you can use that as a motivating factor. The most important aspect of your beginning running is to look back on why you started it in the first place. Keep that in mind; keep in mind why you are running and the enjoyment that you get out of it and the benefits that you know you are getting out of it. Keeping those in mind at all times will be the best thing you can do to keep your running going. And that's some pointers about the middle aspects of running. And now we are going to talk about a very important aspect of running and that's nutrition for beginning runners.