Strength, hunger, boredom and motivation for new runners

The way to keep doing strength training is to stop treating it as optional. Put two short sessions on fixed days, tie them to something you already do, and keep them small enough that skipping feels silly.

Preventing injuries is the main reason to bother. A 2014 review of 25 trials with 26,610 people found that strength training cut sports injuries to less than a third.¹ Stretching, in the same review, did nothing measurable.

It also makes you a better runner. A 2018 review of 24 studies in distance runners looked at running economy, the energy cost of holding a given pace.² Strength work generally improved it by 2 to 8 percent.

Times over 1.5 to 10 km tended to improve too, and strength work didn't harm the runners' body composition.² The authors suggested two to three sessions a week.

Motivation comes and goes, so build the habit instead. James Clear, the author of the habit book Atomic Habits, suggests stacking a new habit onto an existing one.³ For you, that could mean squats right after your Tuesday run.

Clear's Two-Minute Rule says a new habit should start with a version that takes less than two minutes to do.³ His own example is putting on your running shoes.

Habits take a while to settle in. In a 2010 study, 96 volunteers each built a daily habit.⁴ The time until it felt automatic ranged from 18 to 254 days, and missing a single day didn't set people back in any meaningful way.

Bottom line

Two short strength sessions a week, pinned to your runs, protect you from injury better than any stretch.

Feeling hungrier after you start running is normal, because running burns energy and your body asks for it back. The fix is to eat more carbohydrate around your runs, not to fight the hunger.

Running burns more than walking the same distance. In a 2004 lab study of 24 adults, running 1,600 meters, about a mile, used about 115 calories, against about 81 calories for walking it.⁵

People respond to that extra energy cost in widely different ways. In a 2008 study, 35 inactive adults exercised five times a week for 12 weeks.⁶ They lost 3.7 kg on average, but results ranged from a loss of 14.7 kg to a gain of 1.7 kg. Those who lost the least ate about 268 more calories a day by the end and felt hungrier.

A single run doesn't usually trigger a big appetite at the next meal. In a 2010 study, nine men ran for 90 minutes and burned over 1,200 calories.⁷ Yet they ate no more than usual over the next day. A 2018 review reached the same conclusion for single sessions, with large differences between people.⁸

Hunger that builds over weeks is common, and eating too little has real costs. An expert group from the International Olympic Committee warns that training on too little energy harms the health and performance of male and female athletes.⁹ It names too little carbohydrate as a growing part of the problem.

Carbohydrate around your runs helps most. Eating before runs longer than an hour improves performance.¹⁰ On long runs, small amounts of carbohydrate during the run are recommended from about the hour mark.¹¹

Bottom line

Running hunger is a fuel signal. Eat more carbohydrate around your runs instead of trying to ignore it.

If running bores you, give your ears and eyes something to do. Music helps the most, audiobooks you save for runs help you go more often, and a new route gives you something new to look at.

A 2020 review of 139 studies with 3,599 people found that music during exercise improved mood, lowered how hard the effort felt and improved performance.¹² Faster music helped performance more than slow music.

Saving a favorite audiobook for exercise only helps too. In a 2014 study, some people could only listen to gripping audiobooks at the gym.¹³ At first, they went 51 percent more often than a control group.

The effect faded over the weeks, especially after a holiday break.¹³ Treat it as a boost rather than a permanent fix.

Running in silence is fine as well. Boredom on a 30-minute easy run isn't a sign you're doing it wrong.

Bottom line

Use music for hard runs, save audiobooks for easy ones, and change your route when the old one goes stale.

The hard part of most runs is the first few minutes, so make the start as small and as automatic as you can. Decide when and where you'll run ahead of time, and promise yourself only the first five minutes.

Your sense of how a run will feel is biased. A 2011 set of four studies with 279 adults found that people consistently underestimated how much they would enjoy exercise.¹⁴ They gave too much weight to the start of a workout, which is usually the least pleasant part.

A fixed plan beats a mood. Atomic Habits describes a study in which some people wrote down the day, time and place they would exercise.³ They were far more likely to follow through than people who were only given reasons to exercise. About 91 percent of the planners exercised at least once a week, against 35 to 38 percent of the others.

It also helps to lower the bar for starting. The Two-Minute Rule applies here as well.³ Put on your shoes and go out for five minutes, and let yourself turn around if you still want to. The 2011 studies suggest the run will feel better than you expect once you're past the start.¹⁴

Bottom line

Pick your run time the night before, lay out your kit, and promise yourself only five minutes.

The most useful thing for a new runner to know is that injuries are common early on. The rules for avoiding them are simpler than you'd expect. Run mostly slowly, increase distance gradually, and pick shoes that feel comfortable.

New runners get hurt more often than experienced ones. A 2015 review found about 17.8 injuries per 1,000 hours of running in new runners, compared with 7.7 in recreational runners.¹⁵

The famous 10 percent rule isn't the magic part. In a 2008 trial with 532 new runners, a slower 13-week plan built on that rule was compared with a standard 8-week plan.¹⁶ Both produced the same injury rate, about 1 in 5.

A 2014 study followed 874 new runners.¹⁷ It found a higher rate of some overuse injuries when weekly distance rose by more than 30 percent over two weeks. That finding was uncertain, but it points to avoiding big jumps rather than following an exact number.

Easy running makes up most of the work of top endurance athletes, about 80 percent of their sessions.¹⁸ For you, that means most of your runs should feel easy.

For shoes, comfort is a good guide. A 2015 review looked at foot strike impact and inward foot roll, once thought to be the main causes of running injuries.¹⁹ Neither factor reliably predicted who would get injured. Its authors proposed that runners pick the shoe that feels most comfortable.

Bottom line

Run mostly easy, raise your distance in small steps, and buy the shoes that feel best on your feet.

1. 01

   Two short strength sessions a week cut injury risk and improve running economy.

2. 02

   Running hunger is a fuel signal, so eat more carbohydrate around your runs.

3. 03

   Music, saved audiobooks and new routes make runs less boring.

4. 04

   Decide when you'll run ahead of time, and promise yourself only the first five minutes.

5. 05

   Run mostly easy, avoid big jumps in distance, and choose comfortable shoes.