I’ve been doing a little more running again lately. The jogging sort not the watch that flash go by sort and I find that I just don’t take in enough air. Everything seems fine, then I start to take shallow breaths and it all quickly falls apart. I get wobbly and need to slow down to a walk to catch my breath for a minute then off I go again. This was not going to do. Obviously. I needed advice, an answer. So I Googled it.
I searched the internet for how to breathe properly. Firstly, here’s the hot tip, make sure your search is set to moderate to safe content or THAT will get awkward… What I found was a whole heap of runner tutorials on breathing and how to maintain it. Excellent. Now obviously some of it is fitness based. But I also felt a bit like I panicked and stopped breathing properly. Like as soon as I noticed that I was getting short of breath, it got worse, does that make sense?
The interwebs recommended;
- Breathe through your mouth AND nose. The interwebs says to open your mouth and get as much oxygen in as you can.
- Run at conversational pace. For beginners {that’s me!} run at a pace that it is comfortable to talk.
- Breathe in patterns. Take a breathe in every 3 steps, exhale 2 later. You’re developing lung fitness here as well.
- Breathe from your belly. As a classically trained child singer, breathing from my belly is second nature. It never occurred to me to do it while running.
So wish me luck! I’m going to give all this a try to do my best to not overthink it. As I do. My aim is to complete week two of the Couch to 5km this week, including the run I have to make up from last week. My aim? At this stage it would be the Colour Run on the Sunshine Coast. Sort of. Mostly I get want to continue to improve my fitness and keep ahead of all the winter colds and junk this year. Strong lungs, that’s my real aim.
All you pros out there, got any tips?
Hi! I’m Suger and I’m the Chief Blogger here. I make stuff for the internet. Which means I take photos, build websites, write copy and create social media plans for people. This is my blog where I share my life and the things that interest me. It’s been living its best life on the interwebs since 2009.
My dear Suger, I am so glad you are running. My answer is that your breathing will sort itself out as your fitness improves. You can expect to feel uncomfortable at the start. It is a nearly universal experience for new runners. Just run in intervals, say 1 min jog, 2 mins walk, increase the run part so that at the end you are a bit uncomfortable. But don’t give up!!!
I might do a blog post on this- will let you know when it’s up.
Cilla xx
Me too! I love, loved swimming but I feel so strong when I can get a run or three in for the week. It’s been a while though, so I’ve lost a fair bit of the conditioning, so I expected some pain on that front, but this felt different, like I simply couldn’t get my brain to breath right… Does that make sense? Like it was panicking a bit. I look forward to it feeling a little more comfortable again. SOON. Thanks for your support.
18 months ago I wrote a post about my top running tips for beginners, and for some reason it’s become really popular. It was geared for Couch to 5K (C25K) runners but the advice seems to be pretty solid no matter which program you’re following.
http://scarletwords.com/2011/09/13/c25k-v2/
(And if you ever feel discouraged after a bad run, feel free to read this and laugh at my expense: http://scarletwords.com/2009/11/24/well-that-sucked/ )
You’re the best Thank you! I think #c25k may have been the reason we first started chatting on twitter? Maybe. I’ll check out your posts later tonight, when I have time to click on through a billion of them.
Oooh we’re at the same point in couch 2 5k! Let’s do this thing!
Yes! Let’s. 😀
run at a pace that is comfortable to talk. okay. I’ll get onto that as soon as I’m comfortable with walking and talking together.
Ha Ha. my breathing is better since the swimming, but all jokes aside, I can’t see me running.
Haha. Swimming is the best. I miss it now actually {our pool closes for the winter}.
I have put up a post for running newbies. I hope it helps.
http://cilosophy.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/a-beginners-guide-to-running.html
cilla xx
Great! Thanks.
The old rule is when you’re brisk walking, jogging or running, your pace should be enough that you can still talk but you couldn’t sing…..not sure if anyone loves exercise enough to WANT to be singing while they’re doing it but well yeah!
I’m not well this week but am starting up C25k next week AGAIN because I’m feeling all ugh and after the first week when I did it last time, I started to feel great.
x
I’m sure the other treadmill users won’t mind a bit if I test this theory out. Bust out in song and all that. Haha. I’ll report back. Great! I feel like I’ve started a million times. Only finished that once. Determined to knock it out this time.