I have recently come to the conclusion that there are 5 key areas of your training that you need to concentrate on as a runner to establish the best performance that you are capable of. As a beginner/intermeadiate runner you will usually find that there is one aspect in particular that is holding you back. By establishing what aspect that is and taking steps towards improving it, you can dramatically improve your performances across all the distances.

This is the obvious one really, your legs. It takes years for your legs to adapt to the often harsh requirements of running. I'm a big believer that the impact involved with running is exaggerated; there obviously is an impact on your legs, but I don't think the damage it causes is anywhere near as great as some would have you believe.

However, running does place harsh requirements on your legs, not just in your muscles, but also in all the connecting tissue including tendons and ligaments. When I started running I was coming from a background of walking/skiing/cycling, so had reasonably strong leg muscles, certainly compared to most people. But, it was a couple of years before I felt my legs were ready for running more than twice a week, they just weren't ready for it.

Early in my running career I had a lot of problems with my achilles tendon, and was often injured. You need to patient, your legs will adapt to the requirements of running, but it does take time. I've been completely injury free now for a couple of years, part of this is because I'm much better at listening to my body, but a bigger part is that my legs are now much better conditioned for running. It takes time, but your legs will adapt to the requirements.

This is the second obvious one, your cardiovascular capacity. Your cardiovascular system broadly refers to your blood vessels and heart. In this context it refers to your ability to effectively transport oxygen to your muscles where it is needed, and also your ability to transport away waste products.

You can see improvements in cardiovascular capacity by adding short, but high intensity training sessions to your schedule. One high intensity training session a week is perfect, add another one if your training load is exceptionally high (read: over 75 miles a week). High intensity sessions are great for increasing cardiovascular capacity, but they are also hard on your body, you will need to let your body recover properly after each one.

This is quite a popular term at the moment, but what does it mean exactly? You have an array of muscles in your back and stomach area. It's not immediately obvious, but good running form comes from strength in these 'core' muscles.

Next time you are out doing a run, look at your running form at the start of your run, and compare it to your running form at the end. What are the differences you can spot? When your core set of muscles tire it's quite easy to spot differences in your posture. You will typically see your upper body 'collapse', shoulders come forward, back becomes hunched... how are you supposed to run like that?! Another symptom of tired core muscles is muscular tension, look at your shoulders, are they nice and relaxed, or hunched and tense?

It's relatively easy to improve your core strength. If it's weak, a 6 week regime will dramatically improve your core strength and your running form with it.

You're not going to get any argument from me, running is very hard work. It's hard work physically, but it's also hard work mentally.

Running is a constant battle in your mind. When you are pushing your performance, it is rarely comfortable. One half of you just wants to pull up at the side of the race and end all that discomfort, but the other half wants to continue pushing as hard as you can to the end. Which half wins can make the difference between running a pb, and not.

Once in a while we all have those races where it just seems so easy, and you still manage to run a huge pb, I've only ever had one race like that.

As you progress as a runner, your mental strength will naturally improve. Enter races on a regular basis and put yourself in the position where you need your mental strength. Each time you race you push a little bit harder, and expose yourself to a slightly higher level of discomfort. Continue to do this and you will improve your ability to deal with it. You can get the same effect in training, but it's harder to replicate the conditions in training unless you have a training partner and can push each other on.

There are also a huge number of mental tricks you can use. Read from as many sources as you for these, what works for one person might not work for somebody else. Try as many as you can, some of them will work. Your mind is a powerful tool in running, it can work against you or it can work for you, make sure you are making it work for you.

Nutrition is probably the most overlooked aspect of running, but it is vitally important. Consider this, if you have a hard run on a Monday evening, and want to run again on a Wednesday, you are giving yourself 48 hours to recover. 48 hours isn't that long, you need to maximise your recovery to make sure you are in the best possible shape again for Wednesday evening.

Let's do some quick calculations. While running, the number of calories you need to run a kilometer is roughly equivalent to your weight in kg. So, if you weigh 70kg, you will need 70 calories to cover a kilometer, or about 100 to cover a mile. Cover 8 miles on a Monday evening and you will need to replace 800 calories before Wednesday evening. That's 800 calories on top of what your normal daily requirements are.

You only need a small deficit in your daily intake to quite severly impact your ability to recover from hard runs, and consequently your overall performance as well. If you are trying to lose weight, then you need a deficit, but in this situation you need to be particularly careful with how much you are eating, but also with what you are eating; you need to lose the weight slowly, don't try to do it quickly. In any scenario it is too easy to slip in to a deficit without noticing, and any weight loss may be offset by gain in muscle mass.

If you've not got a good book on nutrition, I would strongly reccomend you getting one, it is surprising how much of a difference it can make. The benefit you receive is two-fold, you will be better fuelled for your running, but you will also recover quicker and better.

In concluding this entry, my advice to anybody running is to look at all these components. If you are looking to get better at running, be that being able to run further, or being able to run faster, the obvious thing to do is to add another run in to your week. Perhaps that is the way forward for you, but make sure you analyse all 5 components before concluding.

We all have busy schedules, probably have a full-time job, a social life as well and perhaps family, so it is often a case of careful time management. Analyse the 5 components listed above, you will often find that there is one component that is holding you back, look at each one in turn with a view to getting the best return from your time investement. It is very obvious to simply increase your weekly running mileage, and I'm sure you will get benefit from that, but it may be small compared to other aspects you could be working on.

Nutrition requires no extra time, improving core strength requires little extra time, and is very flexible as to when you can work on it. These two aspects in particular are often overlooked by runners. Try improving these two aspects and you may be surprised how much benefit you can get with little extra in the way of time investement.