Graeme Hilditch - 5k & 10k. From Start to Finish

Taking part in a 5k or 10k event is a great way to stay in shape and keep active. Living a healthy lifestyle has many benefits including helping reduce your cancer risk.

In this book, Graeme Hilditch has prepared easy-to-follow training plans tailored for both beginners and experienced runners, so even people who are not regular runners can step up to the challenge of their first 5k or 10k event and veterans can improve on their previous efforts.

Cancer Research UK offers a number of running (or jogging!) events which provide the perfect motivating goal plus the chance to do something positive and inspirational to help beat cancer. In the last 40 years survival rates have doubled and our work has been at the heart of that progress. We are fighting cancer on all fronts, finding new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat it to save more lives.

If you would like to get involved in any of our events and help us beat cancer, please visit our website www.cancerresearchuk.org

Best of luck with your training, we look forward to presenting you with your medal on the finish line!

The Race for Life team

Running is one of the most primeval and natural forms of human movement, and with its endless health benefits its easy to see why, every year, thousands of everyday people, far from classing themselves as athletes, take up recreational running. Whether its jogging around the local park with the dog or pounding the streets around town, running is growing in popularity as one of the most enjoyable and cheapest ways to stay in shape, make new friends and even help keep the waistline under better control.

As the popularity of running continues to soar, so does the number of 5k and 10k running events organised every year. Mass-participation charity events such as Race for Life have attracted hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life to raise valuable funds for charity, while at the same time helping people keep their stress levels and blood pressure under control through the countless health benefits of running.

Credit crunch or no credit crunch, it seems the gloomy economic climate has served only to inspire people to slip on their running shoes and take part in one of the hundreds of 5k or 10k running events organised throughout the UK, or just take a fun gym challenge to run the distance on a treadmill.

Every year in the UK alone, over a million people take up the challenge of competing in a 5k or 10k running event, all with different reasons for taking part. Whether its breaking the elusive 30-minute barrier for 5k or the 60-minute milestone for 10k, these challenging goals are all fantastic to aim for. But not everyone should feel pressured to push themselves to the limit of physical exertion. Although the challenge of running in these events is perhaps the thing people enjoy the most, others may decide that walking the distance is more suitable to their age, body shape or fitness level and why not?

Without wishing to use one of the top ten clichs at the very start of the book, its the taking part in these events that is by far the most important thing! Provided you enjoy the experience, you should never feel pressured to run if you do not feel you are capable of it.

Whether you anticipate walking, power walking, jogging or running a 5k or 10k event, this book has been written especially to help you with all aspects of your training, from what to wear on your feet, via how to stretch properly before and after a run, to what to eat and how to treat niggling injuries without spending hundreds of pounds at a physiotherapy clinic.

Although you might not be training for the illustrious marathon distance of 26.2 miles, there are still dozens of easily avoidable mistakes you might make during your training that could result in injury or lack of fitness and end up ruining your chances of enjoying taking part in your chosen event. The importance of training for a 5k and 10k event is often overlooked by many people, who think they can go it alone with little or no preparation, but thanks to my 14 years of experience as a personal trainer I know that these are often the very people who end up either injured or, worse, taken ill during the race due to, for example, poor nutrition before and/or during the event.

5k and 10k: From Start to Finish will tell you how you can fit training in around all the other things in your life be it bridge on a Friday night or a pint with your mates while watching the football on a Saturday. You will find that not only can training be fun but your life neednt stand still while you find the time to put the kilometres into those legs and that you can even enjoy the occasional glass of Pinot Grigio and a hearty curry with all the trimmings. Whats more, you never know the calories you burn through your training might just reshape your bum nicely, so that you can fit into those old jeans at the back of the wardrobe.

Good luck with your training and, whatever your aspirations, enjoy yourself!

Before you hit the streets, gym or local park and embark on your first training run, there are one or two things you need to sort out first.

First and foremost, now that you are all but committed to entering a race dont panic or, worst of all, back out. In the early stages of training, the road ahead can seem like a never-ending one, and the prospect of jogging or running a distance you never dreamed possible can be pretty daunting.

Whether you have only just recently won your place in the race and are unsure whether you have enough time to train, or you are still wondering whether you are physically up to the challenge, please dont worry and think you are alone in having these feelings of anxiety. A little apprehension before youve even taken your first training step are so normal they are almost a given especially if you are a 5k or 10k virgin.

Committing yourself

The best way to commit yourself to the race and make it difficult, in a moment of weakness, to back out, is to call as many friends and family as you can and tell them that you are entering a race and that sooner or later youll be nagging them for sponsorship money. Not only will this prepare them to dust off their chequebooks but it makes backing out so much harder youll have to enter now if only to save face!

what to expect

Training and preparing for a running event is a fantastic experience, and the journey from struggling to be able to run for a bus to being able to finish a 5k or 10k course is far more rewarding than you could ever imagine.

Provided you train properly and get your preparations off on the right foot (then the left ... etc.) the coming weeks of training will give you a real focus and perhaps even something to really look forward to. If youre a newcomer to the world of jogging, the notion that for the next few months youll actually look forward to getting hot and sweaty three or four times a week might seem crazy, but if you look at how many people run 5k and 10k events in a year there must be something in it. They cant all be mad!