Welcome to episode 108 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. Holly’s half marathon training is going well, and she’s tentatively enthusiastic about tackling longer distances with her running buddy, and considering potentially a bit of walk running.

We talk here about strength training, and the stuff we can do to support our running, and make everything easier. I talk to Holly about some simple bits of strength training she can do – and all of them are bodyweight (so no equipment required) and she can do them at home. Equally if she fancies a trip to the gym, she could easily do this using weights or machines at the gym to get a bigger session in. The trick here is to simplify strength training – it doesn’t need to be a billion different moves, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. Divvy yourself up into three sections: arms and shoulders, core (stomach, back and hips), and legs. Then think of three exercises – something like press ups, crunches and lunges. Do them 10 times, and repeat three times. And Bob is most firmly your uncle. Running will be, progressively more easy. And after a few weeks you can add in weights, up your reps, change up the exercises, whatever you like – you’ll find LOADS of strength training on our website.

I talk about my worries about running a half (the Great North Run) when I’m supposed to be running  20+ miles in training for the London Marathon, not 13.1, so I’m having to add a few miles on to it before or after. I want to know if anyone is doing something similar in the lead up to the marathon.

We finish up by talking about the dreaded chafe, and in this instance, specifically boob chafe. As Holly says, “you don’t want your tits to ruin your marathon”. Somehow she makes this an issue that she lays firmly at the door of the patriarchy, and who are we to disagree?

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