By Janice Williams
Coquitlam Public Library 

It’s spring, and now’s the time to get outdoors and get active. Some of us will be busy with our gardens - weeding, preparing soil beds, planting seedlings and getting the vegetable patch ready for a bumper harvest, while others will be lacing up our runners for an aerobic workout through our neighbourhoods. 

For a number of years, running has not been on my fitness to do list, as I would rather go hiking or walking. But last year I participated as a walker in Vancouver’s first Earth Run, and the idea of one day building up my capacity to run in one of these events caught my interest. 

The public library has many good resources to assist would be runners, including The Beginning Runner’s Handbook: The Proven 13-Week Walk / Run Program, by Ian MacNeill and the Sports Medicine Council of BC. As the title indicates, this book is for beginning runners, providing practical information on how to get started, avoid muscle strains, stay motivated and set realistic goals. No matter what one’s reason is for taking up running, be it for weight control or fitness, the authors’ advice is to think of oneself as an athlete. This book provides a training program for both one’s body and one’s mind, and has useful appendices including a sample training log, 13 week routines for a walk only program, a run faster program, a walk-run program and an 8 week run farther program. 

In The Secret of Smart Running, author Matt Greenwald provides helpful information for novice runners to marathoners. In his chapter on ‘5 Basic Principles for Success’, Greenwald states you’ve got to ‘keep the faith’ through running challenges – yes, including inertia, prepare for your run, change your running location scenery, find your comfort level, and strive for consistency – with sticking to a regular training schedule. 

Author and world-champion runner Grete Waitz gives straightforward advice in her book, On the Run: Exercise and Fitness for Busy People, as she offers insights from her life, and provides information on “total fitness”, serious training, stretching and strengthening, having a fitness lifestyle, making it work on the job, having families staying healthy together and nutrition tips for fuelling fitness. In the book’s section on ‘Psychological Benefits of Exercise’, Waitz writes about the power of visualization and how one’s success with exercise is greatly affected by the mind. Once you have a realistic and specific goal, she continues, it’s important to use one’s ability to visualize a positive outcome. 

Women who are new to running or are more advanced will find answers and tips to most all their running needs in Runner’s World Complete Book of Women’s Running. In this companion guide to other Runner’s World resources, author Dagny Scott provides a one-stop information source which includes principles of training, balancing life, mental aspects of running, losing weight on the run, caring for your body, the pregnant runner, younger runner and older runner. For some women, Scott relates, running provides time for solitude, when one has the freedom to think and relish the sights and sounds of their environments. For others, running may become central to their social lives. 

So will I be registering as a runner in this year’s Earth Run? Since the run’s just 3 weeks away, and I haven’t been training, I will need to wait for another year. But I will register again as a walker, and join with friends as we walk the 5 kms course from Jericho Beach Park west on Sun April 25 at 11:00am. If you’re interested in participating, checkout: http://www.earthrun.com/canada/vancouver.html