May Reward Running: one week to go

Christopher Jones is still in pole position in May’s Reward Running competition with a handicap improvement of 5.09 this month and just one week to go.

The Wellingborough athlete - who has a current handicap of 13.2 - has raced three times this month.

The mid-month leader Helen Crossland, who had been chasing hard in second, has now been leapfrogged by V60 athlete Chris Reynier of Saltaire Striders, the only other athlete (alongside Jones) to have a handicap improvement greater than five this month. His current handicap sits at 17.3.

There’s just one week left to enter May’s bumper edition of Reward Running with three spot prizes up for grabs.

If you can’t decide where to race next, don’t worry, this is one of the busiest months of the year with a huge number of opportunities at every distance and over a variety of different terrains, so check out our runbritain events diary now for some inspiration!

In case you don’t know, Reward Running is our free monthly competition where runners can win a prize if they reduce their handicap score by the largest number of points in the month. At the end of the month, the runners who are in the Top 10 of the leaderboard that month will win a prize - an adidas miCoach for the winner, and Sennheiser headphones for the rest.

The top 10 consists of the runners who have improved their handicap the most in that month (make sure you’ve claimed your free runbritain handicap first!), but within the top 10, one place is reserved for the most improved in each of the four handicap categories:

1: 5 or under
2: 6-12
3: 13-20
4: 21 or above

There is also one place reserved for the most improved runner that has run at least 10 races in the year before the competition month.

To sign up for Reward Running you must first have claimed your free runbritain handicap and if you haven’t done so already, here are five great reasons to get involved:

1. It’s a unique handicap system for running. Just like golf you get a handicap from 0.0 – 36.0 giving runners of all abilities the chance to benchmark their progress and compare their results across a range of terrains and distances. The score automatically updates each time you race (once you have claimed) and rewards regular racing as well as automatically factoring in a degree of difficulty on races that are multi-terrain, hilly or windy.

2. You can be part of the National Running Ladder and check out where your handicap puts you compared to every other runner in the UK, e.g. does your 5k time put you higher than your friend’s half marathon and marathon times?

3. Be part of ‘Reward Running’ and be in with a chance of winning an adidas mi-coach or Sennheiser headphones if your score shows the greatest improvement - it’s free to enter too

4. Find out where your times put you in the official UK road rankings

5. And finally...log your training mileage, watch your progress graph rise and check out head-to-heads with your training partners.

All the information you need is on the runbritain rankings site.

More new content on Sennheiser training site

Over the course of the past week we’ve focused on getting started, but now we’re looking at some specifics, so check out our Sennheiser training site for newly published articles on Repetition or Interval Training and Fartlek or Speed Play.

Repetition or Interval Training?

So, you want to run faster?

There are many ways of training to make this happen. Running quickly over a set distance several times over is called repetition training and will improve your speed-endurance so that you can improve your times in endurance events. The recovery you have in between each repetition is crucial: the more recovery you have, the faster you will be able to run the repetitions so your speed will improve; if the recovery is kept short you may not achieve the same speed but you may be able to do more of them so your speed-endurance will improve. The recovery in between the repetitions is called the 'interval'. Whether you call it 'repetition training' or 'interval training' may depend on whether you are focused on the efforts or the recoveries but, in essence, they refer to the same session.

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Fartlek or Speed Play?

Fartlek training literally means 'speed play' in Swedish, which is where it originated.

This training technique was employed by Gosta Holmer, coach to world record holders Gunder Haag and Arne Anderson as he worked to increase their leg-turnover and speed-endurance.

The traditional fartlek session would take place in the pine forests of Sweden and the runners would run fast or slow as they felt. Easy or steady running would be interspersed by bursts of speed or longer efforts whenever the mood took the runners and so the runners would train in both aerobic and anarobic training zones.

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New Sennheiser training content: could I run a 5k?

Getting started; sometimes that’s half the battle, so after last week’s advice on running a 10k, half marathon or marathon, we thought we’d give you another option  - check out the latest article on the Sennheiser training site for advice on running 5k.

Could I run a 5k?

Whether you're a seasoned runner or a beginner, a 5k is a great event to get along to. They're quite easily available so there is usually no hassle to find one nearby, for example, parkrun events take place every Saturday morning at 9am (normally) and through the summer months many running clubs hold 5k events in the evenings.

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