Basics are Best

Basics are best: this is a given for me.
And givens come for free.

A best-selling author had to master the basics of the alphabet, word and sentence construction.
Musicians begin with notes, keys and chords.
Chefs create their recipes upon basic food, preparation and presentation basics.
Engineers and physicists had to conquer multiplication tables and BODMAS before creating skyscrapers and sending people to the moon.


For runners like you and me it is the same.
If you want to begin running, become a better a runner, or simply want to experience the benefits that beginning and continuing to run bring, there are three basics to follow:

Firstly, run!
Ultimately, running makes you a better runner.
Sure, swimming, cycling, rowing, strength-training, yoga and pilates may complement and support you and your running at different times in different ways. In time, only running can bring what running brings...and offers, and gives, and takes, and encourages, and teaches.

Secondly, run regularly.
No rocket-sceince here either. Running once or twice a week will bring satisfaction in some form, and it will bring improvement for a while for those who are beginning. Yet, systematically progressing to running 3 or 4 or 5 days per week, and even experimenting with twice-a-days if your'e a seasoned and injury free runner, will deliver you a myriad of benefits: performance, health, aesthetic, psychological and social.

Oh, neither of these is to say that if some running is good for you, that more (and more) is necessarily better. We are biological beings and our make-up is somewhat plastic. Not plastic in the cosmetic or silicon sense, but in the sense that we 'adapt' to our surroundings and the effects they have on us.

Running, although an inherent locomotor or movement skill for all of us, places stress on our bodies and  it's myriad of up-keep, communication and development systems. It also challenges our energy, our behaviours, our time, our relationships - relationships with self, with others, with our body, with nature and time, with psyche and soul, and with our own angels and demons.

Over time and with regular running (or, training) your body navigates amongst these stresses and stressors. It reorganises itself, and prioritises. It makes more-or-less permanent changes in structure and function ('adaptations') to reduce the burden, to reduce the load: running becomes easier, and we become better runners and better performers. Changes in behaviour and psyche and relationships accompany these.

These adaptations, as long as we continue to run, take advantage of our plasticity, our ability to adapt to the challenges of our environment, and our ability to learn, reflect and change.

Thirdly, once you've began running and have come to terms with running regularly for a while, then explore the devil in the detail. This devil comes in the form of running faster, running further, running hills; running amongst, within and against others - running in races; nutrition, footwear, clothing, and all sorts of gadgets, training systems, programs and experts.

Remember,  amongst all these, all that is old is new again. Don't get caught up in the marketing, the hype, the 'secrets', and the gurus - the bad plastic.

The basics, the fundamentals - the RUNdamentals - are best.
They are three and they are free, and they are gold!