What non-running activity led you to more successful running?

Puffing on an inhaler despite not having asthma lead to me winning CG gold

Just ride a bike. I have my best run performances when I am also riding 3 to 5 hours weekly. a few easy bike sessions per week can maintain a cardiovascular base that covers a lot of running, and you can keep your run sessions to 4 per week. You don’t feel as beat up and you are just as fast.

cycling. builds endurance without any impact stress.

Quitting drinking.

Sex.

In order of importance:

1) organizing a training group of the best runners in the surrounding area and doing 2 workouts per week with them.

2) Focusing on injury prevention. Strengthening exercises targeting glutes, hips, groin, achilles. Using massage gun, foam roller, and Normatec boots. Going to physical therapy.

3) Getting 8 hours of sleep

4) Training in super shoes

Better sleep.

But the 'impact stress' is an essential part of running technique and training.

Eating gulab jamuns, the sugar really helps.

Getting a coach/joining a club.

- clean diet: you still need to get enough calories, but if you can minimize processed foods and junk food, it will go a long way

maximize sleep - unless you are a student or work from home, it is IMPOSSIBLE to sleep 40 hours a week. Going from 25 to low 30s hours of sleep a work week helped me a lot though, even with missing an occasional morning run

core - we haven't evolved to adapt to the sedentary lifestyle. Unless you lead wilderness hiking tours for your 40 hour a week job, your core is not strong enough from just running alone

none of these led to big benefits separately or in conjunction, just small, marked benefits of a few secs at 5/10 and half

I should include one more thing that seems obvious to me:

rest - running is your activity. Don't go do big hikes, ultimate, basketball, whatever. Just say no when people try to pressure you into doing this type of stuff. And don't replace runs with these types of activities.

Probably joining a running club made me better because there were some pretty good guys in the club and I wanted to be one of them. So I pushed myself more than I might have and raced more than I might have against better competition than I might have had I not belonged to that club. I also found that drinking a lot of beer seemed to help me recover faster from long and/or hard runs.

yes but too much of it is when the niggling injuries come in and they force you to drop your mileage. if you are aiming for 2 hours of training per day, and you do 1 hour of running with half an hour of cycling either side, you get the same endurance benefit but only (roughly) half the impact forces, and you are still building the bone density and muscle strength or whatever from the hour of running.

😐 i think i might be waiting a while for the peer-reviewed research that backs this one up.

Running less.

Last year I averaged 50-60 miles and I was tired all the time. Then I got a bad injury.

This year I've capped the mileage at 30 and have 1 or 2 days off inbetween each run. I can tell the difference. I'm going up hills easier and I feel less drained. After 7 weeks of running I'm within 50 seconds of my 5k PB which I think is pretty good given the lack of mileage and workouts. Yes I'm not a 15 minute runner but I'm good enough for top 5 or 10 at most parkruns.