8@8

Every great training plan has a long run and the 8@8 is the Muddies format. We meet in varying places around Andover at 8am on a Sunday morning and go for a slow social run around the beautiful Hampshire countryside. Whenever possible we will pick stunning trails to run, but when the trails get slippery or overgrown we find quiet road routes.

The long run is about time on your legs, building stamina and increasing aerobic capacity. It’s being able to run at a conversational pace for a long time, so it doesn’t matter how slowly or fast you run, we all run as a group with the slightly faster runners looping back or regrouping further up the trail if it’s narrow. 

In the lead up to Spring, we start to increase the available distance on the 8@8, this is when our runners start training for Spring Half and Full Marathons. We always have a loop which crosses back to the start at 8 miles, for those that are not increasing their mileage, but we add additional loops for those that want to run further. Over 12 – 16 weeks we will gradually increase to around 20 miles, just in time for the spring Marathon Season.

Like all Muddy Runners sessions there’s a focus on the social side of running, so whenever possible we’ll grab a post run coffee and cake (well we deserve it for getting up early on a Sunday). So look out for the postings on the Muddy Runners Social Forum and come along and join us, we look forward to running with you.