GLOSSARY OF TERMS
You’ve probably heard other runner’s say ‘Welcome to the club! ’ before, but when it’s your first time it takes on a whole new meaning.
We have Running jargon busted for all new fresher’s to the sport, making your sports passion, as sociable as possible…..And don’t forget the best way to feel like a real runner is to talk like a runner !

AEROBIC: Literally, “with oxygen”.  Aerobic exercise is of long duration and medium intensity, working the heart at around seventy per cent of its maximum capacity for at least twenty minutes, increasing the oxygen supply to muscles. It will improve cardiovascular fitness.

ANAEROIC: Without oxygen. This sort of exercise is high-intensity stuff and powers the body explosively in the very short term by burning glycogen without oxygen.

ARTICULAR SURFACES: The areas inside a joint that actually rub together.

BODY MASS INDEX (BMI): A calculation based on height and weight that indicates how overweight you are. However, as it doesn’t differentiate between muscle and fat, it can be misleading for muscular physiques.

BONK: Sudden extreme fatigue caused by the emptying of glycogen reserves to fuel the muscles. Same as the wall, see below.

CADENCE: The number of strides in a prescribed period of time, usually a minute - the same as Turnover, see below.

CARB LOADING: Increasing your energy reserves in the days before a race by eating more carbohydrates than you would normally.

CROSSTRAINING: Adding exercises other than running into your training schedule.

CORE STRENGTH: The power needed in your trunk to hold your body up correctly so that it provides the necessary fulcrums for the legs and arms.

ELASTIC RECOIL: The energy produced when stretched tendons and muscles snap back to their regular length, like rubber bands. Elastic recoil is a vital part of how efficiently your stride will carry you forward.

FARTLEK: A training method that alternates aerobic and anaerobic exercise to build up intensity. In your case, it will mostly involve short sprints within your run with an increase in pace each time you go back to running. Invented in Sweden, fartlek  translates as “speed play” and will improve cardiovascular levels and help develop speed and endurance.

FAST-TWITCH MUSCLES: These contract faster and more explosively,  have less resistance to fatigue and are used for anaerobic exercise. Sprinters and endurance sports enthusiasts who need short bursts of speed develop a greater proportion of fast-twitch muscles.

FOOT DRAG: The movement of your striking foot as it is pushed backwards through the stride (in relation to your centre of gravity moving forwards).

GAIT CYCLE: The contact made by the sole of your sport footwear with the ground as you run through a stride: the mid-foot should hit rolling forward through the pronation (see below) to push off with the ball of the foot then on the toes.

GLYCOGEN: Fuel for the muscles stored in the muscles. It is a complex carbohydrate, obtained from eating starchy foods, and is the distance runner’s best source of energy.

GLYCOLYSIS: The breaking down of carbohydrate in the bloodstream to provide energy for the body.

INTERVAL TRAINING: Carefully calculated periods of high-intensity exercise alternate with resting “recovery periods”.

KICK: The sprint or speeding up at the end of a race.

LACTIC ACID/LACTATE: Although slightly different in chemical composition, both are the metabolic by-products of burning glycogen to power the muscles. For years believed to be the cause of post-run soreness and fatigue, they are now known to be a valuable additional energy source.

LACTATE THRESHOLD: The point during intense exercise when your lactate production increases to a level at which it outstrips removal and the concentration of it in your bloodstream starts to rise.

OVERTRAINING: Not allowing sufficient recovery time between training sessions, resulting in cumulative chronic fatigue.

PRONATION: The degree to which your foot rolls inwards or outwards as you go the gait cycle.

RUNNING ECONOMY: How efficiently you run, measured in the “costs” of your movement in terms of how much oxygen is required to run at different speeds. The figure is arrived at by measuring your VO2 (see below) in relation to your body weight while running prescribed speeds.

RUNNING SPLITS: Splitting a course or a run into several different distance points - miles or kilometres, for instance - and recording your times for each sections separately.

SKELETAL MUSCLES: Long, cylindrical muscles, attached to the skeleton (hence the name) that facilitate movement by contracting and relaxing. They are divided into fast-twitch and slow-twitch.

SLOW-TWITCH MUSCLES: Reddish in colour, these fibres are capable of storing oxygen, have a slower contraction time and are more resistant to fatigue. Distance runners develop more slow-twitch muscles.

TAPERING: Tailing off the amount and intensity of your training schedule as you get nearer race day.

TURNOVER: The number of strides in a prescribed period of time, usually per minute - the same as Cadence.

VO2 (VOLUME OF OXYGEN): The amount of oxygen your system can transport and utilise during exercise, measured in either millimetres per kilogram of body weight per minute or litres per minute - this book uses the former.

VO2 MAX: The maximum amount of oxygen your system can deliver while you are exercising. VO2 max is taken as a measurement of a person’s overall fitness levels.

THE WALL: The point during a long race when all the body’s supplies of glycogen are used up and the muscles power themselves by burning fat. Because fat is a far less efficient fuel than glycogen this change over results in a dramatic fatigue - hitting the wall.

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Reference:
The Rough Guide to Running, Author Lloyd Bradley, Rough Guides Ltd, 2007.