Every Running Term You Need To Know Defined!

Running can be full of technical jargon. Even the most expert athlete can get lost in the word soup of terms describing everything from racing to training.

But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a definition of every term you need to know. If we’ve missed any off, drop a comment below and we’ll tell you what it means.

Bonk / Blow up: Running out of blood sugar. Also known as the hunger knock. Usually occurs when you haven’t fuelled right for a race. It’s lights out, no more energy and complete exhaustion. Blowing up can be spectacular – with not much warning, the wheels fall off. We’ve all experienced this ordeal. All you can think about is eating. 

Cadence: The number of foot steps per minute. Good average cadence is around 180 per minute. Most running watches will show this metric. 

Crack: More often than not, mentally giving up before you’re physically exhausted. You want to crack your opponents by hiding your effort and making them think you’ve got plenty left in the tank – even if you feel like you’re completely spent.

Drive phase: Acceleration phase of a sprint. Sprinters will work on this 20 to 30 metre initial part of their race to get up to maximum speed as quickly as possible. 

Dynamic stretching: Incorporating full / wide range of motion to warm up muscles – jumps, hops, leg swings. These should replicate the sort of motion you’ll perform in your sport. 

Fartlek: Speedwork with a mixture of different tempos – from flat out sprints to 10km race pace efforts. The aim of this training is to build comfort at different speeds. Coined and developed by Swedish cross country coach Gosta Holmer in the 1930s, it literally translates as speed play. 

Forefoot strike: Landing on your toes or in front of the ball of your foot. Similar to mid foot style but your foot it landing far enough behind your centre of gravity to mean you’re high up on your toes. 

Heel strike: Landing on your heels. This should be avoided because it’s likely to lead to injury as your joints will end up absorbing all the impact. Ideally, develop a mid foot striking technique where the ball of your foot hits the ground first. This will ensure your ankle and calve acts as suspension and can also return energy into your drive and knee lift phase. 

High knees: Warm up drill involving running on the spot or slowly forward while bringing your knees above waist level. 

Interval: Breaking training into fast efforts and recovery phases, usually on or above and well below race pace for certain distances. For example, a 1500m session might comprise of 400m intervals at 5% above 1500 race pace. 

Knee lift: Maintaining good running form by ensuring your knee drives high before your foot hits the floor. This ensures you cover good stride length. 

Lactic threshold: The balance point between where lactic acid – the byproduct of anaerobic exercise – is produced at the same rate as your body can convert or disperse it. Beyond this point you get an exponential rise in fatigue from lactic acid.

Mid foot strike: The ball of your foot hits the ground first. This is the optimal running style for endurance athletes and will help stave off injury. 

Negative split: get progressively faster as you go. In a race, it would mean each lap was quicker than the one before. It’s difficult to do but tends to show you’ve paced an event well if you can do it.

Perceived effort / execration: Coaches and sports scientist will apply a scale for determining just how hard or easy an effort or exercise was. Usually ranges between 1 and 10 – 10 being maximum and 1 being very light. 

Recovery run: A gentle run with very little perceived effort. You should be able to maintain a conversation during this sort of effort. 

Red zone: Anaerobic exercise or going over your threshold and limit. You often find yourself going into your “red zone” during races trying to hold on to someone in front as they surge. 

Rest: Minimal effort. Usually between hard intervals. Sometimes might be “active rest” which means walking or jogging to maintain some muscular activity. There’s a good running saying worth remembering: “There’s no such thing as over training, only under resting.” Wise words.

Running efficiency: A combination of metrics to sum up overall speed and endurance for energy or oxygen consumption. Improving running efficiency is the ultimate goal of most endurance training exercises. People with lower Vo2max – the ability to use oxygen during exercise – can still win races if they’re super efficient at covering ground with minimal energy expense. 

Static stretches: Holding sustained stretches – usually around 15 seconds or more. Ideally performed after exercise because it can elongate muscles, ligaments and tendons, making you slightly uncoordinated.

Steady state: A comfortable, medium paced run. A pace you could maintain for long periods of time. Short of a tempo run. Your long Sunday run is like to be classed as a steady state effort. 

Strides: Usually towards the end of a warm up routine, this involves running 60 to 80 metres several times at sub maximal sprint effort. It helps get the body and muscles ready for more intense activity. Helps ensure your limbs are coordinated. 

Tempo: A hard, steady run, about 20 to 30 seconds per mile slower than your 5k race pace. So if you’re a 15 minute 5km runner (3.00/km pace), tempo runs should be 3.20/3.30min per km. Efforts should last more than 20 minutes continuously. This sort of run helps improving running efficiency and strength. 

Vo2max: The maximum rate at which you can effectively use oxygen during exercise – the point just before you have to start working without oxygen, or anaerobically. It’s one measure of fitness or aerobic capacity.