Day 4 - will your thighs get bigger?

Guilt - that horrible parasite that eats you up inside when you don't do something. That is what I felt when I took a day of rest from running a day sooner than planned.

I know I should not let it bother me but it did. So I did 3 miles - which was not bad but I was sore - which was good. That meant I was working them.

So it brought me to another question - which I am sure other women runners have -

Q: If you run slow will your thighs get bigger?

Ans: The speed at which you run has nothing to do with the size of the muscles in your leg. Leg size is more genetic, some people are just born with bigger legs. You can increase muscle mass by weight training. Jogging will generally build muscles to a certain extent, but the speed at which you jog is unrelated to leg size.

The speed at which you jog more determines your cardiovascular shape, i.e if you are able to run further at a faster pace, your heart rate will be elevated more, leading to a better workout in general than jogging at a slower pace. However, for distance running, once you establish a base, you should be able to run at a pace which allows you to comfortably maintain a conversation and not be out of breath.

But one thing that is good for training is speed training, where you run a distance(100 yards) at a fast pace, then return to your normal pace for a distance(300 yards) to recover your> breath/heart-rate. This helps build up your speed of running .. as you do this once a week, you'll find that you can go further faster before you need to slow down to recover.