Outdoor Trainer

The Bad News:  Injuries can happen. Aches, muscle fatigue and soreness are part of life for active people and those involved in athletic endeavors.
 
The Good News:  Most injuries are preventable, and are often a result of overtraining and repetitive stress.
 
Overtraining
Overtraining symptoms bear much resemblance to chronic fatigue syndrome; body aches, tiredness and feeling flat or uninterested in training. The expression often used to sum up overtraining injuries is "too much, too soon.” Another one is "too far, too fast."

Turn your runs (and walks) into a full-body blasting adventure! Follow these simple steps to increase your fitness without increasing time spent on the trail.
 
I just came down off the mountain. Clothes drenched. Fully fatigued. Happy! What did I do? I hit the Coastal Trail on Mt Tamalpais for a trail run. Well, not your average trail run, I call it the 60:10 (sometimes I call it the 30:10). The 60:10 includes sixty minutes of cardio, and 10 strength/toning exercises; however, not the kind of exercises you'd expect!

Life is NOT a linear event!  For better results - mix it up.
 
The simple truth about fitness is this:  Exercise that can be done in an outdoor location, or site, that includes hilly or mountainous trails, a grassy city or suburban park, a sandy beach, can and will better your performance. By utilizing a variety of terrain, you will learn a new degree of body awareness and train your body to move in a variety of ways.

Cardiovascular Training - Using Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE)
 

RPE is a simple and effective method of monitoring your heart rate. It is a useful tool for monitoring the perceived level of muscular, cardiovascular and psychological fatigue. Whether used with or without a heart rate monitor, the RPE offers a correlation between your perception or “intuition” of your physical and mental output, and your actual heart rate.
 

Setting up an RPE during a workout

This simple RPE scale goes from 1 to 10—1 being a very weak (easy) effort, and 10 being maximum effort.  The RPE scale can easily be used in correlation with the Heart Rate Training Zones.