So, how often should you run? Well, almost everybody knows that you should exercise for 30 minutes a day. That's 3 hours and 30 minutes a week. Don't worry about this rule as a beginner, you need to build your body up to running 30 minutes a day first. I would never recommend running every day of the week as your body needs time to recover. Most runners recommend 1 or 2 days off from running a week. If you lead a hectic life, with a demanding job, I advise you to avoid becoming a weekend warrior. Spread your exercise out over the week, and don't cram as many miles as possible into the weekend. Ideally, your long run should be on a Sunday, with an easy day on Saturday and Monday (remember the Hard-Easy law). I recommend running at least 3 times a week, ideally 4.

We have mentioned how hard you should run, but how fast should you run? I have already said that I run 1-2 minutes slower per mile than my fastest 5k race time. If you don't train at the right pace, you may be wasting your time or heading for a breakdown. When I'm approching a race, I do some tempo runs, which are 30 seconds slower than my race pace. I may also run hard for short distances, allowing me to exceed my race pace - these are called intervals. A lot of new runners give up when they have to stop to walk during a run. If you feel you have to stop, you are most likely running too fast - slow down. Going too fast is a common mistake beginners make. As an additional guideline, you should be able to hold a conversation whilst running, without losing breath. If you can do this, your're most likely running at your training pace.

Consider this: My fastest 5k race time is 18:47. That means I ran 6:03 minutes a mile, so my training pace should be around 8 minutes a mile - 2 minutes slower than my 5k race pace.

Runners talk in miles. Mile Per Week (MPW) = respect. But don't worry about that just yet. If you are just running for your health and not competition, fitness expert Dr. Kenneth Cooper recommends running no more than 15 MPW, but he also states that if running is your fitness weapon of choice, you should hit the roads for at least 6 miles per week. In my opinion, this seems rather lenient especially if you are trying to lose weight. I would recommend a balance between the minimum and maximum, but where do you start? I recommend the c25k (Couch to 5k) program by CoolRunning.Com. See here for details. I should add that most experts agree that exercise does not have to be all at once for you to reap the benefits, which is good news for beginners as it means they can take walk breaks.