Hiya,

I've been running 3 times a week for a few years now and for the past month I've also started doing british military fitness once a week (this basically involves training with physical training guys from the forces who take you around a local park and encourage you to do press-ups, sit-ups, sprints etc etc).

I started doing these fitness classes so that I could get some upper body fitness to complement my running.

My problem is that I assumed that doing these classes as well as my running would greatly improve my running but it doesn't feel like. Ok, I've only been doing them a month but when I go out running now its awful. I am out of breath, can't get my pace right and generally feel like I've never run before.

The fitness classes are very intense and there is a lot of sprinting, hill-work and 1 milers involved so I am assuming that my body is not recovering properly.

Anyway my question (and I guess I already know the answer) is, do you think that doing a lot more stretching in between sessions would help with my running? I've never done much stretching apart from after a run. Also, does anyone find muscle rub beneficial? I tend to use Deep Heat on small areas of muscle that ache (even though it stinks the house out) but I dont really fancy using that on large areas.

Thanks,
Pete