How to Increase Stamina and Is Abdominal Breating Important?

Good afternoon.

In my opinion, your pace, running volume and frequency of your trainings is optimal and corresponds to your goals. The only thing I don't see is your heart rate during trainings and this is perhaps the main criterion and the key to success in any training process.

Based on my working experience with amateur runners I can say that in most cases, if you do runs at a heart rate not higher than 145-150 bpm, you will see a positive dynamics in terms of improving endurance. Follow this recommendation and monitor dynamics. In case of no positive changes it's recommended to add special trainings consisting of intervals - short sprints and active rest - to your training plan.

Questions about breathing are in the TOP 5 frequently asked questions. Though, in my subjective opinion, they are not questions of great practical importance to consider them as primary question during preparation or training. Breathing as such and breathing during exercise is a reflex process.  If you want to control breathing by intensity or type (abdominal, chest), you should understand clearly what you get in the result of such "manual control" of breathing. As for me, I couldn't choose any of methods and techniques proposed by modern scientists (please, don't confuse with breathing exercises and rehabilitation techniques) as, again, in my opinion there is no practical value of such control. So, my advice to you: breathe as you feel comfortable! As they say, there is no need to repair well-performing mechanism.

Traumatism is multicomponent phenomenon. Trauma often occurs in the result of coincidence of several negative factors. I always say that there are no bad surfaces for running but there are legs not ready for these surfaces. It is probably the first thing you should take into consideration in choosing a place for training.

If you're a beginner, it's worth thinking about an adaptation process and start with natural soft surfaces. Also you should remember that duration and pace of running should be minimal with subsequent increase. Shoes are one of the important aspects of your safety as well. If only very briefly about a running technique, you should avoid landing on straight leg and try to land your leg (no matter: on heel or on toes) as close to the center of gravity as possible.