Warning: this one gets a little long.
In my last post, I wrote about what got me to the point where I felt I needed to make some changes with my running. Basically I haven’t been getting the results I seek nor have I really been enjoying myself either. That’s a nasty combination, and when it’s where you are, you really have to take a step back and do some thinking. I pondered giving up competitive running altogether, but quickly realized that’s not what I want nor would I be happy doing so. However, that meant I needed to figure out a way to get better results and enjoy myself along the way, so I came up with a list of things to work on. Below is that list, along with a brief explanation of each point.
1) Do a better job of planning. I believe that over the years I’ve learned what works best for me and therefore I’m best suited to be my own coach. However, anytime you choose to go that route and don’t have anyone sending you schedules, it becomes very easy to make stuff up on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis, and that’s rarely a recipe for long term success. The problem is this. One particular day or week might look great in and of itself. However, if you step back and look at that day or week in the context of what you’ve done recently and need to do going forward, you often realize that you’re doing too much of one sort of work and not enough of another, or perhaps just too much work in general. I’ve been guilty of all of the above, and to prevent that from continuing to be the case, I have to do a better job of writing out schedules in advance and in light of the big picture.
2) Slow down to speed up. I really struggle with this one. It’s just not in my nature to run really easy, even when it’s exactly what my body needs and is asking for. I even have a warped sense of what constitutes a recovery run. I’ll run 7:15 pace on a day I should be running 7:30, and I’ll tell myself that 7:15 is slow and therefore must be easy. Tossing the watch altogether on easy days is an idea, but I would still run too fast because, again, it’s just my nature to do so. That said, the only way I know to get around this is to wear a heart rate monitor and hold myself in a certain range, so that’s my plan going forward. I have to remember that the point of an easy day is to get ready for the next hard day, so if you compromise your next workout any at all by running too fast or too far then you have made a mistake. This is more important than ever for runners my age and older.
3) “If you wanna run fast, you gotta run fast.” That’s a quote from Steve Taylor in a recent e-mail he sent me. It sounds silly at first, but it’s SO true. You can’t run a bunch of 6:30 miles then think you’re gonna go race at 5:10 pace. It’s just not gonna happen.
4) Play to your strengths but work on your weaknesses. I’m a strength runner plain and simple. I can knock out long runs and tempos like nobody’s business, but I’ve never had any raw speed, and that fact has just been multiplied by my age and all the time I’ve missed due to injury. There’s no sense in me starting to train like a miler, because there’s definitely a cap on how fast I can run. However, I can work on my basic speed, my form, and my general athleticism through things like drills and strides, and those will be a more constant part of my routine going forward. If it’s good enough for Mo Farah and Galen Rupp to spend time working on pure sprint speed, then it’s good enough for me!
5) Don’t let ideals and/or the past dictate the future and don’t repeat the same mistakes. I believe in high mileage. I don’t think anyone will ever reach their full potential as a distance runner on low mileage. However, how many miles any one particular runner can do is dictated by any number of factors and the target changes over time. I’ve always tended to make mileage the be-all-end-all of my training and that’s burned me time and time again, as I wind up training for the sake of training rather than training to improve my race times. It’s nice to have an impressive training log, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t get the job done on race day.
6) Be more self-aware. Borrowing a term from Terminator here - ha, ha. This is more along the lines of making sure I understand how life in general impacts my training. Family comes first and I refuse to make sacrifices there. I also have a real job and I guess you could even say a career that not only pays the bills but I enjoy for the most part. In other words, sometimes I get really busy, and I just need to remind myself every now and then that it’s ok to be tired and that I don’t always have to do everything every single day. In other words, if I’m really tired, it’s ok to skip something in favor of some extra rest. I tend to bull my way through whatever I feel like I’m supposed to do and call myself a wimp for even considering skipping something. That can be a positive trait, but it can also become a weakness.
7) Be patient and embrace the process. I get frustrated easily. One bad workout and I’m telling myself I’m washed up and wasting my time. To implement what I want to do successfully, I will have to endure plenty of rough, disappointing, sometimes downright embarrassing workouts. I just need to remind myself that if I stick with it, those workouts will get better, and more importantly, so will my race times.
8) Pressure and failure are nothing more than mindsets. I put a ton of pressure on myself to race well, and even though it’s probably not the case, I envision others doing so as well. More than once, I haven’t even toed the line in a race because I was afraid to fail or not run up to expectations, my own or those of others. Well, not trying is actually the biggest failure of all and is the one thing that should be regretted. That’s all I need to remind myself of.
9) Be more positive. I’m the king of negative talk and I tend to be much more of a pessimist than an optimist. I’m quick to find and point out everything that’s bad and totally miss all that’s good. Pre-workouts and pre-races, I’m always talking about how bad I feel and how poorly I’m likely to run as a result. The problem is, negative talk can, and has for me, become a self-fulfilling prophesy, and unfortunately I’m guilty of that in everyday life as well as in running. Time to end that.
10) Have fun and realize how fortunate you are. With the injuries I’ve had, some of which have been pretty severe, I could very easily be done with this sport. However, I’ve been able to overcome a lot of difficulties and I’m still out there competing at a fairly high level. That said, I should be enjoying myself and not worried about much else.
Ok, there they are, the ten things I think can make a huge difference in my running performance and in my enjoyment of the sport in general. Now I’ve just got to remind myself of these points and not slip back into bad habits again.
As far as specific training goes (primarily points 1-4), I’ve got a plan for that as well. When I was doing my best running and racing, I was basically following some training stuff that Steve Taylor had sent me. I reached out to Steve again several weeks ago, and he gave me some great advice and sent me a lot of helpful material and ideas on how I could break through the barrier I seem to be stuck behind. I’m taking all that, along with some of the training plans and other stuff he’s provided me over the years, plus adding in my own experience, and using that to construct my training schedules. The end result will basically be the training I was doing when I set most of my PRs, with some tweaks based on what I’ve learned over the years. Not sure why I ever got away from that to begin with, but most all my faults can be traced to searching for some way to get just a little faster. I’ve been really fortunate to have resources like Steve and Howard Nippert over the years, guys who are not only great runners and coaches but have become my friends. As many know, Steve is one of the reasons I became a runner to begin with, so it’s pretty cool have him as an advisor and friend, and I’m definitely thankful for that.
I’m looking forward to getting back to some of the training I used to do, as well as implementing some new things, and seeing where it leads. I may not ever be able to run as fast as I once did (though I still refuse to totally rule that out), but I can at least run well for where I am at this point in life and enjoy myself along the way. Onward!
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