Training Rules

I have these training rules posted on a cabinet in our kitchen where I can easily reference them.  I never read them, and never use them, but they’re there just in case I have a rare random moment of sanity.  They probably came from Joe, who is very scientific in his training, or from Joe’s coach, or a running magazine that knows what they are talking about.  The rules have little relevance to the real purpose of this post, but I thought of them while pondering the point I will eventually make.  Of course I transcribed them down to something short and manageable that I might understand rather than the original voluminous wording.

• Hard track workouts only once a week.  Easy days before and after.
• Tempo runs can be done again after 4 days.  Speed development or easy days before and after.
• Long runs can be done every 4 days.  Speed development before, but recovery after.
• Speed development/hills – 200 meters or under repeats.  Anything before and after except hard workout.
• Hard workout on Tuesday before a Saturday race hurts the race.

Just because I have these rules does not mean I follow them.  At my age (61) I take at least one, and often two, easy days before and after anything difficult.  Also, I can’t remember the last time I did speed work.  All too often my long run includes a race-pace tempo run, so there is nothing sane and sensible there.

When I feel good, and even when I don’t feel good, like today, if it has been several days since I've run hard and taken my body close to its limits, I throw something hard at it.  Hills, long miles, or fast miles, it doesn't much matter to me.  It just needs to be so difficult that it takes a significant amount of effort and concentration.  I simply want to get accustomed to being uncomfortable and fatigued over increasing periods of time and distance.  I am a training barbarian.  Work is work and I am not too particular how it is configured.  Whatever my training buddies want to do is fine with me.  If it is a solo run, I will make something up on my own that strains me, but never, ever, breaks me, which is almost the point I wanted to make.

Runners train with the firm belief that they will win if they train harder and longer than an equally talented competitor.  Everybody believes that.  We also believe that hard training may also allow us to beat a more talented, but less disciplined, competitor.  So runners are motivated to run long, or fast, or long and fast, in order to beat the competition.  We tend toward straining rather than training.

So last Saturday I did a 10-mile run, which was comprised of a rather quick 6-mile warm-up, a race-pace 3-mile pick-up, and a 1-mile warm down.  It was brutally hard.  On Sunday, the day after the 10-mile run, I did an easy 5 miles, which didn't feel easy at all, and at the end of the run I thought about doing one extra mile.  But I was so tired, and so sore, and it was at that point that I realized, not for the first time I might add, that the most important run is tomorrow’s run.  For running fanatics, sometimes less is more.

Today’s run, whatever it might be, is too much if I cannot run tomorrow, or if I don’t want to run tomorrow, or I injure my sorry self.  I must leave enough in my legs, in my tank, in my heart and soul, however you want to put it, that I still want to run, and am able to run, tomorrow.  I have to be in charge of my own morale and maintaining my body’s health.  Tomorrow’s run is much more important than whatever extra work I intend to heap on myself if that work puts tomorrow's run at risk.

Less is more, fellow fanatics.  Less is more.