Skip to main content

A Dull Training Update: Patience, Young Padawan

A word of advice: don't get out of shape.

Once you are, getting back in shape sucks. And patience is hard.

Coming back from injury, I've been running for three weeks; this current week will be my fourth. My progression has been as such:

Week 1: 17.5 miles on 5 days (4.5 mile longest run)
Week 2: 27 miles on 6 days (7 mile longest run)
Week 3: 37 miles on 6 days (8 mile longest run)
Week 4: GOAL 45-50 miles on 6 days with a 10-mile longest run

Right now I'm just running to return to a semblance of fitness. It's base training for base training. No special workouts, and the only think I'm doing faster than easy runs are the occasional set of four strides at about marathon effort.

It's tough. Progress is slow. My Achilles feels great some days and achy other days, so I have to really pay attention to it. I feel aerobically fit to run more and faster, but neuromuscularly my legs haven't caught up. I find myself almost holding back on most runs, because my legs can't keep up with my heart.

And that gets to the lesson of this post: patience.

Patience may be the most important quality in developing as a long distance runner, yet it is also the hardest to master. We want to be good, right now. We're motivated. We feel great. Got a race coming up. Harder, better, faster, [longer]. Hard work or hardly working, amiright?

Unfortunately, distance running doesn't work like that. It rewards consistency, mindfulness, relaxation; slow, steady progress.

I want to be running 75+ miles next week. I want to be at 100+ by September. Aggressive, for sure. There are a few races this fall I have lightly penciled in, most important of which is the Thanksgiving Day Race. I would like to be in PR shape for that one.

I might not get there. Those more immediate mileage goals? I definitely won't hit those. The THX goal? The more patiently I train, the less likely I am to hit it. It's a strange balancing act.

I've been running competitively for 15 years and I still struggle with patience. Perhaps it's time to listen to the feedback my body is giving me. Perhaps it's time to practice what I preach.

But being patient is certainly a humbling experience.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Base Training the Lydiard Way

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't really gotten around to it. This is for anyone using the summer to gear up for a fall season of racing, whether that's a marathon, road races, or cross country. That said, this is especially for you high school and college athletes. Summer is the most important time of the season. It's when you build your base -- everything that's to come later in the fall is determined by the quality of this base. In fact, some might even say that your end-of-season peak is limited by how well you trained over the summer. Arthur Lydiard believed this. And his philosophies still form the foundation of modern-day distance training. You've probably heard (and maybe internalized) many of the common critiques of Lydiard-style training: it's old and outdated , or it's too hard, or, most common, it's just a lot of long slow distance. And low slow distance makes for long slow runners . The lat
2 comments
Read more

Why I Love Running At Withrow

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho
Post a Comment
Read more

Indy Monumental HM Race Recap; Or, I'm Going to the Trials!

Hey blogosphere, sorry for the month-long hiatus. I got a little-stitious in the lead up to Indy Monumental and was worried that I was doing a little too much talking (well, writing) and not enough training. This is the race report I posted on reddit recapping the race, so I thought I'd re-post it here as well. Hey reddit! I'm mostly a lurker here, but I raced Saturday morning in Indianapolis and wanted to share. The TL;DR: I ran 1:04:33 for the half marathon, which qualifies me for the US Olympic Marathon Trials in LA this February. I also got 3rd overall, which was pretty cool, too. So anyway, here goes... But first, a shout-out to the staff at Monumental Those guys know how to put on a top-notch race. It's so refreshing to here the rhetoric coming out of the organization that says, "we're trying to be a professional event; we understand that most people want a fun event, but we also understand that some people want to come and  race  the damn thing; we
3 comments
Read more