PURE HARD WORK

I’ve been blogging about a year-and-a-half now and this morning I thought “Did I have similar thoughts prior to blogging or does blogging bring them out?” I don’t know but nearly all of today’s 8 mile run was spent thinking about this post. I didn’t plan that, it just sort of happened. This is meant to be a motivational post and it’s aimed as much at me, as you.

The great thing about running is the harder you work the better you get. The same can’t always be said for team sports where your teammates also play a role or sports like golf and swimming where technique is so important or even triathlons where you can simply buy speed.

For the most part, hammer away at running and you will run faster. If you’re unmotivated couch-potato with a poor work ethic, “competitive” running is probably not for you.

If you’re waiting for that quick-fix pill, recovery drink, or shoe that’s going to make you faster, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. Heck, even with EPO (I assume) you have to bust your ass. You can’t just sit around playing x-box and develop into an awesome runner.

There are lots of bloggers out there with goals; goals of qualifying for Boston, breaking 4 hours, being “average”, etc. Are they all busting their ass? I don’t know, but I’d venture a guess that whatever they’re doing, they could do more.

I told Susan she should take her highest mileage ever and add 50% to that and then build up to that number over the next 6 weeks. Sure it may sound absurd to go from 55 mpw to 80 mpw, but why not? Okay, how about 70 mpw? Don’t feel like going higher? How about building back to 55 but this time hold that mileage longer than before?

Maybe you only run 4 days a week. How about trying for 5 and then 6 and then 7…? What about throwing in a month of hills or finding a group of people to push the pace or following a plan that’s a little more difficult than you’d like…a little out of your comfort zone?

As the saying goes, “If you want something you’ve never had before, you have to do the things you’ve never done before.” Sure the “status quo” may work for awhile, especially if you’re new to running. But at some time you’re going to reach a plateau or a point of diminishing returns and you may need to shake up your program.

I’ve seen guys go from being unable to break 6:00-pace for 3200 meters in high school to running 2:28 (sub-5:40 pace) 10 years later. Don’t want to wait that long? I’ve seen guys run 30-minute 8K one year and 26 minutes the next. But these guys worked hard, very hard, to achieve those results.

Ever notice that when we tell kids to try something we say “It won’t hurt you” but when we tell adults to try something we say “It won’t kill you”? Hmm, should we assume then that it will hurt us?

Maybe.

Sure, doing the things listed above may lead to injury or they may lead to PRs across the board – or both. There’s only one way to find. If you do happen to get injured, it’s okay. The body does heal and we’re able to ratchet our training up again – faster than if we’d never been at those levels before.

I’ve posted this article by Beck (no, not the singer) numerous times, but it seems like I have some new readers, so I’m posting it again. It’s one of my favorites, especially the second half. He does a much better job of expressing these thoughts than me.

Quote of the day;
"The prevailing training philosophy in 1977 was 'more is better', and weekly mileage was the stuff of competition. If Derek Clayton was quoted as running 160 miles per week, then someone else would try 175 miles per week... This approach to training may sound harsh - and it was - but it reaped rewards. Distance running in the U.S. improved markedly, and although there were a few casualties along the way, pure hard work generally paid dividends." - Pete Pfitzinger