We all know we should accept where our current fitness is when racing. If you don’t, you’ll go out over your head and the race experience won’t be good.
However, some of us have trouble accepting that we should also be training based on our current fitness level. We want to train to the level we believe we “should” be at or we want to train at the level we want to race at months from now.
This is a mistake.
…I’ve long been a fan of threshold workouts (or tempo runs or whatever term you want to use). However, I’ve also been intrigued by the concept of polarized training, which essentially says threshold workouts are not all that productive.
So this debate between advocates of polarized training and advocates of threshold running struck me as quite interesting.
In short, while the idea of polarized training is still intriguing, I’m going to keep doing my tempo runs and other threshold type workouts. I know they work well for me and I strongly believe they are beneficial for runners in general.
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I once believed that strength training for distance runners could be minimal and weights were very overrated (note: that was originally written over 20 years ago). As the article I linked to in that post makes clear, I was far from alone on my belief and the science then painted a different picture (studying largely different exercises) than current science does.
As knowledge has evolved, so has my belief. This is how things are supposed to work.
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Your training is going good. You’re feeling strong. You’re killing it in your workouts and on your long runs. Your easy runs are fast, even though they feel smooth and relaxed. Everything is going great.
Then you push a workout a little too hard and you feel it. The hamstring tightens up, the calf cramps. Something gives and you know you’re looking at some time off.
How do you avoid this? Well, there are many ways but I’d like to focus on one of those things that has saved many of us and could have saved many more.
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If you’ve stopped by HillRunner.com this week, you may have noticed some things going on. Believe me, they have taken up a significant portion of my attention this week.
I just wanted to take a moment to share what’s going on and, as much as I can, why.
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