I think every runner at some point has asked this question, myself included. I can't tell you how many articles I've read about best cross training workouts, ideal diets and even calculating your lactate threshold to get faster times. All of these things sound great but for a stay-at-home mom of two kids who has to "fit" running into my many other tasks, I just wanted to keep it simple. A couple of months back I was reading an article in the July issue of Runner's World. The article was about how to train for a marathon and gave a sample plan written by Doug Kurtis.
I had already heard of Doug Kurtis and couldn't wait to find out what the secrets were for running faster and longer.Out of the entire article, there was one quote from Doug that stuck out in my mind. Under the 10 tips section, tip #2 was Run most of your miles easy and Doug said "Speed comes from putting the miles in."
Initially I scoffed at this sentence and thought, but doesn't speed come from speed? But after pondering this tip (while gasping for air during a couple of hard runs) I began to see the light. And not that light you see when you pass out.
Currently, a 9 min. mile is a comfortable pace for me. My goal is to be able to finish my marathon in under four hours so I'm right on track. What's crazy is that when I looked back at my log entries in my running journal when I first started in November of 2013, my comfortable pace was 10:45. Maybe there IS some truth to this.
When I ran the half marathon in February of this year I had only been training consistently for two months and I made a TON of rookie mistakes during the race. I didn't plan on doing a full marathon. I really wanted to do the half marathon to redeem myself but the half was sold out on the first day. My wife suggested doing the full so I went ahead and booked it. Though I had more than enough time to train (10 months) I got into a training plan right after my race. The Garmin website had a marathon training plan that I downloaded onto my Forerunner 220 watch. The plan was 16 weeks long and centered around heart rate and time rather than distance.
The first couple of weeks I didn't like the plan cause I was running slow... very, very slow. I was doing more of a jog/walk pace than a run. But I stuck with it. As soon as the plan was over you would've thought there was a zombie apocalypse by the way I was running. Running at a slow pace for three months, the first couple of weeks I blasted through my runs. Of course what I soon discovered was that I was burning myself out early in the run and couldn't maintain the distance I was aiming for. Back to square one.
I decided to reevaluate the focus of my runs. One day out of the week would be devoted to speedwork and the rest of the runs would be based on feel. I didn't want to get to a point where running felt arduous and calculated. I would speed up if I felt good and slow down when I needed to take a break. More importantly I wouldn't keep checking my watch and would simply enjoy my surroundings for each and every run. Before I knew it all my fast songs on my run playlist were too slow and I was able to set a new personal record of 26:05 for my 5k pace.
Lesson learned: Enjoy the run, take your time and the speed will come.
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