Having trained in a similar way for over ten years I have decided (or been forced?) to try something new. My training since my first child was born nearly seven years ago was based on the mantra: Make every minute count. As a time pressured athlete - every swim, bike or run had to have a purpose. The term and the physiological manifestation of ‘Base’ was no longer part of my athletic build up. Find time - train hard - repeat.
This concept allowed me to preform to a level that I could mostly be very proud of. However, I did miss my fair share of races because of this bare bones approach. I only ran on average two and a half times per week when preparing for a marathon, so any missed workout would put me way off track; Missing two was a frequently encountered disaster that put me forever in catch-up mode. Sickness usually caused a missed race because my fitness falls away so fast with this time of ‘cheap speed’ training. Which is what has happened this year:
November 2013, fell hard on the MTB fractured a couple of ribs badly. Six weeks off. Then, after three pretty painful days training: Influenza, for the third time in my life. 10 days before I could train and then it was very easy stuff. I then managed to put nine good weeks training together before spraining my big toe on a terrain run which led to a further 16 days off running. Stupidity then manifested and I decided I MUST run 20 km on my first run back since I was way behind on my prep for an upcoming half marathon, which led to a mild case of runners knee… which only manifests after about 6-8km or running.
So, what’s the change?
The change (not to be confused with challenge) is to Run Every Day for at least 25 minutes.
Just run. No plan. If I feel like running fast, I’ll do that. If I feel like doing hill intervals, I’ll do that… You get the message. For now however, I’m just putting one foot in front of the other and doing it every day. There is no goal to reach 50, 100 or 200. Just do it and reset the counter every time I take a break. Until today, I had never ran more than three consecutive days in my life - I can’t actually find a three day run streak in my training log but I believe I must have done it sometime in the past. But here I am, after running five pain-free times in the past four days feeling pretty good.
I’ll keep at it and see what it brings.