One of the tenants that many experienced veteran runners adhere to is the phrase “Respect the Run.” What this means is that any time you go out for a run, whether it is a 8-10 Long Run or a simple 3 mile recovery run, you have to respect it. Respect the distance, respect the weather and respect what’s going on with you.
Sometimes a simple 3 mile run will humble you. You might have slept in a little longer than you anticipated and by the time you donned your running shoes and got out there, the sun was high and the humidity thicker than a pizza pie. Or maybe it’s a perfect day weather-wise but you just have so much on your mind that you just aren’t able to focus on your running and the next thing you know, you stumble and fall. Hopefully you only scrap your knee because even a simple mis-step on the running path could have disastrous results.
Another lesser known tenant is “the test is easy, when you do the homework.”
what this means is that if you have a high mileage run coming up: a weekend LR of double digit miles or a race, it will be much easier to get through it if you log some mileage during the week. For instance, let’s say it’s Week 10 of marathon training and you’re using the Running Messiah Hal Hidgon Training Program, the chart calls for the following:
Tue 3 m run
Wed 7 m run
Thur 4 m run
Fri REST
Sat 15 m run
That 15 mile LR is going to be much easier — as easy as a 15 mile run can be — if you run the 14 miles you are supposed to run during the week. It’s really easy to miss a run here and there and sometimes Life Gets in the Way and you miss 2 out of 3 weekly runs. Maybe you had a busy week at work or maybe an unexpected Duracho ruined your plans for an after work run.
In my early years of training, when my body was younger and could handle it, a typical week would be sleep in and miss my Tuesday run, not do it after work because of volleyball and then miss Wednesday morning because i was still sleeping off a late night of post-volleyball drinking. So then I’d run Wed night and Thurs morning, which is okay once in
a while but not a good long term solution. You’re effectively doing a 2-a-Day, which can be a bit of a shock to an unprepared body. Sometimes I’d even run on Friday which meant not being fully rested for the Saturday LR.
Eventually I learned that if I wanted to have a good day on the path, I really had to combine these two tenants and make the time during the week to get my runs in with enough time to recover in between. It means years of going home early on Friday nights but I also think it led to some good running PRs.
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