30 Health & Injuries

There are no junk miles. If you're not injured so badly that you're altering your form, or so sick that you feel much worse after running, then it's all good. Even if you think a run doesn't advance your fitness, it has other benefits—promoting blood flow, clearing your mind, getting you away from the computer, burning calories, getting you out in nature, helping you spend time with friends, maintaining the rhythm of good training, and infinitely so on.

It's not uncommon to go to bed thinking, “Darn, I should have run today.” But it's not common to go to bed thinking, “I shouldn't have run today.” Just get up and go. We promise, you will likely never regret it.

When you're feeling flat, a little fast running is often the best cure. A slow 5 miles might leave you feeling more lethargic. Instead, throw in some random, short pick-ups, or do a set of striders on your street once you've done your normal loop. Little bursts of fast running can help you surpass sluggishness.

Multi-pace training is, of course, the key to top performance regardless of your target race distance. But that's not the only reason to do all sorts of workouts regularly, from long runs and basic speed sessions to slow recovery runs and tempo workouts. There’s no better way to keep your running interesting than to have peaks and valleys of intensity and duration woven throughout your training weeks.

Not every “hard” workout has to be a killer session. You can sneak in more quality without going to the well by stopping at a track, on a hill, or an obstacle-free stretch of road toward the end of a run and doing a few up-tempo repeats between 200 and 800 meters.

When you hear elites talk about their training, translate their workouts into efforts relative to your own race pace. A 20-miler with the last 8 miles at 5:00 per mile sounds really fast, and it is. But it’s really just a long run with the last portion at marathon race pace. You can and should do such a workout before your next marathon at your own paces.

It’s also helpful to understand elites’ recovery paces relative to race paces. A national-class woman who runs easy mileage at 7:30 per mile is doing those recovery runs more than 2 minutes per mile slower than her 10K race pace. That means you should add at least 2 minutes to your 10K race pace for recovery runs, even if it feels like you’re crawling. It’s called a recovery run for a reason!

Finish some of your longer repeat workouts, like miles or kilometers, with a few 200 or 300 meter sprints. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how fast you can run the short segments once you’re fully warmed up. You might even surprise yourself and set a PR.

At least a few times a month, decide what route you’re going to run, and then leave your watch at home. Other days, run wherever, guided by total time on your watch. The thing to mostly avoid is timing yourself over the same courses day after day. That way lies the madness of beating yourself up for running slower than you “should” or forcing yourself to pick it up because you’re six seconds slower at a checkpoint than you were yesterday. It’s never good to be a slave to the numbers every time.

When you’re hurt and have to cross-train, try to spend more time on it than you do your running. After all, you can get in a decent run in 30 minutes, but you’re not going to find a lot of cyclists who would consider half an hour anything but a warm-up. Make the time go faster on individual workouts by translating your usual hard running workouts—VO2 max sessions, tempo workouts, etc.— to the pool or bike or elliptical or wherever you’re spending your non-running time. Structure cross-training weeks like your running weeks; the variety will help your time in injury limbo pass faster than if you do the same medium-effort waiting-out-the-clock workout every day.

When you feel like you’re in a rut, make a deliberate effort to shake things up. Head out the door without the slightest plan of where to run. Run at an unusual time of day. Drive to run somewhere different. Take your dog with you, and let Fido lead the way. Even wearing crazy clothes can be enough to reboot your mental approach.

The saying goes, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear.” Look, you know you’re going to run. So don’t waste time and mental energy staring out the window at the horrible weather. Just suit up with the right gear and go. Doing so will make you mentally tougher for unpredictable race day conditions.

Look through your old logs once in a while. Even when you were running PR after PR, things were never as effortless as you now remember them to be. And when you were hurt or struggling, you got through it, just like you will the next time you hit a roadblock. Reminding yourself of those facts can help you be more present with your current running.

Avoid tying your training to arbitrary numbers. As Don Kardong once noted in relation to weekly mileage: 88 is a much rounder number than 100. (Besides, can you honestly say that all your routes are precisely calibrated?) This notion also applies to numbers outside of weekly volume. 8- or 7-minute per mile pace (or whatever number you’ve decided is the pace per mile at which anything slower is a waste of time) might mean something to your head, but might not mean anything to your body. While numbers matter at times, don’t forget to listen to your body.

Behavioral economists talk about the importance of choice architecture, or the environment in which we make choices. The classic example is the difference between an employer-matched retirement fund where participation requires choosing to enroll versus enrollment being the default option. In the latter case, more employees participate. The gist of the field’s teaching is: Make it easy to do the right thing. Choice architecture is huge for daily and long-term success in running. Whether it’s establishing that the default Sunday morning option is meeting your group to go long, or keeping your stretching rope in sight in an area you frequently pass, or having healthful post-run snacks on hand for when you’re famished, or packing your running gear in your carry-on luggage, make it easy to do the right thing.

We find time for the things that are important to us. Period. Schedule it in. Add it to your calendar. Do whatever you have to do to prioritize it, and the rest is simple.

Do some of your tempo runs on a track to get a feel for your times and paces over 400, 800, 600, 1200 meters. Then transition almost of all your tempo runs off the track to stimulate more realistic race conditions.

Become a student of the sport. It ruins none of the magic of self-discovery to learn that thousands of others have gone before you and experienced every challenge and joy that you have. Take advantage of the lessons others have drawn from their mistakes so that you don't have to repeat them. Read books and articles from well-known runners and coaches to expand your own running experience.

Always stay in touch with your basic speed. You’ll spend a lot more time just getting back to where you were if you ignore it for weeks at a time than you will if you tend to it once or twice a week throughout the year. You don't need to do hands-on-knees sets of 200s every week to maintain your speed. Fast, relaxed striders toward the end of an easy run or immediately following one will go a long way toward preserving your turnover and the increased range of motion that comes only with running near top-end speed.

Think of ancillary matters—flexibility work, core strengthening, form drills— not in either/or terms in relation to your running, but in terms of “yes, and … ” That is, they’re not replacements for running, but a form of insurance policy that will allow you to better pursue and enjoy your running at whatever level you choose to. When done correctly, they’ll improve your performance and make the simple act of running feel better, especially the older you get and the longer you’ve been running. Most of these activities are easy to sneak in throughout the day in little chunks.