We’ve all been there. Am I training hard enough? Am I training TOO hard? Should I be feeling this tired? Should I train through this or take a break? It’s one of the most difficult balances in running: Training hard enough to maximize your fitness and ability, but not training so hard that your body can’t keep up. The key is listening to your body and giving yourself permission to do so.
Because of the uncertainty associated with this, I believe this is the hardest part of any runner’s training plan.
Stress and Rest
Our bodies, after all, are not machines. When we train hard, we need time to recover. In Steve Magness’s latest book, “Peak Performance”, he lays out some of the secrets for the top performers in every field from athletics to chess. He says that the combination of stress and rest is vital to reaching one’s potential. This makes sense given that our body adapts to the training while we are rest.
One key to recovery is inflammation.
Inflammation repairs the damage done to our muscles during exercise. On the flip side, however, inflammation itself can cause secondary muscle damage. This is best characterized by the increased soreness we’ve all felt one or two days after a hard workout – that’s inflammation. If this inflammation is chronically left unresolved, the result is overtraining.
At its worst, overtraining can halt training for months. At the very least, it will compromise performance, immune system function, sleep and more.
But what about me?!
Each runner’s capacity to train is highly individualized. The key is finding YOUR capacity and staying just below it for the duration of a training cycle. You do this by listening to the cues of your body!
Listening to your body over time
If you just finished a training cycle that went great, you should be able to increase your mileage slightly in the next cycle. On the other hand, if you experienced some injuries or setbacks, it may be a good idea to step back. Think about reducing your training volume or intensity the next time around.
Try to get a sense of where your threshold is with these questions:
- Are you fatigued even following a recovery day?
- Do you repeatedly struggle to hit paces in workouts that once were no problem?
- Are you not sleeping well?
Answer yes to any of these? It may be a sign that you are scraping up against your training WALL. Just like the wall is to be avoided at all costs for any experienced marathoner, we want to avoid it in training as well.
To get back on track, take a day off and a few easy running days before re-evaluating. It’s better to pull back for a few days, than lose a few months of training. When you resume, consider reducing your volume 5-10% to avoid being right back there the next week. Over time, listening to your body will make you more aware of what you can handle. That being said, the more consistent you are able to train over time, the more you should be able to handle.
Listening to your body daily
Responsive training (responding to the body’s cues) is applicable on a smaller day-to-day scale as well. What do you do when you have a key workout and your body just won’t respond? My rule of thumb:
- If I can hit the paces, then I’m okay to keep going. Your brain will learn what it feels like to perform even when the body doesn’t feel well. This is valuable during races.
- If I can’t hit the prescribed paces, but I still feel okay, it may be time to shorten the distance and increase the pace. Sometimes, a change of pace (from 10k to 5k pace or Marathon pace to Half Marathon pace) will provide the right stimulus change to still salvage the workout.
- If I can’t hit the paces and I am otherwise struggling, feel free to back off entirely and make it a recovery day. Your body is sending a clear message that it needs more time to recover.
Using a plan
Many runners become slaves to their training plans and will refuse to make these adjustments. To do so is to refuse to listen to very valuable feedback.
The amount we can all handle in training is very different for everyone. It would be crazy then to assume that a generic one-size-fits-all plan is the best way to train.
That being said, many plans are put together using decades of scientific feedback and empirical research. For this reason, they should not be ignored, but instead just tweaked when our bodies are going off script. This speaks to the value of ongoing customization of plans or personalized coaching. Sometimes all we need is another perspective!
So the next time your body and your training plan are in conflict, don’t be afraid to side with your body. Listening to your body is one of the most valuable tools in our training toolbox.
