All The Small Things

Running requires a commitment that can take up a lot of time when you’re training for a race, or a season of races. Running in the early morning, late nights and on weekends eats up a lot of time.  Throw in school, jobs, family, and you find yourself short of free time.

Raise your hand if you have left a social function early on a Friday or Saturday in the name of an early wakeup call for the long run.  What about saying no to plans so you don’t miss a run or a workout?  Now raise your hand if you’ve tried to fit everything in and burnt out?

Training isn’t easy, and finding the time gets more challenging as we get older or have more responsibilities.   Every runner has their own journey to the start line. Sometimes if we’re lucky it's after weeks of consistency, but the reality is that we often have things in and out of our control that can put a wrinkle in our training plans. The most important thing is to accept that things may not go as planned during race training, and that is okay.

Looking at the available time you have each week is a great starting point to figure out a schedule.  For example, if you are like me and are responsible for the mid-week dinner prep, scheduling a long run on the same day isn’t a good idea. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t run that same night, it just means that it probably won’t be as long as you would have preferred. But you can still get something in, and it will probably be a more realistic goal to stick to week in and week out.

Another thing to remember is that strength training or cross-training is important! In a time crunch, if you’re contemplating skipping the gym to do an easy run, consider keeping your strength or cross-training session on the schedule and doing one less easy run. 

Some weeks, you’ll be able to complete every single scheduled run, workout, and long run, and some weeks, you won’t. When things get a little too overwhelming, take a step back and look at the entire period of training—don’t focus on when things didn’t go according to plan but rather on how you were able to adjust training to life. Remember that consistency over the long-term is key. Running is not just one race, or one season. Success is built over weeks, months and seasons of consistancy.  Progress not perfection. 

Work out of the week

1 minute on, 1 minute off. This is a good workout for practicing leg turnover and handy for when a track isn’t available. The first minute should be at a 5/10k effort to start, and the last few should try for a little faster than 5k effort, but try to avoid sprinting or going all out. The first minute off should be a good recovery jog.

10-15 reps