I recently stumbled across a running article that had me nodding my head in agreement a few times. It’s a brilliant piece with nuggets that I’d recommend every runner start their New (running) Year off reading.

My favourite line from the article is this one:

“People run where they want to be at instead of running where they’re at.”

I see countless runners uploading frustrated runs to Strava because they expected to be running faster each and every time. Hey, I’m guilty too! The runs are recorded as, “My run is super slow, I’m irritated.” or “Legs like lead” and even, “Don’t know what’s wrong with me, walked on my run.”

Sound familiar?

Instead of focusing on where I am with my running, I’m focused on where I’m aiming to be and somehow expecting that each and every run recorded must be an improvement. That’s an awfully tough high expectation set.

How absolutely ‘gawjuss’ are these Vivolicious tights! #unsponsored

Which leads me to this…

At last week’s track session, my running coach Michelle went into detail about the Jack Daniels (no, the other one) pacing methodology which she uses in her training.

With a pen & paper in hand, she drew a couple of circles to explain what we’re doing and why the need for different pacing for different runs.

It’s important, she explained, that we respect an easy run to be just that. Easy. 

And that when we do our track sessions, it’s a quality session where the focus is more often than not, on speed (I & R paces) and form.

That was the lightbulb moment for me.

There is a time and a place to be running different paces and for different purposes. Your training program needs to be broken up into these phases so that you’re reaping the full benefit for your long term running goals.

It really is okay to be running my long run at an E pace which is over a minute slower than what I’m used to running. Not only is it okay, but it’s also expected. What a relief!

It is about running where I’m at now, instead of trying to run where I’m aiming to be.

That will come. For now, I’m going to be enjoying those easy Sunday long runs.

Post-run cool downs. These are CW-X tights. Still gutted we had to close down our business.