“Distance runners are creatures of habit”
There aren’t many recovery runs I can remember during the
glory days of college. They all seem to blur together in a muddle of monotony
and pain. One, however, I can recall clearly. Not because it was a particularly
exciting run, but because I received an excellent piece of advice that has
stuck with me through all these years.
My sophomore year, I was out laboring through one of the
textbook Shippensburg running loops in the early hours of the morning. The
loop, dubbed “school loop,” is a seven miler that connects the University and
the high school by means of long, rolling farm roads. Every freshmen on the
team knows this loop from their first month on campus. It is not particularly
exciting; it is a staple loop. Something to add on 45 minutes here or there.
Most runners in Shippensburg traverse it 4-5 times over the week. This morning I
happened to be running with one of the wisest runners I know, the proverbial
“grandfather” of the team. I say grandfather not for his age (he’s 26), but for
his uncanny ability to be wise beyond his years when it comes to matters of
anything endurance.
As we chugged along on the early morning recovery run, I
remember him saying “Man, I could run this loop everyday for the rest of my
life.” When I disgustedly asked him, “How?
Why?” he dropped this earth-shattering line on me: “Distance runners are
creatures of habit. I find something that works and I stick with it.” I
shrugged it off, thinking he was partially insane, or that it was too early in
the morning. In retrospect, this simple word of advice would be the reason for
my success as a collegiate athlete and beyond.
Great training can be equated to putting successful,
injury-free weeks on top of one another. After that, you can start talking
months, and maybe even years of consistently solid training. If one looks at
training as a singular week—maybe 2 workouts, 1 longrun, a few strength
sessions—it becomes much less daunting than viewing it as, say, an October of
steady 85-100 mile weeks. In order to successfully pile these quality weeks on
top of each other, one must become master of his/her daily routine.
The moral of the story is not to run the same loop over and
over again. The point is that the number one way for your body to easily adapt
to a high stress load is by getting in a routine; you must become a creature of
habit. If you are trying to run a 100 mile week, while working a full-time job,
and coaching (believe me, I have) then you must plan every single day out as to
when you will sleep, eat, run, stretch, hydrate, recover, etc. When you are
pushing your body to the physical and mental limit day after day, you must give
it some sort of regularity to help it adjust to the increased work-load. Block
your day off with these designated times and be selfish with them. Don’t
disrupt your routine for anybody. If you are fully dedicated to making training
your first priority then you don’t push your afternoon run back for anyone or
anything. Even the rapture.
I know I am getting good training in when I fall into a routine.
Likewise, I know my training is going poorly when I can’t seem to get on
schedule with my runs, with work, with sleeping, with meals, etc. This routine
is the so called “daily grind” that runners are always talking about. The grind
is getting up at 5:00 to get a 30 minute run in before work. The grind is
hitting the bathroom 10 times a day at work because you’re hydrating and
increasing the recovery process. The grind is muscling out the afternoon run
and having enough will power to hit the weights for a few sets after. The grind
is getting a hearty, protein-filled, tasteless meal in, getting some work done,
and going to bed at 9 (without a beer) to do it all again the next morning.
Once you have trained your body to easily fall into a routine then you can
start to really reap the benefits of your hard work.
The best season of training that I ever had, came during my
hardest semester of academics. Student teaching while running 100 mile weeks is
an ordeal that brought me to knees (literally and figuratively) on more than
one occasion. However, it allowed me to get into a routine like I have never
been in before, and it forced me to stay on that routine. The first week I thought
that I made a mistake trying to take on this much at once. The second month I
was buckling under the physical and mental stress, all the while cursing myself
to the tone of “this better pay off.” The fourth month I had PRed by 56 second
over 10k and qualified for my first NCAA championship—a goal I had set for
myself in high school. I don’t think there are too many secrets left in the
running world, but if there was, this would be mine. To date, I have had 8+
years of virtually injury free training in which I have PRed in every single
event run, every single year… not to toot my own horn.
