Plateau

Over the past few weeks, I've had several runners talk to me about a lack of improvement despite regular training. Certainly heat and humidty have played a huge role in performance, as the more blood that is diverted to your skin to help keep you cool means there is less to process oxygen. But what I want to talk about has more to do with an overall training pattern.

The two primary factors working against inprovement are 1) racing too often and 2) the tendency to drift all workouts toward tempo pace.

For a person new to the sport, racing often can likely produce a steady rise in fitness and produce repeated PR's. This is primarily because the sport is still relatively fresh for them, and their starting point of fitness is so low that any increase in training whether it be total mileage, increased pace or frequent racing will have near immediate effects on their cardio-fitness levels as well as muscular adaptation and strength.

The problem with racing too often is that training time is not being optimized. In a race and recover pattern, the athlete is not able to put in sufficient training to make fitness gains, nor are they getting enough rest to fully recover from the training they are putting in. Eventually, this type of training will cause the athlete's fitness to stagnate, and little progress is made.

The second factor working against progress is one in which all workouts drift toward tempo pace. This is common for top age group runners because they have a hard time accepting that easy runs should indeed be easy, and they tend to push these recovery days too hard. What this means is that they do not get the recovery they need, and are thus unable to perform the scheduled faster paced efforts. In short, tempo only running is not hard enough to provide meaningful gains in fitness and not easy enough to allow sufficient recovery.

So, how can a runner overcome these two progress killers?
1) Plan out your race calendar to include only 2-3 goal race periods. In coaching parlance, this is called periodization. This means building a training schedule to bring you into peak performance only a few times a year for approximately 4-6 weeks at a time. A properly constructed (and followed) plan should allow the athlete to experience higher than normal fitness and race results.

2) Make easy days easy, fast days fast and run tempo pace only when scheduled. If you run too hard at Nog or Ridge on Mondays, which leaves you tired and flat for track Tuesdays, you will not make the gains you are looking for.

3) Occasionally mix up the training stimulus. Even periodization can lead to diminishing returns over time if the same plan is followed over and over. Weight training, plyometrics, core work and cross training during base and build phases can help jump start a tired training plan.

That said, tempo run tomorrow...it's okay, it's on the schedule.