Training Tip Of The Month - April 2005, From Running Times

With the spring racing season approaching or upon us, we are often tempted to hammer our weekly or twice-a-week speed workouts to ensure that we are racing fit. While training hard has its place, training too hard is detrimental to your running success. Even elites will point this out, as they did at the recent Rocky Mountain Distance Summit. Presenter after presenter, from Steve Slattery to Kevin Sullivan to Tim Broe, all said that the real key to success in distance running is consistency: getting in a good run every day for months and years. That is the hardest work, and the most important. No single workout, no matter how intense, can replace days of consistent running. Shalane Flanagan may have summed it up best when she stressed, "train smarter, not harder," so that you can train the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Learn the appropriate pace for each workout and run that pace. Running too hard will, at worst, put you on the injured reserve list, and, at best, make you too tired to do the other key workouts in the week. As races approach, trust your training, and save the eyeballs-out, ears-pinned-back, tunnel-vision running for the race.