The Mile

I haven’t felt certain about anything in 6 months. However unsettling that feels in my job, in regards to running, I feel very free. I have released myself from racing the rest of the year, and many fewer races in 2021. I have also released myself further from defining what kind of runner I am. I don’t see how that makes much sense anymore.

We’re all just runners right? No matter the distance, terrain or time. It’s what we do.

For me, running and chasing goals, following a plan and such gives me direction. I think of myself as an experiment of one. I can try anything and no one can stop me.

Well, I can stop me. I have stopped me. For no reason other than I never took the time to do it when I began running, nor did I see it as an option while training for things, I never have taken the time to develop speed.

I didn’t run in high school or college. I’ve never done drills. It simply wasn’t even in my realm of knowledge. Sure, I read about it in a few books, but never though to apply those things to my own training.

When all “normal” went out with February this year, I began to train like I normally had the past two years. It was fine, but nothing new. Sometimes that’s what I need, challenge but familiar. After a while, I wanted both challenge and unfamiliar. It excited me to try something completely new.

The Mile.

Before I can maximize my speed in distance events, I must develop the components that will get me there. I can not develop speed endurance without first developing speed.

As Steve Magness writes in The Science of Running:

1.) general before specific

2.) strength before power

3.) strength before strength endurance

4.) neural

5.) speed before speed endurance

Outside of all that, like I mentioned in my last post, I love being a beginner, because I like to see progress. I like to see change. I enjoy the process of sucking really bad for a while, then sucking less bad. I like learning new skills. Skills that are familiar, (it’s all running right?) but also challenge me to break my patterns.

Every now and again I get tired of my complacency. I love my life, I really do and I am content. However I think I am content because I know every once in a while I shake things up. I refrain from labels because I have permission to change my mind whenever I want to. I do not use absolutes because nothing is constant and experiences matter.

If my leg fell off tomorrow, I wouldn’t run at all. How much psychology I’ve done to get to a place where if that happened I’d still be ok is mind blowing to be honest, but I’m there (most days…)

Coming back to the mile, I’ve never done it and I thought it would be fun.

Specifically, I want to further break away from the “mileage” fallacy.

I want to do more ancillary work to improve the way I move and make my motions more efficient.

I want to get even more comfortable with pain.

Because I do not know at all what mile training looks like, I have given complete control to my coach. I don’t even know how I would doubt what he’s prescribing because I know so little.

It’s funny because I always considered myself a running nerd, but now it’s like this whole new world has opened up to me that I haven’t explored. I am reading more articles, books and listening to more coaches about training. I read and imagine these adaptions taking place in my body, and I haven’t run a single workout yet.

In a year that seemed so straight forward, I now live day by day. It has helped my cope by also thinking about running day by day. A new thing to work on each day that my body has not seen. My goals are simple, work on speed now and learn. Have fun with it. Fail often and try again.

Who knows, in 3 to 5 years, I could be a good marathoner.

Right now though, I’ll enjoy my 30-40 minutes and strength/core work.