I often find that one of the most important parts of training is not just what you do for training, but how you approach your training, and when it comes to training the best way to approach it is with patience. As we work through our training plans its very easy to want to skip the simple stuff or the rest days and move into the “harder” parts of the plan.
Over the years I have found myself wanting to rush through my training plan. I’ve wanted to be running a 16 mile run and not the 12 mile run that I was supposed to, stretch that 30min run into a 40min run, or I’d want to be doing a 4th interval instead of the 3 my training plan prescribed. And, one thing that always seems to be true, is that every time I’ve been impatient and jumped ahead in my training I’ve typically paid for it with some type of injury.
This is an important thing for all of us to remember, whether you’ve been running for decades or your starting your first couch to 5k program. Our bodies need time to recover and slowly build up the ability to go farther or faster. When we decide to rush that process the body can’t keep up with the recovery that it needs and this often leads to injury.
So the next time you’re thinking about adding on to an interval workout or going a little longer than you were supposed to for the day; remember that you should always run where you’re at, and not where you want to be.