What’s Next?
When you have built up your aerobic base and you’ve ticked off your target of “getting round” the distance that you were building up towards you will need to decide what your next target will be. Are you going to work towards running the same distance more quickly or will your aim to be able to run a longer distance?
Finding your next goal can be quite overwhelming, especially if you’ve had a disappointing race in the past that has knocked your confidence. Fear of failing can be extremely overwhelming at times, crippling in fact, almost choking you to the point that it stops you performing because your fear turns into anxiety that almost grinds you to a stop.
Your next goal will influence your training programme; if you’d like to run the same distance but do it more quickly, you know you will have to add some tough interval sessions into your training plan. These sessions are hard, they can hurt and at times lead to disappointment, and why on earth would you want to do that, especially as the goal race seems so far away.
These skills aren’t learnt overnight, they are developed over time, over many sessions, many races, and many years. Most of you have not seen my disappointments, my success’s, my tears, my 18 months of taking a step back, taking the pressure off and how I learnt to love running and racing again. I used to feel the pressure so much I entered races under a pseudonym and got my best times, of course no one can see them now and I’m fine with that.
Never Give Up
When we challenge ourselves, set the bar a little bit higher, we become vulnerable because there is an element of stepping back to square one. Whenever a new skill is learnt, for example how to run longer at a faster pace, you need to develop this skill, so you become more capable, you need to learn not to go out too fast, how to hold your pace, how to slow down and how to keep going when the fatigue kicks in.
If your goal is to be able to run a longer distance, then you know that there is a time commitment to this, does this fit in with your lifestyle, have you got time to rest, recover and fuel properly. Your running journey isn’t linear, it depends on what you want at certain points in your life, do you want to keep pushing yourself in the pain box or would you like to ease back and take time to smell the roses. As runners get older there is a significant shift to running longer and moving onto ultra-marathons. The ultra-running community just love running and run for the love of running, without the expectations of pbs and results. There is a lot to be said for this, it’s a different type of running, don’t get me wrong it still hurts and there is still a skill set to learn (how to run with a camel pack and enough food to feed a small army, how to poo in the woods) but it’s a different kind of pain.
I love this analogy of equating pain management to a tap of running water; for a shorter distance the tap is fully open, and you are in the pain box, it hurts, it’s full on and hard to control. For the longer distance the tap is less open, a slow drip, drip of pain, the pain is there but it’s a slow feeling that builds over time whereas with a 5k it’s on from the start!
What I’m trying to say is, yes, of course stay where you are with your running, but if you have an itch, a small fire in your belly that won’t go out, try not to be frightened of it, just like everything else in life, when we learn something new, there will be disappointments until we get used to the new skill, learn how to develop it and use it so it becomes second nature.