Less is More

As runners, we’re currently kids in front of the pick and mix.

There’s more running clubs in the UK than ever. Gyms are re-embracing cardio, as gym goers succumb to the world of Hyrox. You’re never far from a parkrun or three, with over 1500 in the UK; recently, mass attendance has even led to a few cancellations from venues struggling with the numbers. Ironman tattoos, which used to be status symbols, are now collected like shiny pokemon cards. Running popularity has soared, and almost everyone can find an area which caters for them, from those who find trail running an escape, to those who get clinically involved with every single measurable statistic.

And it’s great. As someone who questionably left a stable job with a lovely predictable career ladder to become a self-employed running coach, I am all for people wanting to train well.

But sometimes, the sheer variety of sweets on offer can make every individual achievement feel like a collectible, rather than meritable in its own right.

We stand in front of the sweets with our paper cup, and we’re overwhelmed. Mental paralysis. Physical plateau.

…So we get excited and we try to take it ALL!

Let’s cram in as many sweets as we can! Let’s do parkrun and have them build towards ultras; let’s do a different race distance every weekend because we were going to go for a run anyway, so why not collect a medal?

On social media, we follow fast athletes who claim that their superpower has been 100km weeks, every week. So mileage can’t be a bad thing, can it?

The problem is, we compare training mileages, but we don’t compare the sizes of each other’s cups. You and I may have a paper pick-n-mix cup; the 100km-per-week athlete has gradually, over time and training blocks, built up to a bucket.

Don’t get me wrong, if it’s sustainable, I have no problem with aiming over time to be high mileage. The higher the training mileage, the more races, parkruns and social runs we can absorb, if that’s our thing. But as races for the majority are all-out best efforts which require taper and recovery weeks, and as social runs can often be sub-optimal sessions for our specific goals, over-racing and over-running often leads to burnout or plateaus - or both.

Intelligent training needs a strong push:rest ratio. And we need to control that more than races and social sessions sometimes let us.

Basically, stop squishing the sweets into the cup.

Intervals, speed sessions and long runs, specific to YOUR goals, are where improvement is created for the majority of runners. If you race too frequently, you take the energy needed for those speed sessions, and the time needed for those long runs, and apply it to the same distance with no variables or controllable progressions. You may find that you get better for a short time, but soon you’ll be left wondering why you’re not improving every race, as your body gets used to exactly the same stimulus.

So how do we balance a desire to race and socialise with a desire to improve?

Firstly, select your races wisely. One A-race every 2 months is enough - less, if it’s a half marathon or beyond. Look at these as the big sweets: put these in your cup first. Race weeks, and probably the week after, are weeks you accept not making any training gains, as you’ll be tapering, performing and recovering.

If 6 races a year seems like too few, select your B races. These are races which you’re doing for the participation medal: you’re genuinely happy to run these as intervals or easy. Hold yourself to that promise. You’re not going to run them as best efforts because it’s more important to you to have a training effect that week, and you’re not going to afford a recovery week for them.

Then commit to your key sessions. These are as important as your A-races.

For most people, this will be a speed and distance session per week. These are the runs which really make the difference to how much you will develop as an athlete, because they’re the ones you can really control. Every week, a slightly harder speed session; every week, a slightly longer long run. Develop your fitness bit by bit, consistently, over weeks and months.

And if you’re someone who absolutely has to run parkrun as a race, restrict yourself to non-running volunteer roles, apart from on the weeks when you have decided to race it as one of your A-races. Or, develop discipline by putting it as the last 5km of your long run, with a cool down before you go for that all-important parkrun cake. It’ll taste even better that way, anyway; parkrun cake is SO much better than pick-n-mix.

And last but not least: we’ve talked about the push, but what about the rest side of the ratio?

Your rest days are where the recovery from key sessions happen. Without these, you won’t consolidate your gains. Sacrifice your rest, and you may see short term improvement, but you’ll also see long term burnout, including injury. Your recovery days are also A-sessions. Protect them.

If you want to be a ‘more is more’ runner, build up to it, with discipline. And while you’re building up to it, aim for quality over quantity, push and rest, rather than lukewarm sessions, developing that discipline which you’ll need even more when you get to higher mileages. The novelty of doing everything will wear off soon, but if you build sustainable habits now, and target specific races and outcomes, you’ll achieve so much more.

And if you decide through your discipline and successes that actually, you don’t NEED to be a high mileage athlete… well, then, you’ll even more time for walking right on past the pick-n-mix anyway.

Develop the ability to be proud of other runners for their achievements and races, ironmans and ultras, multi-parkrun milestones and canicross victories… WITHOUT having to be so invested that you go and buy another puppy just to be involved.

…although now you mention it, is felicross a thing…