While the advice of a few experienced running sages is always very welcome to us mere mortals, and especially so for those just starting out on their running journey, there are some pieces of supposed wisdom that are best ignored. Probably the king amongst them is that often heard refrain of ‘no pain, no gain’. If the training session doesn’t hurt, then its not working, right?
No, that would be wrong.
Putting the right amount of effort into a session is undoubtedly a good thing, but pain is the body’s way of telling you that you are overdoing it. Knowing exactly when training effort moves from ‘difficult’ (your lungs are working hard, and the effects of lactic acid build up is leading to a burning sensation in your muscles) becomes ‘painful’ (leading to potential injury) comes with experience. You want to be able to run injury free for as long as possible, and that means avoiding pain.
One useful method to ensure you avoid crossing the threshold between ‘difficult’ and ‘painful’ is to remember that 5% too little is better than 5% too much. That may mean reducing the pace of your tempo run by a few seconds per mile, doing one less speed work repitition than planned, cutting back that long, slow run by 1 mile.
Little tweaks like these mean you can live to fight another day feeling recovered, refreshed and raring to go.
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