Mistakes I’ve Made As A Runner
I’ve been running for over 20 years now and it’s been an amazing ride. I consider myself a recreational runner with some success in races with the only regret I have is that I didn’t start earlier.
With a drive to reach new personal bests and improve as quickly as possible I’ve made some mistakes in my training and running. Hopefully by spelling them out in this article will stop me from making them again and help someone else from following me.
Not Having A Rest Day
Waking up on the floor of our kitchen, it hadn’t been a particularly hard run we had just got home from, but something had made me pass out. It had been about five weeks since my last rest day and I kinda knew I had been pushing things a little hard. The thing is, not having a rest day will stop you from getting fast, and will stop you from training at your best and potentially lead to injury.
Training With Other People
Not specifically a mistake, and running with other people can help with motivation and keep you accountable. What I did though was run someone else’s training plan. I would show up for a run with my friend and ask how long our run was and was usually thrown when I got a response of 32km. We’d helped each other push through the 32km but it also pushed me to overtrain and I really struggled to get back into a healthy position afterwards. Always make sure you are doing training relevant to your ability and working towards your own goals and try to not get caught up with what other people are doing.
Spending Money To Make You Run Faster
New shoes, vitamins, sleeping aids, training equipment, suppliments, breath training, books on new training techniques, if there is a product to help you run faster, there is a good chance I have tried it. The only thing that is going to make you faster is consistent, challenging training over a period of time.
Neglecting The Long Run Or Running It Too Fast.
When I first started running, my goal races were local 5000m runs so didn’t see the need to do a long run. It showed on race day when I would fall apart in the last kilometer of my goal race. Worse still, when I actually started doing long runs in my training, I was trying to push the pace of my long run too fast, and once again, would fall apart because my body simply didn’t have the endurance to keep going. Your long run will help you prepare mentally for longer runs as well as train your body to use fat as a fuel source. Doing your long run at a pace that is too fast is once again, going to lead to overtraining and injury.
Changing My Run Technique
Ok, this one could be something you might need to do especially if it has been recognized that your technique is causing you injury. But if once again you are trying to change your technique because someone told you or you read that it will make you faster, is a bad idea. Changing the way you run is no easy undertaking and to do it properly could take you away from your training for long time and still not allow you to make any gain in pace. You might run a certain way due to a muscle imbalance and if you try to change your technique without correcting this imbalance you could also be causing more injuries to your body.
Strength And Mobility
Another thing that runners know they should be doing but don’t do especially when it comes to strength training. Strength work won’t necessarily make you a faster runner but it will make you a stronger runner and hopefully help you be less susceptible to injuries. Mobility work for me usually means sports massage, stretching, foam roller, cool down, etc. They all help speed up recovery and allow you to get moving again as quickly as possible.
Neglecting Nutrition
When I started running, I loved that I could eat anything I wanted to. As time went on both my large training schedule and poor diet led to bloating, inflammation, poor sleep, a constant hunger I could never satisfy and am unhealthy reliance on carbohydrates. I saw the light and made a total change to my eating and have never looked back.
I’m sure there are many more mistakes I’ve made that I have not thought of and more you might be able to come up with. Like I said, run training needs to be consistent over a long period of time but think hard that the decision on your training is not sending you towards injury or over training in the long term.
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Vince Sesto is a DevOps Engineer, Endurance Athlete, Coach and Author. One of his passion’s in life is endurance sports as both an athlete, coach and author. He is a certified running and triathlon coach with a goal to inspire people through his coaching and competition and to encourage people to live active and healthy lives.
His motto in life is, “I am trying to change the world, one run at a time”.
