4 Things I’ve Learned from 40 Years as a Runner
I joined my first track club at 11 years old. Forty-four years later, after running competitively through high school, being a decent varsity runner in university, and continuing into the masters running years, I still run six days a week and race eight or ten times per year.
I was not a top-level runner, but I won my share of races and had some performances I’m proud of, including 1:57 for 800m; 4:10 for 1500m in university and later in my 30s; 1:21:51 for the half marathon; 1:59:27 for 30km; and 3:00:10 for the marathon.
Here are a few key things I’ve learned.
1. Consistent training trumps a few big weeks.
Just about every runner with big goals has gone through a stage of dramatically increasing their training (usually at the beginning of the school cross-country season or perhaps in the early weeks of marathon prep). This invariably leads to feeling great at first, then hitting a wall and either getting injured or overtrained.
Some runners (me for one) repeat this cycle of overtraining followed by burnout, illness, or injury repeatedly. Eventually, I learned that backing off and finding a consistent, doable training plan led to longer-term, consistent progress. Took me a while though…
