My teammates and I ran with one of America's top masters runners last week. The guy has been strong year after year at different distances while maintaining a busy professional schedule. So we ask the enlightened one – "Oh oracle of the ancient, master of the marathon, sage of the serious runners, what is the secret to your long success in the sport?"
The enlightened one was silent for a long time. He stared into space with deep, mystic contemplation. Finally he responded: "I have just one piece of advice". We all leaned in closely, holding our breath, waiting for the secret to be revealed to us. Finally he said:
“Don’t get injured”
Huh? We looked at each other with a mixture of surprise and disappointment after hearing this simple response. I guess like many sacred revealed truths, at first it seems disappointingly obvious. Rather banal actually. I mean, duh, of course we will try to avoid running injuries.
But on reflection , I find the words of the guru strangely useful, and consistent with my increasing focus on maintaining consistent mileage -- and not slowing down as I move into even older age groups. As I noted in my previous blog post my focus in 2017 is on maintaining a sustainable, repetitive weekly routine (essentially 2 quality sessions plus 80% of mileage easy, volume runs), and avoiding any shock to the system. Not sure yet if this is enough to avoid injury and achieve decent race performance, but so far I have felt better in the first two months of 2017 after struggling through all of the latter half of last year...
Yes, I would agree with that.
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