Sustainable Training

Written on 3/15/10

Sustainability as it relates to industry generally means that a company can consistently produce long term profits.  This means that a company should not ravage the land, break laws, and do whatever they have to do to make quick profit.  Instead, they must pay attention to the minor things that don’t add immediate value: invest in the community, educate its employees, abide by the law, and establish good will with community.  In other words, a good company must invest time/money/energy now so they can continue to prosper far into the in the future.

I see now that my training has not been sustainable.  Since the fall, my running has been consistent and of good volume.  But I have been lazy in many aspects.  I never stretch, I have done little core strength training, working longer hours, and lately I have been staying up late.  I don’t feel that doing sit-ups or stretching makes you a faster running.  I do believe that consistent, high volume running over a long period of time makes a fast runner.  Therefore, by doing the little things: core strength, stretching, and resting adequately,  you allow yourself to train consistently over time and indirectly make you run faster. 

This concept isn’t rocket science and most coaches teach this and most athletes know this.  I Know this.  I have just been a little greedy and lazy.  Pushing the envelope to see how little I can do and still run well. 

I finally broke down after a wonderful start to 2010.  Since my half marathon run I have been hanging onto thread with constant aching in my right knee and IT band.  Instead of correcting the problem, I just did the minimum amount of body work needed to correct the symptoms.  The 50 miler exposed my weakness and shut me down.  I don’t blame the 50 miler for the injury as it was a long time coming for me.  The 50 just put me over the top.   

My knee hurts badly.  I haven’t run in over a week since that epic run and my right knee still causes me to walk with a limp.  It seems I will have to take a long time off and slowly build back up.  This is a bummer as my early year training volume would have been a good spring board into the summer/fall trail racing season.  Instead, I have to start over, be patient, and rebuild the foundation that I laid over the winter. 

These things happen.  I just have to learn from it, recover, be happy for the good runs that I got in and look forward to the future runs and races I will no doubt enjoy.  Time to climb out of the pit.

Update:  I have been feeling better and slowly getting back into it.