7 Weeks to a 10K: The Complete Day-by-Day Program to Train for Your First Race or Improve Your Fastest Time

Author:Stewart, Brett [Stewart, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612431925
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Published: 2013-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

ADVANCED GOAL: “I want to set a new PR at X race on X date.”

A very specific and focused goal, setting a new PR doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work and dedication as you progress to your goal. More importantly, it doesn’t happen without setting a sustainable, consistent routine like you did in the Beginner Goal, right? Most runners who’ve been in the sport continue to strive for farther distances or faster times (to a point) and most likely have subjective times they’d like to beat that are based solely on distances or what others may be able to attain.

Why it works: It’s important to use the term “PR” versus an exact time, as it gives some additional wiggle room for you to consider a race a success by lowering your best time, while still not hitting some arbitrary time goal. For example, breaking 20:00 in a 5K is a very noble goal, but if your PR is currently 21:20, you have a higher potential for success giving yourself that additional 1:21 cushion. You’re always racing against the clock in timed events, and fighting for that last second can be extremely frustrating if the stars don’t align. On the flip side, by using a somewhat relative phrase of “setting a new PR,” you may find yourself more relaxed and run even better than you expected. I chopped nearly 20:00 off my marathon PR by focusing less on my splits and more on how I was feeling during the run.

How to fail: Putting too much pressure on yourself to nail every training run and make everything perfect on race day. You can’t control everything, and unless you’re a professional it’s nearly impossible to shut off the rest of your life and focus on running. Heck, even the professional athletes I work with can never truly figure it out 100% of the time. Stuff happens—you’re going to miss workouts, have bad races and have to deal with suboptimal conditions in training and even at the big event. Every serious runner that I know has had more than their fair share of disappointments and it has been their resiliency to come back after a let-down to chase their PRs at a future event that makes them successful. Time and time again, the race you’re planning to be perfect in every way rarely is; often, it’s the next event when all your ducks are in a row and you do something special.

How to make it work: It all starts with the realization that with proper training, rest and execution on race day, the average runner can continue to improve their best time. Because your PRs are relative to the only person who truly matters in your running career (you!), you can focus on making strides (pun intended) to progressively get stronger, smarter, healthier and faster.

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