You’re a busy person who wants to optimize every minute of training to achieve your goals.
I can help you. I’ve coached Olympians, national- and world-record holders, and national and NCAA champions. Each reached the pinnacle of the sport by making the most of the miles they ran while avoiding injury and burnout. To do that, you need to understand the demands racing requires of your body and train effectively to adapt your body to meet those demands.
The races that most runners train for are almost entirely aerobic events. Yes, even the mile or the 5K. To succeed at those distances, you need to be able to sustain a hard pace for several minutes, and often for more than an hour.
You need to be an aerobic monster.
I like to explain this idea by talking about a common race goal. Many of the women I coached collegiately wanted to break 5:00 in the mile. I would ask: “Can you run 75 seconds for one lap of the track? Of course you can, pretty easily. How about 2:30 for two laps? Yes, but it’s starting to get hard. How about 3:45 for three laps? Now that’s getting really hard. Could you then run a fourth lap in…
