TRAINING FOR SPECIFIC DISTANCE IN RUNNING

The subject of training for specific distances in running is not as simple or "obvious" as it might seem. Preparing for a marathon? Then you should run one during training! Getting ready to do a 10K? Then it only makes sense to run 10K during training. Have an 100, 200, 800m race coming up? Keep running until you believe you're getting faster! Right? Wrong!

A final goal of anyone running any race is to try to run it with a good resulting time, or faster than before. But simply running more miles will not make anybody a better or faster runner. Specific training will. That applies to sprinters as much as to marathoners and everyone else.

A rather popular belief or an assumption is that during training a runner should run the very distance he or she is training for and it is absolutely unfounded. It is suggested to help prepare the athlete for the given distance by letting him/her "experience the load". The reality is that every one of us can run any given distance, whether it's 100m or 10K. The only true question is who can do it faster and incur less damage in the process. The "experience" mentioned earlier is purely a psychological tactic to feel more secure and confident, but this tactic has a potential to cause a lot of physical damage when preparing for long distances. If you're attempting to train for a marathon by simply running and running, what you're really doing is robbing yourself of progress, plus getting a little more and more "out of shape" with every pointless long run. Every such run has a potential of a serious injury besides not only being unproductive, but what's more - being counterproductive.

There are certain things about a human body and mind, personal energy level and perception, hierarchical relations between combinations of short, middle and long distances used in training, and relations between speed and endurance that are not commonly known among athletes, and those important aspects are consequently not taken into consideration when training is being planned. One of the founding fathers of athletics in Soviet Union, Nicholai Ozolin, wrote in 1949: "Speed is the foundation of endurance." While this is not widely accepted or even understood yet, the statement made almost 60 years ago is pretty much the jackpot. The athlete/coach that understands it, gets the key to faster running on long distances.

In order for your training to be effective, whatever the distance, everything you do has to be aimed at the main event - a particular distance on a particular day. The bulk of the training process should be focused on developing and maintaining proper form and your body should have the required level of strength developed. That alone will serve as a "life saving" foundation for your performance level whether you're dealing with sprint or marathon.

Proper training regimen and planning will prepare you for the race and save you from overtraining and injuries. A really good training program, along with a knowledgeable coach, will help reveal your full potential.

Article by Dr. Nicholas Romanov
Composed by L. Romanov