Investments vs. Payouts

Hey Everyone!

Don’t you just love those runs where you feel smooth, in control, strong and relaxed but fast? When your body is in-synch with what you’re trying to do, and responds when you expect and ask it to?

I will tell you something. Those runs aren’t free. They don’t come without some investment. Those runs are the payout. Yes, it’s what we’re all striving for, but we can’t expect them every time. Those are the runs we try to set up for race day, although sometimes we luck into them during a regular training run.

But what’s gone into them is that we’ve asked ourselves to run faster than that, up more hills, for longer periods, under worse conditions, while fatigued … These are our investments. When we lift weights during a strength phase and all our runs feel hard, we are putting money in the bank. When we do long runs on a hot day while fatigued, we are laying foundation. When we do speedwork that feels clunky and hard, we are setting ourselves up for a magical, free-flowing run down the road.

Of course we always want to feel how we remember feeling when it all clicks, but we can’t just continually withdraw. If we never stop to invest, those runs will become more and more rare until they all just flatline to the middle.

I’m reminding you all this as I remind myself as well. If you’ve just finished a “season” and are getting ready to rebuild for the next, then don’t expect to be feeling smooth and fast now. You shouldn’t be. You should be investing. They payout will come later. Trust the process.

That is my 2-cents for now! Onto workouts for this week:

6×600 with 1:30 rest at 5K pace, 4 min rest, 4 x 400 w 2 Faster (if looking to pick up some speed for summer track)
If building strength vs. speed, 8-10 x 600 w 1:30 – just keep them nice n steady.
Tempo: 3-4 x 8 min w 2 min easy

Enjoy All!!!!

Seanna