5 reasons why you aren’t running faster.

1 ~ You’re addicted to running not performance

If you are happy just plodding around and never actually reaching your full running potential that’s fine, you will stay fit and healthy. But if you actually want to run well, smash some PB’s, win some races, make some teams then you need to focus on being addicted to performance not running. This means sometimes taking rest days to recover, freshen up, taper. This means making your easy runs easy and really pushing your hard sessions instead of just doing every run at your 4.20/km medium intensity pace. This means eating for performance – quality protein, complex carbs, all your micronutrients, not just being an addicted runner who runs every day so they can eat what they want. Shift your mindset from getting your running fix to running performance.

2 ~ You don’t trust your coach

How many runners have you coached in your life? Yeah that’s right, just one – yourself. How many has your coach taken from average recreational runner to sub-elite/elite (including you), hundreds. Yes you know your body better than anyone but your coach has years of experience in getting the best out of athletes and has a greater understanding of physiology and training adaptations. You need to work together, but remember your coach has an objective bird’s eye view of your training with a long-term plan laid out for you to run your best. Have faith in the plan and trust your coach.

3 ~ You don’t listen to your body

So yes you know your body better than anyone else including your coach, but you still don’t listen to it (hence why you should trust your coach). Listening to your body means paying attention to soreness, niggles, fatigue, stress, emotional state, fitness and adapting your training/recovery /nutrition in order to best match your current state. Are you actually fatigued and tired and need to back it off or are you being lazy and can actually get out and push through it, has that niggle hung around for a few too many days now and it’s time to get into the physio or is it just typical soreness because you run 100mile a week, is that work stress taking its toll and you need to take a mental health day (because let’s face it hitting running PB’s is more important than work!). Listen to your body and do what it needs to adapt and perform better.

4 ~ You don’t prioritise recovery

Without adequate recovery your dedication and focus to get out and run every day is wasted. Running is just the stimulus, the body won’t adapt and produce faster running times if you don’t give recovery as much priority as you do your running. This means getting your massages, doing your foam rolling, staying hydrated, getting your protein in, and wearing your compression tights after a hard run. But more importantly it means going to bed earlier. Turn your ipad/laptop/iphone off and go to sleep! Would you cut a session short so you can flip through Instagram on your phone? No. So why would you waste precious recovery time on social media or watching TV? Sleep is the most miraculous recovery tool we have – it’s infinitely better than anything else to improve recovery (unless you’re mates with Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who can hook you up). If you aren’t prioritising recovery – sleep in particular, you aren’t serious about running fast.

5 ~ You are too impatient

We want to run all of the kilometres and all of the PB’s right now! But that’s not how the body works, push it too hard too soon and it will break. Get frustrated at not running winning times already and you will lose mental focus and motivation. The key is to be patient. Every good athlete has put in years of consistent training, thousands of hours and made countless sacrifices in order to improve by the smallest of margins. You can’t rush it, be patient, have your eyes on the prize and stick to the long term plan.

If you are wanting to discuss your running needs, contact our team today.