Amelioration

A casual 20min tempo run at the gym turned out to become my 10k PR. 

What began at tempo pace(or so I thought) progressed into a run longer than expected.

Previously while training for the SCMS 2012, the fastest extended pace I held was an 8km run totalling 35:50 which left me fatigued. I have no idea how my existing fitness managed my pace today.

A month ago, I was struggling to handle a 13.2km/h average for 4km. 2 weeks ago, I could barely hold a 13.3km/h average for 20mins. If you check my running log, you'll have realised I clocked in only 16km of running in the past 2 weeks. What could possibly explain the significant increase in performance?

If you actually did check my log, you'd have realised that I engaged in some other forms of physical activity ~ I simply refuse to credit this improvement to "just feeling good today" and instead suspect that out of the other activities(strength/core work, cycling, swimming, soccer etc), some had significant impacts on my improvement. After all, I'm very much a person who believes that results have to be earned. A quick consideration led me to the following inferences, bearing in mind the aerobic base that was built in the latter half of 2012.

1) Core work increased stability which helped breathing and form significantly. 

2) Strength work, along with an interval I attempted(4x3:05 at +4% incline, 14km/h, 1:55 rest) helped leg power and cadence.

3) Swimming improved my aerobic threshold, functioning as cross training.

4) The single instance of cycling probably had no impact(yet).

5) Unfortunately, I don't think hockey or soccer led to much improvement. Nonetheless, this is based on my fallible logic.

These supplemented my basic running fitness, thereby leading to a satisfying improvement(which of course, did not just happen after 2 weeks). The result was a 43:38 10k with 22:18/21:20 5k splits, averaging 13.75km/h(I do all my paced runs at +1%). 

The danger of improvement is, however, the fear of failure during subsequent attempts. How best can one avoid failure? By not trying.

If you don’t know what you’re capable of, then take a risk and find out — and by that I mean a risk for you, not for your peers.  Let the world tell you when you've gone too far.  Let it knock you down and say, “This is as far as I’m willing to let you go.”  Make sure the walls you hit are made of reinforced concrete and not of your imaginary self-doubt.  Don’t be such a wuss when it comes to risk-taking.  My standard for risk-taking is, “If it won’t land me in a prison or a coffin, it’s worth doing.”

Steve Pavlina