Two are better than one

As I mentioned before, one of the steps I took in overcoming training inertia was to find a friend to hold me accountable to my training. The natural person for this job was my good friend Eli, who ran track/cross-country through college, and who I had been casually talking about running with already anyhow. In Eli, I wound up getting more than just an accountability partner – I got something of a coach as well. Up until November, most of the information I had on running/training had just come from what I had found on the internet or other sources I had read. My first training plan I found online, and the one I’m currently using came from a book. There’s nothing wrong with any of these resources, but there’s no substitute for having someone who’s got lots of experience as a runner available to actually talk to, ask questions of, and get feedback from.

I’ve been sending Eli my training plans and my workout results throughout this training cycle, and he responds with encouragement, suggestions, critiques, etc. The thing about a training plan that comes from a book or the internet is that it’s basically going to be basically “one-size fits all.” In my case, Eli is able to look at how things are progressing and suggest modifications that might help me get more out of a particular workout. For instance, my training plan calls for me to do my long runs very slowly, for the purpose of being able to recover from them more quickly. After the first week, Eli noticed my pace in the long run and suggested that I could probably speed those runs up without too much difficulty, due to how the schedule was laid out. So I tried it the next week, and he was right. I sped up by a full minute per mile, still ended the run feeling very strong, and saw no issues with recovery as I got into the next week.

Beyond the practical benefits to the actual training, it’s been very enjoyable to have someone to share the training experience with. Running can be a lonely business. Ideally, I’d like to have a training partner to go along with me, but the reality is that finding someone at the same fitness level, with similar goals who could work the same schedule as me is probably not going to happen. The next best thing is having someone I can talk to about it, who’s got some level of investment in how I’m doing and who wants to see me succeed.