How do you train?

Last year as we made our way through a global pandemic, dare I say all of our races were either canceled or postponed. Thankfully most races allowed you to defer your entries to this year or get a refund. And not all of us kept our running up to the levels it was when we had races to train for. So now we are all back to training, either by ourselves or with a group. Be they friends or a group we paid to be a part of. And let’s be fair some of those people will become friends. If nothing else, is one thing the running community does well. Friendships!

With these choices in mind, which will you choose? Will you find a local running store and sign up for their marathon or half marathon training groups? They always have a professional trainer to lead these types of groups, so you know you are getting great guidance. Training in group settings like this also has the benefit of accountability. Since you are doing it as part of a group there are other people who you will make friends with and they will help to make sure you show up, do the work and make it through, and you will do the same for them. That is after all what group training is really about. Not just getting ready to run your race,but to build the running community. Or will you just train on your own? I am not one for group settings, and like many people I don’t always have the extra money to pay to join a training program. So I, and others like me, will take the option of training alone. But how will you do it? Will you buy a training program from a famous runner and use that like a bible? Doing exactly as directed every day? Or will you just start running gradually increasing your mileage till you hit the target distance? I use the third option myself. I am a reader by nature. So I get books from the library and read up on multiple training programs and from the combined data from all of my sources and create my own plan. Taking what I think are the best parts, or the parts that will work best for me.

So however you choose to train for whatever race you plan to run in 2021 and beyond, just know that there is no wrong way to do it. Well there are wrong ways, but that's another story. Just make sure you train slowly, don’t push yourself too hard, listen to your body, it will let you know if you are training too hard. Rest! Rest is a very important part of training. As you push your body, it will need time to recover, to repair damaged muscle tissue and so forth. So don't be in a rush, enjoy your time, and enjoy the people you meet along the way.