Money in the Bank (How to be a Wealthy Runner)
Every mile you run is like putting money in the bank as far as your long term endurance is concerned. After 20 minutes of sustained running at an easy to moderate pace you get a double bonus amount of money. This means keeping your heart rate above 120, which cannot be maintained through walking. After 50 minutes of running you get a triple bonus. Most of you will not run longer than 50 minutes this season, but after 80 minutes you get a quadruple bonus.
The idea is to go into each race with the most amount of money in the bank as possible so that you can buy your best time.
For the most part, the more money you have, the better time you can buy. You also need to learn how to spend your money wisely. About twice a week we will teach our bodies to be good spenders of our money through workouts which take our heart rates above 180 beats per minute. These workouts consist of running different types of intervals above our goal race pace, and doing longer pace runs at race pace.
You will notice that each easy long run is followed by a shorter fast run, which is followed by an easy long run. Our bodies cannot go hard every day. We pick two days a week to go hard, and use the rest of the days to get rich.
Bargaining for good times is also a very important factor to your success in races. This involves proper pacing during races so that you don’t spend all your money in the first half of a race, but rather use it wisely over the entire distance of the race so that you go broke just as you cross the finish line.
3 factors that determine your success in distance running are:
1. Your weekly mileage (money)
2. Your running economy at a fast pace (ability to spend money efficiently)
3. Your even pacing during races (bargaining)
Being properly hydrated is very important as well. If you don’t drink enough water you will run much slower in your races. Drink water and you will run faster. Water is your oil. Engines fail if they don’t have enough oil.
If you want to get better, you need more money. The best way to do that is to run more miles. To get really good, you need to run as many miles as possible without getting hurt. This may mean doing extra miles on your own, but be careful to not do too much.
Set a goal for the season for a time you would like to run in the mile. Set a very realistic goal and then set a very challenging goal. For instance my realistic goal is to run a 5:09 mile, but my super challenging goal is to run a 4:56. I can be satisfied with a 5:09, but striving towards excellence to go faster will carry me through the fast days of training and the long miles ahead. Set 2 goals and then turn them in to Coach Floyd.