Redefining Success when it Comes to Workouts
In the last edition we covered how other elements such as wind, or hilly terrains impact how we perform when running a workout and how we need to accommodate those elements. We looked at how we often over rely on pace and rely less on other metrics such as Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE), Power, and/or Heart Rate. I had folks reach out to ask “but what about when the elements aren’t a factor such as a calm, cool day on a flat route? Should we place a large emphasis on our splits and paces then?” Great question, so let’s dive in.
Although the environmental conditions may be favorable, how we perform is also influenced by other factors too. Sleep quality and quantity, nutrition, hydration, medication, life stress, travel, hormone levels (i.e. menstrual cycle timing) all play a role as well as the residual fatigue you are carrying into that workout. Some days, for some unknown reasons to ourselves, we just don’t feel ourselves or 100% and that’s normal. The body is complex and in a perfect world these factors would all be managed. The reality is, they rarely are. Some through faults of our own doing, some by purposeful design (i.e. carrying fatigue during training for longer endurance events like a marathon) but often by circumstances out of our control too.
It’s not unusual to turn up to a workout in a different state of well-being compared to a previous week. Many of us have competing demands and responsibilities. Children, demanding jobs, travel etc., combined with the fact we are human and don’t have an at home chef or Registered Dietician at home prescribing and making our daily meals for us means that some days our diet and hydration may not be as good as other days. So naturally, when you turn up to a workout each week, there’s going to be some fluctuation in performance. Of course as athletes looking to better ourselves we thrive on the concept of improvement.
As part of our coaching program, each athlete is encouraged to leave notes about their runs, like a journal that gives us additional and vital insight into how the run was perceived and experienced. A comment we see a lot is “Sorry coach, just couldn’t hit my target paces or splits today. I tried my best, but just couldn’t get there.” Firstly, no apology needed, we are very sure this was not intentional. Secondly, you did your best and that’s all we can ask for. Lastly, 95% of the time THERE IS NO TARGET PACE! When we include a pace in a workout it’s a GUIDELINE, not a target (closer to goal race day we may include some “race pace specific” work where we try to be in and around our goal race pace, but even then it’s not an absolute target, just a more focused guideline!). The guideline pace (usually written as something like ~7:15min/mile or 7:10-25min/mile) is usually combined with other information that helps us navigate a run such as Rate of Perceived Exertion (i.e. 7/10), as well as the type of run (Easy, Threshold, Vo2max etc.) and sometimes may be accompanied by heart rate zones or power zones that help guide the desired intensity of the run to achieve the intended outcome.
Often when we assign a Threshold workout like 6*5min/1min with a guideline of 6:40-55min/mile pace and ~7/10 RPE we know that athletes eyes will naturally dart to the pace range and get fixated on the faster end of that pace range believing that top pace is the only acceptable pace to run to achieve the outcome of the workout. But what happens if we run that 6:40 pace on each rep, but our RPE is 9/10 and our Heart Rate is 15bpm above our usual zone for this level of workout? Sure, you’ve hit the pace and it may serve as a confidence boost, but we are well over on our other metrics and have not achieved the intended outcome of the workout so lose out physiologically, and possibly at a cost to future workouts coming up too. When in a different scenario, if the athlete had ran 6:52 (or even outside of that range) and the RPE was a 7/10 and perhaps their heart rate was in line with their Threshold zone then we have likely achieved the intended physiological adaptations from this workout and increased our chances of being able to train consistently (which is where the real magic happens). If our workout is a dart board, our aim is to consistently hit the dart board, not the bullseye. Another one you’ll hear often from us is “better to be a little undercooked than over cooked.” We can easily heat you up a little more if needed, but a burnt turkey is difficult to salvage.
On some occasions we have our day. We can hit the faster range of that guideline pace (maybe even quicker) and RPE, Heart rate are all aligned in the right place and that’s great! We’ve hit the bullseye or a triple 20, but that doesn’t need that to be the case every workout. In my own experience it’s rare. In a whole training block, I’ll have some bullseye days, mostly hitting the dartboard days, and some that completely miss the dartboard. Missing the dartboard once or twice isn’t necessarily a cause for alarm either. It may help to look a little closer to try to understand why and a coach can help with that to see if there’s some things we have control of that can be tweaked (like nutrition or sleep, or shifting workouts to work with changing hormone patterns if needed), but again we are human, our lives are complex and it happens when we are trying to push ourselves and also learning to understand our body so we don’t need to over react or make sweeping changes. If it’s happening frequently, then we would want to take a more detailed look and make adjustments. Again as coaches we can help block out the noise and take an outside look to see where we may need to make adjustments to our training and/or work together to address barriers in our lives (like bedtime routines, fueling during training etc.).
In summary. We know runners love pace because it’s a solid and clear metric that our watch calculates for us so we don’t have to do much thinking for it. In comparison, the type of run (i.e. Threshold) and its associated intensity or RPE is more subjective and less concrete. It requires time and intentional work to become more deeply connected to our bodies to be able to understand how different intensities feel, but the payoff is worth it. Stop chasing the pace and placing an over emphasis on it. Instead use them as a guide in combination with other metrics to help you be consistently good enough. Perfection is not the aim of the game when it comes to growth, it’s about being consistently good enough. Now go hit that dartboard!
Take Away Questions
Does this post alter the way you will approach the next workout?
Are there elements of your life you could adjust to help with performance going into a workout (sleep, hydration, fueling?)