My kids are on a rock climbing team, and as I have also become somewhat obsessed with climbing, I often ask them for advice on how to improve. The other night, they said their coaches gave told them this: Climb routes that your first impulse is to avoid. In other words, pick something that is going to be hard, does not play to your strengths, and might not be the most fun, easy, or natural for you.
This is good advice for runners, and something that we are always working on in practice with the MDE athletes. Don’t just do the sessions that you enjoy and come easy for you. Think about your weaknesses, and the factors that limit you, and methodically work to transform them into strengths. That hill that you avoid running up? Make a habit of hitting it regularly.
Here are a couple of examples from our team. Dakotah Popehn can run long steady runs at a pretty good clip and has always been able to do so, relative to her fitness level. However, her best mile in college was only 5:20, and her 5k time was a relatively modest 16:43. Since joining the team 8 years ago, she has improved her speed dramatically. Her mile and 5k times have dropped to the point where she runs lots of repeats faster than her previous mile best, and is approaching the point where she can sustain that 5:20 pace for a very long time (her marathon PR is 5:30 per mile). It doesn’t mean she is now a miler or a 5k runner, but it does mean that her best possible marathon pace is faster than it could ever have been if she hadn’t improved her speed.
On the other end of the spectrum, Cailee Peterson comes to mind. A 1500m specialist, she ran low mileage in college and came into our team running pretty easy paces on her easy and long runs. Over the course of the last 3 years, she has built a solid aerobic foundation, where her threshold pace has dropped a good 30 seconds per mile. Recently, she ran a 15 mile long run around 6:15 per mile pace, an effort that would not have been possible for her not too long ago. This translates into greater ability to maintain speed over a race like a mile, and to be able to rely more heavily on the aerobic system, saving the anaerobic burst for the final stages of the race where it can be unleashed.
The last point I want to make is about mindset. Taking on the things that are hard for you can be a drag and something you feel forced to do, in which case it is unlikely to be productive. In the case of Cailee and Dakotah, they have truly relished the challenge. So when I am at the climbing gym looking at a route that looks particularly nasty, I’m going to try to channel some of that energy and go after it with enthusiasm, curiosity, and perhaps even delight.
Chris Lundstrom is the head coach of Minnesota Distance Elite – formerly Team USA Minnesota – which includes some of the top distance runners in the USA, including Annie Frisbie, Dakotah Popehn, Breanna Sieracki and Joel Reichow.
