Ahhhh. The training. I love it, I hate it, I love it and hate it all at the same time. I love it for what it provides, but I hate it for the suffering it inflicts.

My take on training starts pretty simply: do it. Training is what gets us from here to there. It’s the one thing you can control in the process, really. You can’t control how you feel, your luck, or the genetic coding your parents passed along. Training is the one thing that not doing guarantees failure.

My second foundation for training is consistency. In his classic novel Once A Runner, John L. Parker Jr’s character Quenton Cassidy talks about a concept called “The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials.” I think it accurately depicts the concept and importance of consistency. The miles required to achieve the goal, the sum itself is a challenge and opportunity for victory. In the same way, each one of those miles is its own little challenge and victory once completed. It’s a day in/day out  commitment to put numbers in the mileage box of your training log, and watch as those numbers add up over weeks, months, even years depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Consistency is also perhaps the most difficult aspect of training to achieve, especially with life’s standard infringements. Work demands are my primary enemy when it comes to consistency. Having spent about six of the past twelve months on the road, I understand first hand the difficulty of staying on schedule.

My last, equally important approach to training is the importance of quality work. Quality work is what you might think of as “sprints,” but you might want to re-categorize as “anything harder than just going out for a jog/run.” This, combined with regular old running is what makes a program, and achieving goals requires both. Track intervals, fartleks, hill repeats, sustained moderate/hard runs…it’s all deadly.

Beyond the foundational tenets of doing the training, doing it consistently, and doing the quality work, there is the issue of methodology. I think of methodology as how you put it all together into a cohesive training program. There are many, many ways to train. From the ubiquitous cookie-cutter programs available on any online running website, to systems devised and led by individual coaches; there are simply a ton of options. I can find it a bit overwhelming, to tell you the truth.

I currently train predominantly off Coach Jack Daniels’ (I know, cool name, right?) methods. His book, Daniels Running Formula, 

 (http://www.amazon.com/Daniels-Running-Formula-2nd-Jack/dp/0736054928/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291475471&sr=1-1)

 is starting to fall apart from me paging through it constantly. It’s in-depth as well as simple, and includes recommended training plans for runners of all abilities and distances. I also inject some of Michele’s workouts, which she took from Alan Storey. Unfortunately I don’t have any resources for him, which is unfortunate due to the fact that he’s got some killer hard workouts.

Chatting with Coach Jay at the 2010 Chicago Marathon Expo

He tells me that he’s working a research project on strength for endurance athletes, which I eagerly await. Additionally, Coach Jay Johnson, www.coachjayjohnson.com, has some wonderful stuff both on his website and in the podcast videos on www.runningtimes.com with regards to building a strong body capable of handling the toll running can take.

Here’s a depiction of the four weeks of training done prior to this week:

Training Snapshot for 1 Nov - 28 Nov

Alright, that’s it for today. Like I said, if I get going into the science stuff, you’ll be here (and bored) all day. Check out some of the links for more information if you’re interested. Hope you found all this informative…in the future I will probably post some of my own recommended training plans.