Have you ever heard an elite athlete state:”This is it, I have accomplished everything I wanted and therefore I have decided to finish my running career”? Although I am very far from an elite runner I could have said the same thing at the closure of the 2010 running season.

I’m a 39 year-old male, working full-time, with wife and four kids and a house that should be reconditioned a bit more often than what is currently taking place. I am also a passionate runner with a keen interest in running, running technique and running gear and with an ambition to develop my running as much as I possibly can with my prerequisites and the limited time I have available.

As a recreational runner I have had the following goals for a long time, finishing a 10km-race under 40 minutes, a half marathon faster than 90 minutes and a marathon faster than 3h 15 minutes. 2010 was the season when I all of a sudden accomplished all these goals without any major changes in my training while running an average of just 22 miles per week.

It is now long ago that I abandoned reviewing the training programs regularly published in magazines like Runners World and alike. Why you might ask, not seek the advice from programs developed by professionals when time for training is scarce? Well, simply for the reasons that, in these programs, for results that I have been interested in, the number of runs or miles per week have greatly exceeded the amount of running that I am able or willing to invest in.

Instead I set myself a goal a couple of years ago, every week I should try to run at least three times a week, the content of these runs could vary but every week should contain at least three runs. This has been an achievable goal for me, last year in fact I actually made four runs per week quite often and, rarely also single weeks with five runs a week without too many complaints from my family as at least two of these runs took place during lunch break from the office.

I ran in different periods during my teens and early adult years. In the beginning of 2007 I started to run more regularly. Quite soon I started to enjoy the pure pleasure of putting one foot in front of the other. I started to experience the positive effects of running on my health, my fitness and mood and eventually I became a runner longing for the next run.

I had participated in short 5-10km road races in the past just for fun without any ambitions whatsoever to finish at a particular time but in 2007 a friend of mine persuaded me to run my first half marathon. Without knowing much about long distance running I set a goal of finishing in 1h 45 minutes. On the race day I really enjoyed the race at one of the world’s largest half marathons in Gothenburg, Sweden and together with 35 000 other runners I crossed the finish line after 1:44:59. This was in May 2007 and during the summer I continued to run regularly, perhaps not more than 12-15 miles per week but with a decent qualitative content and in September I ran the half marathon again now in 1 hour and 33 minutes and my biggest memory of that race is a 21k long smile. It just seemed so effortless!

The year after I decided to run the marathon for the first time. Perhaps I was not ideally trained for the distance with an average mileage of only 15 miles per week including about 10 long runs of two to three hours. Anyway I managed to complete the first marathon in 3h 41 minutes after having a really tough race from mile 16 all the way to the finish line. I decided to give the marathon a new try in 2009 having prepared slightly better with 21 miles of running per week. This time I reached my goal of 3 hours 30 minutes finishing in 3 hours 23 minutes but having a disappointingly tough race the last 10k. In 2009 I also ran the half marathon again, finishing just 45 seconds faster than my race from 2007.

During these early year of regular running I didn’t try the 10k distance but while training on my own I could challenge myself to run 10k in about 42 minutes on a good day with sunshine and tail winds.

This is the way it’s been until the 2010 running season which is now behind us. But in 2010 all of a sudden, something happen and I experienced a step change in my ability to run and race.

Reviewing the distances I competed at during the 2010 season it started with a half marathon in early May. In 2009 the half marathon on 1 hour 32 minutes was not what I would refer to as a “walk in the park” but at this half marathon everything just fell into place and from the first step I felt comfortable at my target pace in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. After the first kilometer I was just so sure that I would be able to reach my goal of finishing under 90 minutes which I did with 1:28:08. I September I ran my second half marathon for the year and again I set new PR finishing in 1:26:50 after a controlled race.

Staffan Running

The half marathon in May was the final exam for my preparations for the 2010 Stockholm marathon in June. I had prepared better than in 2008 and 2009 with 560 miles of training during January-May and long runs twice a month often performed very early Sunday morning to be home for breakfast (my second) with the rest of the family after a couple of hours or more of running. This time however I didn’t experience that wall of mental and physical fatigue but instead ran a race with even pace, in fact I even ran a faster second half finishing really proud with a great smile all over my face in 3:09:46.

To run 10k faster than 40 minutes seemed to be like an unreachable goal to me for a long time. In October of 2010 I ran my first 10k ever and as I hadn’t run any 10k races I didn’t know what to expect but I decided to look for an intensity level in my running slightly easier to cope with as compared to 5k-racing that I am more experienced with. Eventually I found that intensity finishing tired but not completely exhausted in 38:46 after a race with completely even 5k splits (2 seconds difference).

The racing season of 2010 ended with the local 5k race. A race that I had ran several times before, always with the same disappointing result, I would start too fast, experience mental and physical fatigue not wanting anything else than to stop running and go home after 3km and finally finishing disappointed at myself. This year I ran the entire race, sure I was tired but I managed and defeated the tiredness with mental tricks and finished in 36th place in 18:45.

What was the cause of my sudden improvement in 2010? Slightly more miles? Well that could hardly explain it. The total amount of miles in 2010 was about the same as in 2009, 1170 miles in 2010 vs. 1093 in 2009. Was the number of interval work outs larger in 2010 as compared to earlier seasons? Well, yes but just slightly more and that alone cannot explain the new level of running performance I suddenly arrived at either. A few factors that I believe definitely contributed to the change are:

Learning to run interval workouts properly, not running the first few repeats too fast, staying in motion also during the rest and finishing the number of repeats I had set out to run in an even pace.
Identifying my lactate threshold level. Although I haven’t done any fancy testing in a sports laboratory I know my maximum pulse to be just above 200 bpm per minute after trying it out a couple of times. This year I have identified that running with a pulse of between 180-185 bpm is probably where my lactate threshold is and I have run quite a lot on this intensity level, both distance running and interval workouts and now I know approximately which speed I can run at on this pulse level and what it feels like, hard but manageable.
A more efficient stride. About a year ago I started to change my long and heavy heel striking step. This included reviewing the theories of Pose and Chi running, changing my cadence to take more steps per minute. Now my ideal step frequency is close to 180 steps per minute, landing on my midfoot placed more centrally under the body focusing on lifting the foot as quickly as possible of the ground after impact, as opposed to landing the foot in front of the body with a stretched leg and a heal strike. In addition I have focused on a high and slightly forward leaning posture using the forces of gravity to take me forward with less effort.

Maybe I haven’t experienced a step change in my performance after all? Maybe I have become slightly better each year but haven’t competed enough to discover it? To be able to answer that question I guess I would have to dive really deep into my training log to try to figure out what caused this improvement. Should I invest that time trying to figure it out or should I invest time running instead? An easy choice if you ask me!

I already spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about running especially in relation to the level of runner I am. I am definitively not an elite runner and never will be. Nevertheless I will continue to enjoy this new level of my performance doing my best to maintain it although time for training is sometimes limited. To quit as I eluded to in the very beginning is not an option, I enjoy my running far too much and let’s face it, running is so much more than adrenaline stiff performance, mile paces, pulse levels and attaching a piece of paper with a number on it to my chest.

When this is written Sweden is in the process of waking up after what has been one of the hardest and coldest winters in a very time long time! The sun is beginning to warm up the ground covered with ice and snow, birds in the trees are starting to sing and very soon it will be possible again to go for a run without three layers of functional clothing. I am still enjoying what I accomplished last year and even though I have not trained as much as I would have wanted to, now with the spring arriving there is an opportunity for better quality in the training again.

Who knows what the 2011 season will bring. Imagine if I could go under 38 minutes at the 10k, run my favorite distance, the half marathon in 1h 25 minutes? I have decided not to run the marathon 2011. Right now I am not ready to invest the time and effort to improve my PR of 3:09:46 further. But if I am able to run one or two successful half marathons this year, I cannot help wanting to run the marathon faster than three hours in 2012. Do you think I can achieve that without training more, just by training smarter? Time will tell!

Enjoy your running!

Staffan is a 39-year-old Runner and father of four Children. He has been running regularly for four years and writes a running blog (in Swedish) at: http://wwwfyraochtrettio-staffan.blogspot.com/