What are you chasing?

Is training pace based on your fitness, your goals, or your ego?

In 2019 there is a lot of information out there and thanks to social media a lot of misinformation out there.  

Thanks to Strava and other platforms you can see how other people are training and adjust your training if you want.  What you don't see is how that training is affecting them, what they are trying to achieve with their training, and ultimately whether that training is right for them.

In a race or in training you can only ever control what you can do.

It is OK to be motivated by what others do, but it shouldn't control you.  Don't chase ghosts!

There are a lot of pace tables out there that do  not very a lot. These are proven to be right, so don't think about thinking you are different, and that you can train harder and faster.  

If you want to post fast training times and take segments all over Strava do it, but don't be disappointed when you don't reach your goal or even get to the startline.

When I was in 2:26 shape I was still doing my long runs between 4:05-4:20/km. Sometimes I went under 4:00/km but only when there were lots of intervals involved.  You should just be trying to build your aerobic engine, improve your ability to use fat, and not stress your body too much.

Remember we only improve in training from consistent training and if you are doing sessions that are flattening you for weeks, so that you cannot maintain quality afterwards you are not going to be improving your  training. In fact you could be losing fitness over the period of months due to the repeated downtime.

If you can slowly and consistently build up the load to your body you are going to get fitter and stronger without depleting your reserves too greatly.  

If you can do a huge session in the early stages of your build-up, survive it and be able to train again the next week it is most likely that you underestimated how fit you are or how good you are.  There are some easy tests that you could do to see what your level is at.

Your Coach should be getting you getting out and training at the right pace.  Training always at the higher end of your training zone is not going to not going to make you faster.

K.I.S.S. make the easy stuff easy and the hard stuff fast.