Master Runner's Training Philosophy - Coach Magill

Coach Magill is not my coach... but I really like his philosophy on training, especially for Masters runners. People will say, "Blah, blah, blah, you're only as old as you feel." True, but you know what? I feel old. My body is tired these days. So there! Anyway, here is Coach Magill's philosophy. You can view more on his blog site, "Younger Legs for Older Runners."

"The 3-Step Training Program ("Off-The-Clock Training")

Before training, it's important that we understand what it is we're after: We train to run longer faster.

Traditionally, runners equate "faster" with time and "longer" with distance. But not me - not us. For us:


"Faster" is about motion, not time.
"Longer" is about duration, not distance.
Traditional training approaches take a known result - improved fitness allows us to train at a higher volume and intensity - and attempts to take after-the-fact credit.

In fact, traditional training approaches tend to exploit fitness that has already been gained, usually through a base period of easy-effort distance and infrequent harder sessions. For a brief period, we show improvement, spending our hard-earned fitness like a couple street racers burning up fuel, like Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in The Fast and the Furious. And then ... yep, we crash and burn.

To avoid the slower times, injury, and burnout that plague traditional training, we use a simple, commonsense, yet revolutionary 3-Step approach (the "Off-The-Clock" Training Method):

Put Away Your Watch
Stop Counting Miles
Start Listening To Your Body
Here's how it works ...

Step 1: Put Away Your Watch

Faster is about motion, not time.

Training to be faster is about effort, stride, and efficiency - not pace.

A watch serves no useful purpose during a normal training run. It can't improve our form or replensih the glycogen (energy) stores in our legs. In fact, all it can do is to compare today's run with some other day's run.

And since no training day is like any other, the comparison is invalid. When we run according to pace:

We run too fast.

We run too hard.
We get incorrect feedback.

We're left unprepared for racing.
Instead, we must learn to train by effort. No matter the variables of the day, the effort needed to achieve a desired workout result never changes - although every type of workout demands a unique efffort level.

When we learn to run by effort, every workout is run at the most efficient, responsive, correct "pace" for that day.

Step 2: Stop Counting Miles

Longer is about duration, not distance.

To become better runners, we must develop running endurance.

But our bodies are not odometers.

Our legs don't know a mile from a kilometer.

For a runner, keeping track of mileage serves no useful purpose. "Mileage" is a measurement that has no relation to the actual volume of our training.

Mileage Junkies obsess over their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly mileage. But counting miles accomplishes only one thing: it fills up our running logs with lots of miles. When we count miles:


We run too far.
We run too hard.

We run when we're injured or overly fatigued.

We become addicted to high mileage totals.
Instead, we should train with the following endurance goal in mind: to run longer more efficiently and to recover from runs more quickly.

"Longer" is not a set distance. It varies from person to person, and from day-to-day.

Start Listening To Your Body

Runners who listen to their bodies have the perfect coach: their own inner voice.

So how do we engage our inner voice?

It begins with taking a daily inventory: of our fitness, of our energy level, or sore spots or injuries, of motivation, and of anything else that affects our daily training.

And then we have to accept the results of that inventory.

Our ego will try to override our inner voice. Our ego views itself as master and our body as slave, and it has an irrational hatred of canceled or amended workouts.

But when we learn to respond to our inner voice, ignoring our Ego, and when we learn how to pair our daily inventory with the variety of workouts at our disposal, then we know exactly how far and how fast to run."