Why run by feel? (Read 1311 times)

Running 6 miles at 5:40 when your body doesn't feel like it can run 6 miles at 5:40 is the difference between achieving and over-achieving. Sometimes putting your faith in the hands of a benevolent outside mentor -- in this case, a schedule -- can lead you to places you not have otherwise ventured.

I agree with this to some extent and I would say it is not at odds with running by feel. I've had plenty of days when I had X miles at X pace on the program and got out there and thought, "No effing way." But I've gone ahead and pressed on anyway and let the workout happen and been very surprised with the result--not because I was trying to hit a certain number, but because I was trying to sustain a certain effort. Amazingly the less I try to hit the number, the more often I wind up hitting the number that the chart or my plan would have predicted anyway. Are we splitting hairs now? Maybe, but in my mind it's an important distinction in how I approach training. 99% of the time when I talk about running by feel, I'm talking about during The Run itself. This especially comes into focus in races. My first few years of running road races I over-analyzed everything and planned my races down to the mile and even less sometimes. I had very specific goals about what I wanted to do for mile 1, 2, etc. I would check my splits maniacally. Sometimes print them out on paper or make a pace bracelet and the whole thing. A lot of what I preach now would have been totally lost on me then, I get that. Just as a lot of what others were saying was lost on me at the time but a lot of it makes perfect sense now. I realize that everyone has to take their own journey. Only when I started running some races as tune-ups for other races and treating them as "low key" did I start to realize that the less I analyzed and planned, the better I ran. Not only did I run even splits and run faster and finish feeling better, but I came a lot closer to what the "predictors" said I should. My race times at all distances started to fall in line. It became so clear to me that this was the best way to race; by feel. Let the race come, invest in the race, keep your mind engaged in processing what your body is saying combined with what the competition is doing and dole out the energy as evenly as you can to give yourself a chance of completely emptying the tank just at the finish. The goal is not to hit some split, the goal is to run the race. It started with longer races that I was using as training for future races. When I ran a 30k and tried to use it as a progression run--run each 3 mile segment a tad faster than the one before it, something clicked. Then I thought, well what if I use something bigger than 3 mile splits, what if I just think of the whole race as a split. I ran a half marathon that way and had a breakout race and an epiphany. It changed the whole way I raced after that. When I stopped thinking of a 5K race as "three mile splits and a sprint" and started thinking of it as "a 5k race" it all just gelled. I didn't want to hit a certain number at 1 mile, 2 miles and 3 miles--instead I wanted to be feeling a certain intensity at those points. Suddenly without looking at or even wearing a watch, I could run remarkably even splits. Then I backed into taking the same approach to training. Training runs and workouts became effort-based instead of trying to hit certain splits and guess what--I hit all the splits much better. Now 6 x 1000m workouts were all run within a second or two of each other instead of my splits bouncing up and down as I tried to make adjustments to pace, even though I sometimes did them without even looking at the watch until I finished a rep. There were no adjustments based on pace, they were all based on effort and could happen in real time. In races, I no longer worried about a too fast split or a too slow split. As long as the effort was right it didn't matter, and this is what led to several breakouts. I still mess it up from time to time, but mostly this is when I lose focus on what my body is doing and get too caught up in the hoopla or other external stimuli. Despite the fact that I race much less often now, most of the time I run very close to what I'm capable of a much higher percentage of my races are very satisfying and sometimes--twice this year so far--that winds up being faster than what I would have predicted. The less I think about the charts and graphs, the more often the charts and graphs are right. Turns out, they were made from observing real runners, but the real runners didn't know about the charts and graphs when they ran all those races that provided all the data that led to the charts and graphs. The runners just ran.

mikey. Wow. That was good. I'm having a bad writing day. What you said.

Jeff and Mishka, good point. The goal when running by feel is not always to feel great, or euphoric, or to feel the knife's edge. Sometimes, like on most of your training days, the goal is to feel restrained as though you're holding back.

I'm very new to the concept of running by feel and it's been challenging so far. In the past, a well planned workout on a perfect temperature day with no injuries might have seemed impossible but I actually found that I could complete the planned workout. On the other hand, if I had been running by feel (at that time), I would have ran slower or ran too fast and not made my distance. However, if all three of the above criteria aren't met then I might as well have thrown the whole thing out the window. To me, the idea of running by feel is the accumulation of experience that allows me to create the perfect workout for that exact moment in time for those exact conditions. That's a very daunting task. I often underestimate what I'm capable of doing or get caught up in the run and find myself running 800m interval pace.

The mature runner is able to appreciate not only the thrill of scars and knives, but the more subtle pleasure of restraint, the controlled pace, the calm sensibility of the easy day.

[Context]... I'm having a really crappy year, running by feel...for me...all week this week means that I turn the alarm off every single morning and sleep for another hour [context] I think mikeymike asked if we were splitting hairs, I say ...definately probably. I see a big difference for "newer" runners trying to break into something in their mind might be their arrival into the magical "real runner" status. Berner, I think this is important relative to your comment about the training plan always ending on race day...absolutely right! BUT, as I reflect back on my "getting started years", I see a runner working through a schedule to get to a goal race, then that goal race ending up being a wormhole that took me/them to another world, a world of running "at the next level"...lather, rinse, repeat... This is all found in approaching the knife edge, how well we do it on the approach determines what level of respect/disrespect we have for our current placement relative to that edge. Perhaps being a slave to the "feel" is just as bad as being a slave to the "schedule". Making a hole in one, the walk-off home run, ...a pre-dawn run at a pace that once was your 10K pace but now is your "easy" run pace where you feel like your legs are pulling the road toward you/pushing it behind you crumpling up the pavement and you could go forever but you've gotta shower and go to work so you stop after "only" x miles... that's what keeps us coming back. Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? MTA: stupid spelling and to ask...Mikey, did you get that splitting hairs question from your doc?

fun to watch how easily duped ppl are in forums measurement and feel aren't mutually exclusive the premise jeff pre-supposed is nothing more than your average garden variety false dilemma nice job wasting 3 pages discussing it though