Run with your heart instead of your mind. When you think with your mind, you think of the things you can and can't do. But when you run with your heart you forget about what you can't do, and you just go out and do it.
Wanting to win races is detrimental to courage. You tend to run too conservatively because you want to wait and sprint. If you are there to force the pace, to CREATE greatness rather than to have greatness, Courageous moves are a part of your race.
When I first came into international running, most runners did about 60-70 miles or running a week. I guess that is still the standard except for Kenya and Ethiopia. I was doing 150-250 a week and some weeks as high as 350. It was unheard of! But, because I did not have access to what was possible and standard, I had to set my own possibilities and standards. I was just lucky enough to be out of the loop and not know.
I just wanted to quit running. My coach, Tracy Walters, took me aside and told me that I had an opportunity few people ever get. He said that I could inspire the whole team because I was so small and unathletic.
Speedwork is terribly overrated! I remember talking to runners after distance races and someone is sure to say they were able to run fast off base work with no speed work at all. The truth is speedwork doesn't work. Lots of miles, and then fast miles gets you there much quicker than speed work.
Based on my experience; I would develop fast speed before anything else. Get your young runners so they can run and teach them speed.
There are champions in every neighborhood. Anyone can run to the very top. ANYONE! But you have to (a) start right, (b) think right, and (c) believe. Most runners get lost in one or more of those three steps.
I would instill in my team an attitude of role modeling. We run to teach other people the value of physical activity. In all things, be humble and appreciative; hurt no one; help anyone you can.
We didn't keep track of how many miles we ran back then. We just ran. If you LOVE to run with the kind of passion I have for running, you will understand this. Running was my mode of transportation.
If you KNOW dehydration is a problem in long runs it becomes a problem in long runs.
I never did cross training or lifted weights or put anything between myself and my passion for running.
There is NOTHING you can do with your running time that is better for you than running. Any other activity only pulls you down and erases passion.
I always enjoyed the training more than I did the racing. There was a high level of anxiety in racing that I did not enjoy. Training runs set me FREE. I could imagine the race in my mind and race as if it were the actual race.
I should be doing that too. I should be out there running and racing. I should be taking care of my body.
Set a master goal for your running and for your life...
I had on my team a girl who at age twelve just missed the world mile record for her age group. But at 20 she just couldn't run.
If I performed poorly, I knew the eyes of the sports world would be turned away from me. In that situation I knew the NCAA would crush me for sure. But if I could run well, they would not dare to hit me with everyone looking in my direction. I HAD to have a good race.
News people were holding me up as a symbol of defiance to the boycott and I couldn't even run.
I started running in Junior High School. I was so slow and uncoordinated the coach set me up with a paper route so that instead of going to work out after school I went to the corner of Providence Ave at Crestline St. and picked up a bundle of 15 newspapers.
Kids as young as twelve CAN run 90 minutes, and they can train hard to run fast, BUT they lose something in training hard at that early age.
