Dave Byrne – Building the Phonebook

19 January 201419 January 2014 The Long Run

Improvements in distance training are a long-term thing, especially if I want to run an ultra. Results don’t come overnight. It’s a lesson I’ve been given not through experience, but more from the wise words of the likes of Ken Green and Chris Wardlaw. They have a saying that goes something along the lines of: “To get fit you need to build a phonebook. Think of every run you do as adding a page to it. Once you’ve got the yellow pages, you’ll be fit.” Nowadays, the old phonebook is a thing of the past, yet the basics of getting truly fit haven’t changed.

Both these well-respected coaches also preach the need to string together as many consecutive days of running as possible, even if it’s just a case of getting out of an evening for 25 minutes of shuffling. As a youngster this wasn’t possible. I needed the weekly day off in order to recover and also because I liked the occasional night on the turps that meant I required a day to get over it! Now though, I hate the idea of drinking heavily or going to a club. I’m more akin to a couple of beers at home and a good DVD. The benefit of this newfound attitude (One which I wish I had 10 years ago!) is that I can get more training done. Also, I find that if I do have a day off, the following day my legs ache, particularly my Achilles.

This week saw a continuing commitment to my phonebook as well as the goal of not missing a day. Incidentally I also managed to run my biggest week ever. It was achieved despite nursing a recurring hamstring injury. I pulled up terribly sore from my previous Sunday’s effort and had to nurse myself through the week. But thanks to the healing hands of Gary Howard I got my running legs back for the weekend. That said, I eased through the first half of the week so I could crank the quality on the Thursday and Saturday.

Week ending Jan 18^th