Lately there have been many comments about my new found form but with all things running there really is no secret to a winning formula. It really is just hard work. You can sugar coat it with different training methods, diet changes or weight loss but truth be told it all comes down to hard work. I’ll say it one more time so you don’t miss the point, hard work.

There are people who will always quote the ‘work smarter, not harder’ saying at you but with running the work smarter option will not get the same results. I’ve read books on ‘run less, run faster’ as well as books saying ‘run slower to run faster’. Sometimes you feel these authors are just bucking the trend and putting new ideas out there to sell more copies of their books. I mean who’s going to buy a book that says ‘Running is the most honest sport in the world, you get out what you put in’, it really is that easy.

Obviously if you work hard AND work smarter you will see better results so all you coaches out there, relax, you still have a role to play but relying on coaches alone without putting in the hard yards accomplishes nothing. I have pushed adding time on legs and distance in the last few weeks so this will be the last post on the subject and I’ll start to run though my golden rules for marathon success.

This morning when I awoke at 5am I was so tired and that dragged myself out of bed and was 50/50 when faced with putting on my running gear. I am always reminded of a famous Brendan Foster quote

“All top international athletes wake up in the morning feeling tired and go to bed feeling very tired.”

I actually normally reverse that and wake up really tired but normally go to bed just tired.

Steve Ovett backs up my statement about running being an honest sport but also puts a positive point to counter the initial findings.

“You find out a lot about yourself through athletics. If you’re cut out to be a winner or a failure or a quitter, athletics will bring it out of you. You’re always stripping yourself down to the bones of your personality. And sometimes you just get a glimpse of the kind of talent you’ve been given. Sometimes I run and I don’t even feel the effort of running. I don’t even feel the ground. I’m just drifting. Incredible feeling. All the agony and frustration, they’re all justified by one moment like that.”

I agree with Steve, sometimes when you run you really do feel like you are floating and you can just enjoy the changing scenery as you glide along. I must admit this doesn’t happen very often as remember the hard work bit I mentioned earlier, that can scupper these feeling of running euphoria. When it happens though enjoy it because it is what we all train for and maybe this is the ‘runners high’ we all talk about but seldom experience.