The Training Program is Schroender's Cat

Despite what is written out for a training program on day Number 1, it is still a black box. Much like poor Schroeder’s Cat who is might be alive or might be dead (but for certain is not both), the Training Program might work or not work but that’s about the extent of the similarities that I am going to draw with training programs and quantum mechanics for now.

A training program, unlike the question of poor Schroender’s Cat, is not a reductio ad absurdum, it is something dynamic that has been thought out by someone at some level at some point in time and probably has some real life data to back the reasoning. There’s a good probability that it will work, if followed. But following a training program is so much harder to do and even if two people follow the same program results could vary.

If a training program is a predetermined written plan of what to run and when, how Terry can it be… ‘dynamic’. Easy, add a human. A training program becomes dynamic when a runner commits to running that program. That is, a runner takes something factual and makes it actual and we’ve seen that when humans interact with things, all bets are off!

But know that a training program is dynamic at the beginning is a good thing. When we miss a training run, it does not mean that it is the end of the World. Unless it is, literally, The End of the World, a missed run or a reduced mileage will not make trying to run the race futile. Why we missed that run is WAY more important and might be an indicator of something that needs to be addressed more seriously then missing a mid-week 5 mile run. It could be an injury, sickness or a psychological issue that is causing us to feel negative about our performance and those ARE issues that need to be addressed sooner, rather than later!

Change comes with the territory. If you are able to follow a training program from start to finish without missing any workouts, that is so totally awesome. I have learned that, I’m guessing here, probably 99.999999% of all runners training for a marathon have to change their training program to some degree.

So what do you do if you have to change your program for some reason? The answer to that is easy, just ask. There are TONS of experienced runners that are extremely helpful and have probably been in that situation more than once who can offer suggestions on what to do. The bonus is that these runners have gone through the same situation under their own trial and error making them more than willing to share what worked and definitely what didn’t.

I can’t say it enough that you learn SO much more from a less than stellar, or just down right horrible, experience than with a good one. Let me be clear, good experience are essential, but we LEARN so much more from bad experience which, in turn, increases our good ones.

My next post, probably on Monday Dec 5th, will have my Georgia Marathon training program, and I’ll pick it apart.

 

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