Running PRs and the Thrill of Middle-Distance Track Races

This week’s podcast features a coaching call with a runner named Bradford.

After a year of fast racing, Bradford had a taste of success and is looking to make continued improvement as a new master’s runner. Having recently turned 40, Bradford set some challenging but realistic goals for the year ahead: run a sub-3 marathon and qualify to run Boston in 2024.

Bradford lives in Washington, DC and often runs several workouts each week with a local club of competitive athletes. While these structured workout sessions have enabled him to achieve fast times in the 5k and half marathon, Bradford is wondering how best to juggle all the elements of training for his first marathon.

Bradford and I talk about his past and current training and plan for how he can achieve his goals in the years ahead. While he is doing a lot of things right, we discuss ways he can make continued progress, including:

• How to alter his current schedule of workouts
• The importance of race selection when setting a challenging goal
• Why more mileage is so key to his marathon goal
• Using tuneup races to evaluate his fitness
• How to fit strength training into a busy schedule

Often we think about what we're doing wrong in training. This is a fun discussion on how to keep improving when you're already on the right track. Enjoy!

Join Team Strength Running to be able to come on the podcast for these coaching calls!

Don't miss our other coaching call episodes:

• How to Escape a Running Rut
• How to Fix Knee Pain
• Running And Lifting: How Elizabeth Does Both As A Sub-3 Marathoner

Links & Resources from the Show:

• Learn more about running your fastest marathon as a master
• Engineering a marathon PR as master’s runner
• See how High Performance Lifting can benefit your running
• Run coaching to help you set new PRs

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