Clock the mileage first, clock the timing later

A common fallacy of over-zealous runners is to focus on keeping to a certain speed and trying to run a personal best timing everytime. This may contribute to some of their feel-good factor. Looking at it closely, if every training run is focused at speed, would the runner have sufficient time to adapt or recover for the later stages of training?

When training, u should work towards clocking your desired mileage eventually. That would ensure that u finish the race, at least. Ultimately, your training is to prepare u to finish the race in good stead.

Your trainings should provide gradual increase in distance until u have reached your target race distance or more. The increase is progressive, not abrupt. For 5 to 10km, progressive fortnightly increase of 2 km is good. For 10 to 20 km, fortnightly increase of 3 to 5km is average. Beyond 20 km, it would depend more on individual fitness and limits, usually capped at 7 km maximum.

The build up of mileage is important as your body needs the time and experience to acclimatise to the intensity and raise your endurance. That should be the baseline and foundation u aim for when training. As u get used to running the distance, your body can then channel more energy towards strengthening for speed. U can start working on pushing your muscles to go faster and recover in a shorter time. As u continue this repeated overloading routine, your leg muscles gain the power and efficiency to propel u at higher speeds.

Remember: Only when the foundation of mileage is met, u can think of achieving more speed.