"I Don't Feel Fit"

Fine-tuning your race fitness
By Brad Hudson
As featured in the October 2009 issue of Running Times Magazine
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After a bad race or two, or a spell of sub-par training, it's common to think, "I don't feel fit." Unfortunately, it's also common to resolve to ramp up your training in all areas to fix the problem. That approach, however, neglects the fact that "I don't feel fit" isn't a specific enough diagnosis to determine the right training adjustments. What you need to know is what aspect of your running fitness is falling short. Once you know that, then you'll know far more precisely how to alter your training to get back on the road to peak performance.

Your fitness can fail to measure up to the expectations you had when you designed your training plan in essentially three ways. Your aerobic fitness, your neuromuscular fitness or your specific endurance could lag too far behind the other two components of your running fitness. The following table provides a concise summary of signs that your fitness is possibly off track in one of these three ways. See Fitness Factors Defined for a better understanding of what I mean by aerobic fitness, neuromuscular fitness and specific endurance.

Signs that your AEROBIC FITNESS is lagging

  • You fatigue faster than you feel you should during long runs
  • You feel fast in speed-interval workouts, but you fatigue after just a few intervals
  • In threshold workouts, your legs seem to want to go faster than your lungs can handle
 
Signs that your NEUROMUSCULAR FITNESS is lagging

  • You feel sluggish in your speed workouts
  • You feel weak when running uphill
  • In threshold runs, your breathing is under control but your legs feel heavy
 
Signs that your SPECIFIC ENDURANCE is lagging
  • You have trouble sustaining your goal race pace in specific endurance workouts
  • You fatigue faster than you should in specific endurance workouts
  • You don't perform as well as expected during a time trial at or near your goal race pace
  • You perform poorly in a tune-up race

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