The Test of Time
Q “I’ve been running for eight years, mostly on trail. In the early years I improved a lot, but over the last few, I have not got much better. Truth is, I find it difficult to measure my trail running ability. Any tips?”
— Graham
I think we can safely say that there isn’t a single runner out there who hasn’t been through a period of plateau, or even regression, in their running career.
We start out and get better very quickly. Then we expect that exponential improvement to continue, but this expectation is physically impossible. At some point, the rate of improvement will decline and we will have to get really clever with our training and turn over every stone just to see a comparatively minimal improvement.
The real question that Graham has posed is not what to do to see such improvement, but rather how to measure it. For me, this is absolutely crucial.
