Through the years of coaching and my own running career, I have come to see the following points as key to training and running smart.
Journal – This is your history book to your training and map to guide your future.
Its better to under-train then to over-train – This rule applies to those who are motivated and dedicated to training.
Remember The Three Too's – Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast. When you achieve this, you will get injured; therefore, remember rule number one and two when planning.
Volunteer Rest Is Better Than Forced Rest – Choosing to rest/unload your training volume after a good training session, a week or weeks of high volume provides more benefits than waiting too late to rest/unload. Otherwise the body will force you to rest through one of The Terrible Three’s: sickness, injury, and the aspect of life, family and work demanding you come back into their lives.
Respect your genetic ability – Pay attention to your cardiovascular, muscular and skeletal makeup.
Emotional Resilience is Key – No matter how bad you want something; have the ability to stand back and plan and execute within reason, and not based on desire or the euphoria of training or racing well.
What to bring on race day.
Course profile knowledge
Six weeks of good sleeping and fueling.
Game Plan
The ability to alter and change The Game Plan in real time.
The ability to draw on emotions and to have control of those emotions
Overall the key is to keep your emotions in check. I have been coaching long enough to see most clients at one point let their emotions guide their training decision and later learn that those emotions did not gain them anything in the long run, but rather set them back.