Quote of the Day — Lydiard on Hard Training and Performance
“You cannot train hard and perform well simultaneously.” — Arthur Lydiard
Too many runners believe they must train very hard all the time to race well. They end up doing too much and under perform on race day. The best runners train hard, but understand timing is everything.
It’s easy to over train. Simply do as much as possible for as long as possible — until your body gives out. But as we all know, good training is about balance. Rest compliments stress to foster growth. Our bones, tendons, and muscles are not able to adapt overnight to the cumulative stress of hard training.
Racing when in a period of hard training is counter productive. The body is not fully recovered and the race performance will be poor, inflecting unnecessary damage on the body but, more importantly, on an athlete’s confidence.