It's one of the most common problems we encounter as coaches. Runners that aren't hitting the consistency achieved by sustainable training. Athletes that are highly motivated and super enthusiastic are often the first to get injured.

Neither of these attributes are bad things, but they certainly need to be channelled in the right way. Athletes that push too hard, too often during training quickly lead to burnout.

The key to training is to be consistent over a long period of time. Finding the perfect balance between training stress and training recover that allows you to achieve the maximum adaption. Remember, as athletes you're not trying to train the hardest, you're trying to adapt the most. And there's a big difference there! If you're pushing beyond your limits and into the reserves all of the time, you're unlikely to be able to absorb the training, so this will be having a negative effect.

You won't be able to sustain a high quality work load over a longer period of time. And sustainable training is the key to smashing your targets.

So what is sustainable training? And what do we mean? Well, when it comes to the intensity of your sessions, you'll need to keep sustainability in mind. Smashing the best session you've ever done is great, but if you can't do it every week, is it really adding value? If you've pushed so hard it takes 5 days to recover from the effort, was it worth it in the first place?

You have to keep the bigger picture in mind to keep up the momentum and the consistency. A few extra seconds per rep isn't going to make a huge difference when you come to race, but being injured for 2/3 weeks because you pushed a touch too far is going to set you back a lot.

What you accomplish over a period of weeks or months is much more beneficial than the huge PB you ran in training that left you unable to train at your best for a week. These "hero" sessions really do set us back.

Here are a few of simple ways to make your training more sustainable:

1 - Have defined easy and hard days. You won't be able to have many hard days in a week. You'll have to allow sufficient time between these days to let your body recover. And hard doesn't just have to be fast, the training stress can be equally high from a very long run.

2 - Manage the intensity of your session. Finish the session knowing you could have added more volume or slightly more intensity if you needed to. You never want to be fully on the limit in training, that's where the most damage happens. Keep something in the tank. This way you'll be reaping the full benefit of the session, but not adding any risk of injury.

3 - Take recovery seriously. Training is the fun part, and running easy all the time isn't a sexy solution. But if you take your recovery seriously, and run the easy sessions easy, when it comes to running fast you'll be able to push yourself much further. If you turn up to your hard sessions already half cooked, you're not helping anyone!

If you have any questions or you'd be interested in getting a coach, get in touch.