Becoming a Body Whisperer

Three workouts to help you learn to listen to your body's signals

By Lorraine Moller
As featured in the November 2010 issue of Running Times Magazine

The principle of feeling-based running, one of the five principles that define Lydiard training, and its attendant ability to listen to the body, is often overlooked and undervalued as a running skill worthy of developing, especially in a world where runners are becoming increasingly dependent on technology. Three particular workouts help develop that ability.

Simon Martin, an experienced and keen masters runner, was looking to celebrate his 55th year with a sub-5:00 mile. But when we met last year he was feeling perplexed and discouraged. The more attention he paid to training detail and the more effort he dedicated to his workouts, the slower he was running and the farther from sight his goal was becoming. By his calculations he should have been yielding better results. Simon was beginning to consider whether "old age" had finally gotten its grip on him.

"Any ideas from a Lydiard perspective?" he asked.

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A Marathon Runner who has run out of gas just 3km into a training run

Question:  Name the runner, the event and the date
and post your answer below

I have been under way with my training since this advice and it has been going well. I am doing a 1 hour run on Tuesdays and Thursdays with my longer run on Saturdays which I’m up to 2hrs and building up to 3hrs over the next few weeks. I headed off for my 1hr long run yesterday which should have been a piece of cake. It was a flat course and I was taking it easy, but could not get moving to well. After about 3km my legs went to jelly and I basically hit the wall. I then carried on for another km or so and then realised this was not going