By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

A few Mondays ago, I got an urgent text from one of my trained athletes. His workout for today wasn’t in the app; could I tell him what to run? Sure, sometimes it happens, so I checked the app and called him back.

“You are off today,” I said. “You put in a very hard weekend of work, so I gave you a rest day. It is in the app.”

“But I am already at the park,” he said. “Then run 30 minutes super easy”, I replied.

The mistake was harmless enough, and we laughed about it. But it illustrates something I see surprisingly often: runners prepare all sorts of things without first preparing themselves for the workout they are actually supposed to do today.

This is not about the long-term mistakes that can eventually derail your training or lead to injury. This is about today’s run and whether you are prepared to execute it properly. Unfortunately, this happens more often than you may think. I have lost count of how many runners have asked, “What’s up for today, Coach?” when we are already on the move. Baffling!

Being prepared is more than knowing how far or how fast you are supposed to run. It is also thinking through what you will need along the way. I once had a runner at mile 6 of a marathon who realized he had a hole in his pocket and that his gels had been scattered somewhere along the course. I was running with him as part of the half-marathon, so I gave him my nutrition to at least mitigate the problem.

You have no idea how many runners finish a hot summer afternoon training run exhausted and drenched in sweat, only to discover that they do not have water or electrolytes waiting for them. If they did not think to bring water, chances are they did not bring a dry shirt either. They planned the run but failed to plan for what their bodies would need afterward.

Another one I see a lot is running your buddy’s training run instead of yours. You go too fast, too slow; perform repetitions that were deliberately left out of your schedule, or you end up going too long or too short. You may be running together, but you are not necessarily training for the same thing.

Training is a long-term proposition. There are no magic workouts, and a single altered run won’t make or break your training cycle unless it leads to an injury. Occasionally changing a workout to help a friend or simply have some fun is usually not a problem, provided the change is intentional. Accidentally ending up with six one-mile repeats when you were supposed to run a 30-minute recovery session is an entirely different matter. One is flexibility. The other is a failure to prepare.

The gist of today’s writing, and sorry if it feels like a rant (maybe it is), is simple: Prepare for today’s run. Know the purpose of today’s workout, what it requires, and what you will need before, during, and after.

Getting it wrong once will not derail your training. But getting away with it may convince you that preparation does not matter. Repeat that often enough and carelessness becomes a habit, your training loses direction, and your mental toughness begins to erode. Do not wait for the mistake that finally costs you. Prepare for today’s run, today.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one. Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

👇Do you want the key takeaways of this blog post? 👇
👇Click below to watch the video summary 👇

https://youtu.be/klcj53-N0_Q