Don’t get me wrong here - in the title of this post I am not referring to the type of pain that has a runner doing permanent damage to a knee or Achilles heel because they decided to “run through” the pain. This is not a good thing to do.

What I do mean is that in the course of training for a running race, there must be some level of discomfort in order to make some gains. This discomfort can come from either running longer distances on a particular day, upping your mileage for the week, running hills, or simply running faster. If it doesn’t hurt once in awhile then I believe that you are not doing it right.

I had one of those runs today. It was short - 4.8-K - but I ran it fast. My normal pace for a run is around 5:45 minute/km. Today I ran a pace of 5:05 minute/km. This was pushing it for me and it was a little uncomfortable to be honest. I was glad when it was over. However, I know that this will make me a better runner and more likely to be able to meet my goal of running at a 5:24 to finish under 4 hours.

I am not saying this should be done every training day - but mixing it up a bit is a good strategy to ensure you shock your body into adapting.