What Is My Potential

Audio Transcript

Coach Jeff: Hi everybody and welcome back to the Runners Connect Extra Kick Podcast. I’m with you here on a Thursday. I’m excited to answer some listeners questions and get the ball rolling.

Today’s question is from Amar.

Amar: Hey Runners Connect. I’m a teenage runner and I’ve just joined cross country. I got like 28 minutes. Not the best time. Do you think it’s possible to get this up to 20 in 1 or 2 years?

Jeff: Well thank you so much Amar for giving us this question. I’m excited to chat with a high schooler who’s getting into running and going to hopefully build a lifetime love of running like I have and like many of the listeners here have as well.

To answer the specific question, that’s definitely very difficult. I did a survey the other day for our master’s membership and I asked members what they want and what content they wanted the most.

A lot of the responses, I would say maybe 25-30% were like questions on how do I know like what my potential is? As I get older, am I going to be able to qualify for Boston or you that kind of thing.

One of the reasons that we haven’t created a lot of content on it is that it is very difficult to know for sure. There’s just so many factors that go into what your potential is and how quickly you’re going to improve.

There’s physical limitations, there’s your ability or talent level and talent, when we look at running, is into two avenues or columns.

There’s just straight up talent for running like how good at running you are and then there’s also talent for being able to train.

There are some athletes who are unbelievably talented from a performance perspective but get injured a lot or just can’t put in the training to continue to take themselves to the level where their potential could be.

Basically, like no matter who you are, it’s a super difficult question to answer.

We can apply some formulas and say if you are in your first couple years of running and then this is how much you might be able to improve, but there’s going to be a ton of factors that go into that.

I think there are somethings that we can look at from a training perspective that I think if you have this question or question your potential ability, you maybe you can help apply to your training.

First is going to be changing your approach to the question What is my potential? changing it to I want to focus on the next logical step in my development.

What I mean by that is instead of focusing on a specific goal or can I get to this point or whatever it may be, focus on the process of what it might be to get there or reach your potential.

For example, if you’re currently running 20-25 miles a week, the next process in your development might be to try to get your mileage to 30-35 miles a week over the next year.

Focus on that being the goal and then what’ll happen is that if you get to that goal, then you’re going to see your times improve.

Then you can say after you hit that goal or you’ve got comfortable at that mileage, you can make another goal in terms of what’s the next logical process for me.

It doesn’t always have to be mileage.

If you’re maybe you’re an older runner or whatever maybe like mileage might not be the next step in your development. it could be learning how to do race specific workouts.

It could be doing long runs if you’re doing a marathon. It could be long runs that are fast finish or with surgeries or something like that. It could be improving your speed and pace at shorter distances.

There’s always something in our training that we can work on and that we make better.

I think instead of focusing so much on what our potential is and or can I get a Boston qualifier in a year, focus on what you need to do in your training to get better and to take a step towards getting there.

Once you make that step, then you work on the next step.

Then over time, you’ll either know you’ll get there and you’ll feel like you’re making progress or you won’t and then you’re going to have to start reevaluating whether that makes sense as a goal for you or not.

Because there’s just no coach that you could ask unless it’s a very simple question or a very simplistic formula that you know.

For example, if you run your first marathon on 20 miles a week and ran 3.30 and you need 3.25 to qualify, you’re probably going to be able to run 3.25.

But if you’re like Amar here, who has run 26 minutes and is looking to maybe break 20, a little bit tougher to tell because we don’t know what your training is going to look like and what your potential might be.

I think if you focus on that steps and you’re going to go from there.

The second thing I’ll say is I think for young runners and runners who are maybe just getting into running in the first couple of years should focus on developing a foundation.

What I mean by Foundation is to be able to train at the level that you want to be able to train it to hit your goals. I think Greg McMillan was the one that said this best.

I believe his exact quote was “Your focus in the first couple years should be improving your ability to be able to train.” You train to be able to train harder.

I know that sounds a little odd but basically what you’re trying to do is established. A foundation for what you’re going to build your potential off.

When I think of that, I think of two things primarily. One being basically aerobic development, you’re mileage.

Being able to run a weekly volume that’s going to be consistent with probably what you need to hit your goal.

However, it might be working to increase that mileage. Second, it’s going to be developing I look at it as strength but really, it’s developing a body that is going to be able to handle the rigors of training.

Getting in the strength work, making sure that there are no limitations, whether it be a strengthening issue, a weakness, a muscle not firing the way it should be, I think if you can work on those early on in your training process, that’s going to establish that foundation for you to be able to do harder training down the road.

What’ll happen is as you’re a new runner, you’re going to improve rapidly and then are going to get to a point where your results start to even out a little bit and there’s a diminishing return on how quickly you improve.

When you hit that inflection point, you want to have a foundation and the ability to be able to train so that you can take your training to that next level.

That’s what I mean about focusing on the foundation first.

I know that that was a very general answer to a specific question, but I hope it gives some background to why it’s so difficult to ask the question Do you think I can run x?

Unless there’s a detailed training history there that we can go on and make a good judgment, that’s a tough question to answer.

I think we can put processes in place during your training to make it happen and to allow you to see as you go along whether that’s something that’s feasible for you or not.

I hope you enjoyed that, probably, deeper philosophical answer to the question.

I hope even if you’re out wondering how fast you can go, I think we all do in our heads though, it gives you a different way to frame that question or that approach to your running process.

Thank you so much guys. I hope you have an awesome Thursday, I appreciate you listening to us today and have an awesome run.