I have to confess that I have a bit of an obsession for buying books about running, predominantly about running training. If I were to pick one area that was consistently undervalued, it would be the holism of training. Many runners obsess about how many miles they’ve done without ever consider what happens during the rest of the week when they are not training. Noakes identifies the four main factors that impact performance when training hard: Eating an appropriate diet Getting the right amount of sleep Avoiding physical effort that it not training related Reducing work stress A professional runner has systems in place to manage these things. Masseurs and physios help with recovery between sessions, diet is closely analysed and … [Read more...]