Why am I doing this session?

“Mmmmm,” the National Coach opined. “I’d rather see you preface that with a hard 15-miler. That’d be a far better endurance session.”

There was silence, and some umms and arrrrs of agreement.

Then I spoke up.

“Why?” I said. “That is the one session in his week when he works to keep his fastest gears in order. You’re missing the whole point of the session.”

You see, even as ultrarunners, we were instructed to keep the speedwork going.

The theory is that all your gears are connected.

If you’re faster at a mile, you’ll be faster at 10km, assuming you do the longer endurance work too; if you’re faster at 10km, you’ll be faster at the marathon; and a faster marathon runner will always beat a slower one over 100km and 24 hours, if their endurance training is similar.

But the main point here is – always know why you are doing a session.

In the early days, of course, you just run. You do this run today, so that, in a few weeks’ time, you will be able to run further or faster or easier.

But, as time goes on, we can add a bit more science.

In terms of a typical jogger/runner, we would encourage them to run a bit further, on some days to run a bit faster, and to build into their weekly programme a clear pattern of hard and easy runs.

“Run a bit faster” then can take on many forms. And here we can bump up against lots of lovely, confusing words like intervals, repetitions, speedwork, tempo, time trials, hills and fartlek.

Fartlek, Steve?

Stop sniggering at the back. It’s a Swedish word meaning speed-play.

I haven’t got space to go into all of these here, but the point I am making is that one should always know why one is doing any given run, workout or session.

And it brings us back to having a target.

In simple terms, if you’ve got a 10km race in a few weeks, you are more likely to go out on a wet Tuesday night and run that 5 miles you have scheduled.

If you have a mile race coming up, you are more likely to do that tough 6 times 60 seconds hard, 60 seconds jog, session. If you are doing a half marathon in eight weeks’ time, you know that your long run of 6 miles is insufficient preparation, so you make plans to run further each Sunday between now and then.

Looking at it from the other end of the equation, the mistake that runners make the most is doing a moderately long, moderately hard run most of the time – and wondering why they’re not improving as fast as they would like.

Any running will of course eventually lead to improvement, but it’s the “outlier” sessions that will bring it fastest.

The human body can only take so much, can only improve at a certain rate, so, yes, most of our runs will be easy to moderate, but it is your once-a-week long run and your once- or twice-a-week speedier sessions that are going to maximise this.

Just as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is one definition of insanity, so running the same speed for the same distance over and over again and expecting massive improvement is also a bit bonkers.

Running is not hugely technical, is it?

Most other sports contain a far higher level of skill than running demands.

Just think of the hand-eye co-ordination involved in ball sports, and even the technique involved in other endurance events such as swimming, cycling and rowing.

In that respect, we are lucky.

There’s not much to get right. Or get wrong.

But you still have to undertake the right mix of work, plus all of the nutrition, hydration and recovery habits that optimise your ability to do the best training.

Two final examples of fairly non-technical, but still well thought-out, training routines, this time from the world of cycling………..

American Greg Lemond won the Tour de France three times (1986, 1989, 1990.) In the winters, he lived in Minnesota, where the snow made cycling difficult, so every morning he would go down to his den, get on his stationary bike and, once warmed up, pedal furiously in the highest gear for rep after rep.

The observer noted that no attention was paid to form – to pedalling in neat cycles, to limiting upper body movement and such. It was all about the effort.

After this, he went cross-country skiing for several hours to build stamina.

The traditional European approach to cycling, even for professionals, was to stick to easy rides in winter, before sharpening with spring races.

Lemond brought many innovations to the sport – like the use of tri-bars – and he felt that most cyclists downplayed the intensity in winter to their detriment, and that this was one way to get ahead of them.

Chris Hoy’s needs as a sprinter were very different from Lemond’s as an endurance cyclist, but the intensity is common to both.

You may have seen the documentary about Hoy’s training before the 2012 Olympics. If you did, you will have seen the crucifying squat sessions and stationary bike intervals that his coach put him through – rendering him unable to walk properly the next day.

Then remember that moment in the keirin final when he was challenged on the last bend by the German rider, Maximilian Levy.

You can almost see the Scottish rider calling on his quads for more power at that point.

Hoy held Levy off and won his sixth Olympic gold – and had Steve Redgrave (only five Olympic golds!) congratulate him in person.

THAT was why he did the squats and the stationary bike intervals.

They were worth it for the 0.06 seconds he won by.

So he certainly knew why he was doing those sessions.