Overwhelmed with how to start? A three step process for putting my running tips into action.

Let's do a quick review of everything I have been talking about over the last 10 days:

January 16: How to alter your mindset to no longer fear hills.
January 17: How to incorporate hills into your training.
January 18: How to improve your running economy without hill sprints.
January 19: Sign up for challenging races if you want to master your race preparation skills.
January 20: Have a back up plan in case a mis-marked course tries to spoil your pacing strategy.
January 21: Progressively overload your workouts by timing your recoveries.
January 22: Don't sabotage yourself in the days leading up to your big race.
January 23: You should evenly pace your race for a shot at your best performance.
January 24: Train specifically when you do high quality/top end work.
January 25: Don't set race day expectations without knowing the race day conditions.
-- (Everything can be found at https://blog.stryd.com/, if you need a recap)

It is easy to get overloaded and overwhelmed with a huge amounts of tips.

How do you put all these together?

Well, here is a three step action plan to tie them all together.

#1. Do hill sprints once per week

Minimally, you should start doing some hill sprints once per week. You should measure the recovery, intensity, and repetitions of each session and record those. You want to progressively improve on those numbers.

If you want advice on how to start doing hill sprints, start here on the Stryd Power Podcast>>

#2. Study your upcoming race course, now

You should sit down with a sheet of paper and plot out your race course. You should understand the challenging parts and how you will alter your training to prepare for those sections. Additionally, you should understand what the weather will be like and what the surface conditions will be like.

#3. Practice even pacing in your training runs

You should practice even pacing during every easy and long run you do. Remember, this is not about running at the same speed from start to finish. It is about running at an even intensity.

You should note how your pace changes as you run up and down hill when trying to keep an even intensity.. You will realize that you do not need to be glued to your pace number from start to finish if your goal is to improve your pacing.

There you have it.

There is your simple three step plan to put my last ten tips into action.

It takes time and repetitions to master these skills.

However, one of the best ways to quickly get better at these skills is to run with power.

For #1: Running power makes hill running a lot easier since you know the intensity you are running at on the hills.

For #2: Running power makes race day simulation a lot easier since you can practice running with your power target in the same conditions (temperature, humidity, surface conditions) you expect to see on race day.

For #3: Running power makes even pacing a lot easier since you can just directly follow a single number as your guide through the hills.

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