Look through the sports science and medicine books and you'll find little if anything written for athletes on the benefits of listening to your body. There's no data, research or double-blind studies--not surprising because those benefits are impossible to measure. But when I look back on my own 29 years of running experience, I realize that listening to my body has been--and continues to be--critical to my running success.
What's Hard, What Hurts
As a two-time Olympian, you might think I had training figured out right from the start. Au contraire. Some lessons have had to be learned over and over again. the mistakes have been plentiful, and the greatest ones have occurred when I've forced my body to do more than it could handle. In retrospect, my body had been sending me signals, usually in the form of pain or fatigue, which I had foolishly ignored. The results of disregarding those signs have invariably been more time off from running than if I had simply paid attention and backed off training sooner. For example, in 1985 there were ample and obvious warning signs of overtraining: waking up in the middle of the night with a heart rate of 80 beats per minute, constant fatigue, and poor times in speedwork. At first, my response was to train harder with the rationale that I must not have been in very good shape. After four months of figuratively hitting my head against the wall, I took five easy weeks and came back strong. Enough said.
Backing off when your body tells you to does not imply a lack of toughness, but is actually a willingness to recognize your true physical limits. Kenyan runners have a well-deserved reputation for listening to their bodies, but certainly do not take it easy on themselves. Rather, if a Kenyan runner feels good, she may extend a two-hour run into a two-and-a-half-hour run. Conversely, if her body is struggling on a given day, a planned two-hour run would be cut back. Similarly, when Bill Rodgers gets sick, he doesn't soldier on with a 20-mile run. Instead, he goes home, rests up, and gets well.
When to Cut Back
The key is having the confidence in yourself to know that you will back off only when necessary. If you are afraid that if you cut back your training once or twice it will become a habit, then you will mindlessly push through your training no matter what. This response (or lack thereof) leads to small problems becoming major injuries or illnesses. By ignoring a small injury, 80% of the time you will develop a more serious injury.
When my right plantar fascia became sore, I ignored it. After continued training and a couple of marathons, it eventually needed surgery. The downtime from the injury, surgery and rehabilitation was more than nine months. When my left plantar fascia became sore a year later, stretching, modified shoes and two weeks without speedwork resolved the problem. Even a slow learner eventually catches on!
Learning to Listen
If you never get a minor injury, then chances are that you are not pushing the limits of your running performance. That does not mean that injuries are a badge of honor, but rather that the occasional minor injury is inevitable if you are training hard as a runner. With sensitivity to these aches and pains, you can learn how your body responds to different types of training.
If you really want to maximize your performance, then training through the pain of an injury is counter-productive. A runner who is deaf to signs that he is injured will almost invariably suffer a longer downtime as his now-more-serious injury heals.
You can learn to listen to your body by recording detailed information in your training log. Write down the specifics of how you feel, such as "Right calf sore today, slightly worse than yesterday, particularly running uphill." When you severely strain the calf a few days later, you will see in black and white that your body had been warning you to give the calf a rest. After a few of these episodes, you will eventually learn to recognize your body's signals--and see the wisdom in heeding them.
Listening to your body can also help you modify your training. An intelligent and disciplined runner can recover from minor injury without a complete break from the sport. By gauging your body's responses to running on soft surfaces, changing shoes, or avoiding downhills, you may find that your training can continue while an injury heals. But don't fool yourself: If pain does not go away within the first three minutes of a run, then stop running and cross-train until you can run without pain.
Your body provides you with constant feedback that can help improve your running performance. Learn to differentiate between the discomfort of hard effort and the pain of an injury. Learn to persevere with the former and react intelligently to the latter. After 29 years of running I am still learning...
