Pressure
On the latest Morning Shakeout podcast, host Mario Fraioli and Simon Freeman were considering pressure runners put on themselves to train and ultimately perform. During this podcast they watched the 1500 meter Olympic final where Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who had won the gold in 2021, was favored to repeat. They speculated he may have been feeling the pressure as he uncharacteristically led from the gun and was passed by three runners in the final stretch. It seems he had consumed too much energy to withstand the final sprint. Interestingly, four days later he won the 5000 by reverting to his normal pattern of running in the pack and taking off the last 600 meters. Fraioli and Freeman are youngsters, 41 and 49, but they are now at the point where their best times are behind them, something any senior runner can relate to. Where they came out on this is that pressure, at least for them as recreational runners, comes largely if not entirely from what they put on themselves rather than from what others expect them to do.
Fast forward to our senior years, what role might pressure play in our ability to continue to train and race? Certainly, there is some benefit of putting ourselves to the task, whether this be completing a hard workout, running a strong race, or doing a long run. This involves compulsion, a synonym for pressure. Compulsion is internally driven and if we don’t feel it, it’s hard to get much done. It takes this internal pressure to get us out the door to train or compete.
By its very nature, running fast creates pressure — at any age. Our heart rate and blood pressure rise, and we are faced with continual decisions of whether to hold fast, push the pedal down further, or let up a bit. Each of these actions might make sense at different times. We know if we exert ourselves, we are going to feel discomfort. That doesn’t change with age. What may change is our ability and perhaps our resolve to sustain the discomfort. This can be due to a greater RPE, or rate of perceived exertion. We may feel that discomfort sooner and find it’s slower to dissipate.
This invokes one of the cardinal rules of senior running; the gap between intense efforts needs to lengthen. We simply can’t go to the well as often as in younger years when perhaps every race was an all-out effort. Spacing out these maximal efforts can be a reasonable strategy for the senior runner looking to compete in 16 to 20 races a year. We can think about the difference felt when lining up to drive an optimal pace compared to using a race as a tempo run. It’s a whole different feel and results in a vastly different level of physical and mental wear and tear.
For sure, the type and source of pressure we senior runners feel will be different than that experienced by Olympic runners. We may feel pressure to prove to ourselves or others that we are staying ahead of the aging curve, either by achieving a certain race time or place, or age grade percentage. At times we may succumb to the pressure to race or train hard when we are recovering from injury, such that we set ourselves back. Who among us can honestly say that hasn’t happened!
Pressure can work in our favor too. For example, having team members counting on us can encourage us to train and show up at races. And through our training, we should have a sense of how hard we can go out in a race to avoid crawling to the finish, feeling depleted. As with most things, some pressure is good and too much is, well, too much.