Base Camp
First step to your peak
By Jonathan Beverly, Andy Palmer, Ph.D.
As featured in the December 2000 issue of Running Times Magazine
To maintain focus during this training, we can concentrate on running efficiently, even when running at a slower pace or fatigued. Many good runners turn over at 90 rpm (take 90 steps per foot per minute) at whatever speed they are running. Developing the neural firings that make this second nature is done through repetition. We can also add strides to the ends of our runs, taking care that they are relaxed, natural and playful, not intense and straining.
Eventually the fatigue of quantity feels good—evidence of our hard work—and recovery is relatively quick, building confidence that lets us add to the quantity. The biggest motivator is success: after six months, when we see the results of our patience, it won’t be so hard the next time.
Keep the Summit in Sight
If we were to go to Everest and suffer in the altitude of base camp, we could look up anytime and see the peak in the distance, calling us and telling us why the work is worthwhile. In our own Everests, we need to create similar motivators to remind us of the far-off goal that calls us to take on another day of fatigue. This will be different for each of us: maybe pinning an advertisement, entry form or course map to our office wall, maybe adding to our training graph every day, maybe taping a time goal to our bathroom mirror, maybe making a picture of Everest the opening screen of our computer.
Even when climbing a mountain, however, climbers look up occasionally to be reminded of the goal and ensure they are on the right path, but the majority of their energy is spent on the next step. The next step is the only one we can control. When we feel the goal with such intensity we can taste it, we must pour that intensity into today’s task. We may or may not reach the summit, but we are most likely to if we focus on the step we are taking at the moment and trust that we will take the steps necessary when we reach the next stage.
At the next stage, we will forge higher with extra-distance runs, speed and race pace workouts. And we will be ready for it, having changed our bodies and adapted to a new level of effort. We will be ready to go higher than ever before, and, in the end, all the way to our peak.