What does elite athlete training entail?
Love for what you are doing for one.
Number, two a tenacious, almost fanatical desire to excel at your speciality.
Mine as been the marathon. I've run every distance from the mile to the marathon but it is the marathon that has posed the biggest challenge.
There is nothing fun about elite athlete training. An elite athlete, to me, is anyone who can run under the 3 hour marathon barrier.
Of course, if you are caught up with times of the top .05% of the world's runners that can break 2:04:00 for the distance you won't consider a sub 3 marathon elite.
What Elite Athlete Training Is Not
Elite athletic training is not for the interested. Athletic performance training success will come from your diligence and drive. There is no easy way around results in this sport.
There is a massive difference between interest versus commitment.
I trained from 2002 to 2017 training specifically for the marathon and got involved with running at the age of 15 in 1992.
You have to be a bit fanatical to want to be an elite athlete. Is it selfish to want to give so much time to something you care so deeply for?
I don't think so. You're on this Earth once (that we know of) and your life is precious. We were not put on this earth to pay bills and die.
Elite athletes have found something they love whether it be painting, running marathons, helping other people or something else.
They are not half-assed about it either. They are all in, fully committed to the task.
How Can I Become An Elite Runner?
Do not rely on your talent alone.
Elite athlete training demands far more than that.
The talented athlete that chooses to slack will be beaten on race day by someone very well-prepared with minimal talent.
I've lost count of the amount of runners over the years I've lived and trained with who had far more talent than I.
Not many of them have broken the sub-2:20 marathon barrier like I did. Elite athlete training got me there. It is the type of training that disregards the fact there is a blizzard going on outside.
It doesn't care you its is raining or if you put in 50 or 150 miles in a week. Peak performance only comes from 100 percent commitment.
There are fitness training programs here at RunDreamAchieve I have created to help runners get faster results.
To train at an elite level you absolutely must have a legitimate training schedule. One that trains you in a specific way to get a specific result.
A sub 3 hour marathon is a time barrier less than 2 percent of all marathoners achieve each year around the world.
It is an elite time and the further you go below the sub 3 hour marathon the harder the training and more focus you will need.
Definitely check out the RunDreamAchieve Academy where I cover specific strategies to break the 2.30, 3 hour, 3.30 and 4 hour marathon barriers. Invest in your personal development and take your running to the next level.
Performance Training
Optimal performance comes from a nearly perfect executed plan.
Prior to running 2:19:35 my best marathon was 2:40:02.
The willingness and desire to break 2:20:00 was always there but what does the elite athlete do in order to drop over 21 minutes?
A complete change in the methodology of your training, especially how you conduct your long run.
This is one of the biggest hindrances for many marathoners seeking to break both the 3 and 4 hour marathon barriers.
Athletes of all backgrounds are capable of elite level training. It is that they second guess themselves when they don't get the results they want fast enough.
It is also not spending enough time below their goal race pace. You can run 100 miles per week too slow and still not come close.
Running success is not dependent upon quantity. There are plenty of athletes who can run a lot of miles. It takes skill and tact to run fast for long periods of time. This elite athlete training aspect cannot come from long, slow easy miles.
It comes from getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. leave a comment below and let me know about your own elite athlete training routine. Are you a runner? Triathlete? Ultra runner?
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