A Balance, Redefined

Work stress must be watched out for with care. Running stress results in a stronger body ONLY IF the recovery is adequate. The moment you put additional work stress into the routine, this upsets the balance. Your ability to recover is reduce, and therefore you should reduce the stress. It might be hard to curb the ambition, but you have to do it, run by how you feel, do not worry about your splits.

One time I was consulting in Texas and was working more than I normally do. That did me in quite well in addition to the stress of being away from home. I tried a tempo run on mild rolling hills, and had a hard time breaking 6:00 putting in a threshold effort - and that at essentially sea level compared to here in Utah! I came home to Utah, and was running normal again - threshold pace on a 1% grade down was 5:15, which would have given me about 5:28 on a course similar to the one I've run in Texas at altitude!

For a while I even thought that I got so used to altitude that I just could not use sea-level air very well. When I went to Phoenix for the relay this year, I was running consistently 10 seconds per mile faster with the same effort compared to Provo. This should give you an idea of how much the work stress can take out of you.