 Hey guys, today we're going to talk about three things that you should never do as a runner. Okay, if you want to be consistent with your training and stay injury-free and set new PRs, etc. There are three things that you should really avoid in your training. Okay, so stay tuned. All right, so today's topic is going to be about three rules. I'm going to call them rules rather than principles. Things that you definitely just need to avoid doing if you want to stay injury-free. Runners are often played with injuries just because there's so much impact compared to something like cycling or swimming where we got to really pay attention to some important principles in order to avoid injury. And if we can avoid injury, we can train consistently and train inconsistently and getting that continuity is really key if you want to be any good at running. Like if there's one golden fountain of running, it's continuity. Okay, persistent continuity over time. But that's only possible if you avoid injury. All right, so let's jump right into it. As always, there are exceptions to a rule. Right, we'll get into that. But these are rules that most of the time should be strict. First rule. Don't do back-to-back hard days. What's a hard day? A hard day is any day where you're stressing your body a little bit more than usual. Right, so most of your runs should be easy, relaxed, not that long. But once or twice or even three times a week, depending on the level you're at, you might go out for a harder run, maybe an interval session, a tempo run, or maybe a longer run. And remember, even though you're going slow and easy on your long runs, there's still a hard day because they're long. That's the whole point. So if you're going longer than usual or harder than usual, we could classify that as a hard day. That means you've got to recover afterwards. So now if you suddenly go out the next day after doing that hard or long day and you hit it again, another long run or another hard day, or maybe you did a hard interval session one day and then the next day you head out for a long run, that's back-to-back hard days in my definition. And that's risky. Okay, first of all, what's the point? Right, are you really at that level where you need to just stack hard days on hard days? Are you really at the level where you can handle that? Probably not, right? Most of us are not. So instead of doing that, think of it instead like, well, you just did a hard effort, hard day, now give yourself a day to recover, maybe a day off or easy training, right? Just to allow your body to actually make the adaptations and recover and absorb the training that you just did. There's no rush in doing another hard day. Give it a day or two or three and then get out there again for a hard or long effort, right? Don't do back-to-back hard days. That's a good rule to have just because the injury risk is just through the roof on that second day when you head out and run hard or long just after having done it the day before. Big injury risk. A lot of people can still handle it, maybe, probably for that one time or maybe next time, but it's just a risky business. You're playing with fire, so to speak. Why do that when you can instead just give yourself the necessary time to recover and come back and get it again in a few days? Work on that long game, consistency over time. That's what is all about. There's no need to sort of crush it in two days and then have a week off because you got injured. Don't do hard days back-to-back. There are exceptions there. People trained for ultramarathons. They tend to do that sometimes, back-to-back long runs, for example. But in that case, it's part of the plan. It's well thought through. It's the decision that's been made. We are going to do that and then there's probably a lot of recovery afterwards and probably also a lot of easy days right before in order to be able to handle that back-to-back long run period over two days. It's a conscious decision and that's kind of different, although for most people, I think in most situations, even then, it's better to avoid it. That was the first one. Second rule is don't make emotional decisions while on a run. When I say emotional decisions, I'm really referring to, oh my God, I feel so good today. I'm just going to hammer it. I'm just going to go hard. Even though my plan says easy and I know I should be running easy today, maybe I had a hard day yesterday, right? That's the back-to-back hard day thing. Or maybe a few days ago, I had a hard run and actually have a good hard session planned for tomorrow, but I'm just feeling so good. Oh, this is so great. I'm just going to go hard up this hill or something like that. Those sort of emotional decisions are rarely smart because you're out there and you're sort of high on that running high, if you will. You're not necessarily thinking clearly in terms of the overall picture. When you're sitting at the table and actually working on your training plan, that's when you see, okay, here's this session, here's that session, this is the week, where am I in terms of my overall paradisation plan, cycle plan? What are we doing in the next few days? What did we do in the last few days? And then you can sort of, based on that, in a sober state of mind, if you will, make good decisions about when to do the hard sessions, when to do the long sessions and how to sort of time the recovery in between. Whereas when you're out there running, sometimes you can sort of fall victim to being emotionally charged and just doing something hard. And a lot of the time that you can end up just always doing hard days, almost. A lot of people do that. They sort of, rather than running their easy day easy, and their hard days hard, they're always running their days with some hard elements in them. And they're never actually able to do a solid hard day because they've never been able to recover enough to do that because they're always hitting it hard in some way or another. So instead of doing that, instead of suddenly going hard on an easy run, or deciding that, oh, I feel so good, I'm going to go twice as long today, twice as far, and it ends up being a long run, there's a reason why probably you had a plan in the first place and you have your long run plan for Saturday. And if it's Thursday and you just had a hard run on Tuesday and you have your long run on Saturday or something, could be any schedule, but I'm just using that as an example. Rather than going long suddenly then on Thursday, trust the plan, trust the process and say, you know what, I've got that long run on Saturday, I don't need to go long today, let's stick to the plan. Okay, so stick to the plan. The exception here would probably be in the other direction, in an emotional state where you're like, I don't feel like running right now or I can't, maybe my body just doesn't feel right, it's too long or I'm too tired or maybe I've got a pain or something. That's when you actually want to cut down on the run or just abort or even skip the run altogether. So that's okay, but in the direction of doing more or running harder than planned, tell yourself, okay, great, I feel good, but I'm going to stick to the plan and when I get home, I'm going to sit down with the plan, I'm going to consider, is this plan too easy for me? Maybe if I could have handled a hard run today because I felt like that, maybe that's what I need to do next week. So you could, you could again, you know, update the plan to fit your experience. And if you notice over time that you can, like every Thursday, two days after your hard run, you're ready for another hard run and you can still do your long run on Saturday or Sunday. Well, then maybe that's a good idea than changing the plan a little bit. But out on the run, making those decisions, ideally not. And of course, if you are interested in help with this process, making a training plan, knowing when to do what, when to run hard, when to run long, when to run easy, why? I am a running coach, I would love to help you out with that. I offer customized training plans, online training, consultations, that sort of thing. So go check out my coaching link in the description below if you're interested in personalized running coaching. The third rule is never force anything. Okay, soon as you get to a point where you need to force yourself to do something, you're on thin ice, right? Your body is maybe trying to tell you something, maybe it's just too much training, it's a little bit overtired maybe, overreaching a little bit, maybe it's time to step it down a little bit. Or if you have pain or something, don't force it. Because a lot of times we runners, we get sort of compulsive about our running, like we need to do our runs, like we got to get the kilometers in, got to get the miles in. And that's, you know, part of it is good because it's persistence and drive and focus, hard work. But it could also make us prone to injury, overtraining, and that sort of thing. So if there's any doubt about whether or not you should do a run or not, you should probably err on the side of caution and not do it and just do it tomorrow instead. Just give yourself that extra rest day, or maybe do a shorter run than planned, or instead of a hard session, maybe just go for an easy run, be flexible with your plan, essentially. And if at any point, and this is actually the most important thing in this last rule, if at any point you know that you shouldn't run, maybe you have a pain, it's come up, and you know this pain, you know it'll lead to an injury, or it's the beginning of injury, or it's a lingering injury. You know what it is, you know it's super risky, but you're just so sick of that injury, you just want to run, you're just going to ignore it, you're just going to ignore it and just push through and just, you know what, I'm just going to go and do the interval session anyway. That sort of attitude can come up a lot with runners, I've noticed it in myself too, and that's the worst thing you can do. You cannot insist on running if your body is telling you it can't. You just got to deal with reality right there, and then the sooner you can accept the situation, the better. So I've gotten to a point now where I'm able to just, as soon as there's something, some structural issue or whatever, I just pull the plug, whether that's just cutting down on that run or skipping it altogether, taking a couple of days on the bike or just off completely, I'm able to do that, and by doing that I'm just eliminating this, nipping it in the bud, right, so to speak. So that's really important, don't force anything. And that's it for the three-year rules. Quickly summing up, don't do back-to-back hard days, just don't do it, just spread it out a little bit more, much better. Don't make emotional decisions on the run. Stick to the plan, trust the plan, and if over time you realize that the plan isn't good enough for you and you could do more, and you're constantly experiencing that while out on the run, go back to the drawing board, change the plan, but just don't make those sudden decisions out on a run. And thirdly, don't force anything. Listen to your body, don't ignore the signs just because you're tired of your ankle saying, I'm painful or anything like that, right? You gotta listen to that little voice. That's it. Comment down below if you have any questions or if you have any comments to this, any thoughts on the topic. You have any more rules maybe that you use that are good to stick to? Post them down in the comment. Check out my coaching link as well. I'm wishing you a great day, happy running, and stay tuned for the next video. Thanks for watching. Bye.