Running mistakes I still make, even as a badass runner!

I consider myself a badass runner these days! I’m a 60–70 miles a week runner, a sub-three hour marathon runner, a sub 5.30 min/mile runner! My running has improved dramatically in the last year and a half and I continue to improve.

But I still make quite a lot of mistakes. For example,

• I run when I’m sick. It doesn’t happen often, but it happened a few times. Of course, if I have a fever, I wouldn’t run — it’s impossible. But I’ve run with heavy colds and flu-like symptoms. Actually, I’ve been sick for the last couple of days — sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches. Maybe it’s damn omicron! Today I made myself go for a run. The first few miles were awful, but then I warmed up. Ended up doing 9 miles and even some minor intervals towards the end. I say it’s a mistake to run when feeling unwell, but the reason I still do is that I always feel like I cleanse myself with running. Maybe I do… Or maybe I’m stupid to put a strain on my body when it’s working on fighting a virus.
• Having too many hard runs. I vary my runs like I should — interval training, recovery runs, tempo runs, long runs, and so on. However, I have a tendency to do too many hard runs. For example, I do three hard sessions (intervals) a week, instead of two. Also sometimes I’d run extra miles at too fast a pace, just because I’m feeling good. A week ago, on Tuesday, I ran 14 miles at a 6.48 min/mile pace. In fairness, in the preceding three days I hadn’t run because I had to drive from California to…