Running - Unlearning to Relearn

The biggest obstacle I have in running is unlearning.  I thought I knew how to run when I was three...I was wrong!

This confusion isn't all my fault, although I personally must take responsibility for my lack of knowledge...All other sports growing up, I just learned by playing...running is different!  I've had to research, learn, relearn, and apply training strategies.

Granted, you don't have to do these things to run, but if you want to get faster, dramatically faster, research, trial and error, and relearning what you thought you already knew is a must, especially in the marathon world!

When I started running, just over five years ago, I couldn't run a full lap around the track without stopping.  The truth is anytime pacing is an issue it is because of a false reality of where we thinkwe are our physical fitness.  I thought, just run the same pace that you use to run the mile in high school and you'll be fine!  Haaaaaa...there are some problems with my strategy.  First, I wasn't 18 anymore, I was nearly 30.  2nd, I wasn't just slightly overweight, and I certainly wasn't in shape from playing other sports.  I was 321lbs of sedentary flesh...ENOUGH SAID!

So the day I went to run, I struggled...I struggled mightly, but eventually I made it around the track, and the next day a bit further...and this cycle continued!

Eventually, simply by repeating this process I got to where I could run a mile just like I did in high school.  Soon I was actually faster then my 18 year old counterpart!

And so I continued this process, never overly focusing on pace, or workouts, but simply running, and relearning how to run steady longer distance.  I also began researching how to become a better runner.

Some of the things I learned included breathing techniques, heart rate, nutrition, pacing, race strategies, workouts, strength training, etc.  There were and still are many things, and I mean many many things from other sports I had to unlearn.  To me endurance was running around the bases trying to stretch a double into a triple...In fact I am still trying to unlearn them...mentally, I know these new running & endurance strategies are true, but physcially implementing them is a struggle.  For instance:

One of the most basic elementary truths of endurance sports is that the marathon is not won in the first 20 miles!  Yet, I have failed in my last two attempts of running negative splits (2nd half faster then the 1st), and why?  I failed because I didn't think like a runner, I thought like a football player...And in case your wondering, MARATHONS are not like FOOTBALL GAMES.

However, physiologically I am wired to think jump out to an early lead = win!  After all this is the cornerstone of team sports.  Nearly every sport you can deal your opponent a massive blow by scoring runs or points and jumping out to an early lead, you simply have to "put the nails in the coffin", or in the words of the Sensa on Karate Kid, "FINISH HIM"...With the marathon, this is not the case!

Patience is one of the biggest elements to endurance athletics...something I have had to learn the hardway!  Let's just hope suffering through the last 10k of my last marathon was enough to drive home this point.

Yoda probably had the best explination for anyone starting out in running, triathlons, or any other endurance sport when he said, "No! No different. Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned."

What are the hard lessons you've learned in endurance sports?