What seemingly small change made the biggest difference in your performance?

hydration

been there done dat wrote:

I second the "neck up adjustment." That was more impactful for me than any training change I ever made. A little confidence can go a long way.

Crap.

Two answers: Viagra and Cialis. Small pills but they work wonders!

Most things in running are hard earned through intense training. There aren't a lot of small changes that will produce meaningful results that aren't of the "performance enhancing" variety.

If you're racing in trainers then switchjng to racing shoes will help (especially today's super shoes).

Things like more rest, better diet, etc are pretty easy. Mental stuff/mindset can be big for some people if they have a lot of room to improve in that area.

Training wise, I don't know. I saw the biggest gains from adding a second run, but that's definitely not easy.

Positive attitude + relaxation. This combo allows me to maximize performance on race day.

Running marathons now. When I was a kid, most of the time I knew on the starting line if I was going to win or not--but it was more random them, subject to nerves.

I simply cut my mileage down from 90-100+ mpw down to 50-60 mpw and quite fast got significant faster continously.

- Less is more! -

weight loss

Slowing down my easy runs got me a lot of gains.

Early in college I was doing all my easy runs at 7:00 pace, once I got it closer to 8:00 I was able to take on much more mileage and could handle the training better.

1) Dump before the run

2) Testosterone cream

I changed from not being able to increase weekly mileage because of injuries to starting run-walking so to keep my HR rangebound, which simultaneously felt (1) easier overall; (2) allowed me to double my weekly mileage; (3) made it feel natural to run at 1-2 mins/mile faster pace during the run portions.

Result: dropped 30s off my 400m and probably ~45s off my 800m within barely 6 weeks.

so GOOD wrote:

Two answers: Viagra and Cialis. Small pills but they work wonders!

Mine is similar. My EPO and steroid injections take only a few seconds to do and my times have dropped by a few minutes.

There's some good stuff. In trying not to repeat I'd say one small tweak I made that seemed to have major results was training my actual workout paces/vdot and not my goal paces. I was leaving all the good stuff in workouts and never had anything in the tank for races. Once I stopped being a workout all American I ran much faster.

Chasing tail

EZ10Miler wrote:

When I first started marathoning, once I added a mid-week longish run my times dropped.

On my first crack at the distance I did the typical starter plan, which is normal running all week with an increasing long run every Sat.

On the second shot I would do a run of 10-15 miles mid week, then a run of 16-22 on the weekend.

Finally to really do it right, every other long run would include some kind of work out aspect other than just the "time on your feet" aspect. It would be something like a fast finish long run, wave tempo, progression run.

4 things:

(1) Strides 3-4 times per week after runs or during the end of an easy run like a fartlek. Tried to make them 120-150 meters. I did these fast-ish (like 30-32 second 200m pace) . Something about running fast at the end of a run made my body conditioned to sprint at the end of road races. Seems like my 5k time dropped then I finally cracked into 1:12's for HM.

(2) Similar to @EZ10Miler I increased mid-week run mileage during HM/marathon training. I would do a mid-week workout (5k-10k pace stuff) and was always focused on a doing a 4-6 mile cool down, ideally with friends so it was slow. I would end up with a 14-15 mile day and tried not to really ever stop running. It usually meant I felt totally exhausted at the end, but focused on recovery and was sure to do a few days of very easy running after before a weekend long run.

(3) Shorter rest intervals. Run the repeats slower but decrease the rest. 8 x mile starting at marathon pace and ending around 10k-HM pace with 60 seconds rest was a good solid workout that didn't leave me feeling wiped. It built a ton of confidence.

(4) Progression runs (aka - run fast when you feel good) I would race this early spring 10-miler each yr and was only doing easy running and the occasion progression run, but was running 53-54 minutes and felt fresh. So, I generally decided it was better to feel fresh than push the edge and risk overtraining/fatigue, even for the marathon. Made life better too because I wasn't always exhausted and hungry.

Doubles. Adding maybe three miles in the morning. Unbelievable.

I was really shocked when I got a solid 9 hours of sleep a night how much my times and training quality improved compared to getting 7-8. Of course, when you're out of college its harder to maintain that, but if I ever do a big training block again I'm definitely making sure I do that again. Otherwise I think strides are great, im pretty confident you could do easy runs and strides for 3 months and run a decent mile time.

Not whacking off before races.

several have mentioned strides and I would second that. I used to do 10 x 110 after every workout on grass building up to top speed about 3/4 of the way on each stride. Doesn't seem like much but that little burst of speed helped me run faster