Phases & Iterations

Rembrandt

A phase is a distinct stage in creating a final work. Think of an artist like Rembrandt creating an elaborate painting and going through planning, sketching, critiquing, painting, and finalizing the work. The phases are the 10,000-foot view of the whole process. They show the big picture and give us a general idea of how the artist went about their creative process to produce a final work. However, phases usually don't show the struggle of the artist refining the work. Refinement is implied in phases but not explicitly talked about.

Conversely, iteration is the refinement of individual aspects to produce just the right emotion and feel. In our Rembrandt example, this is when he redraws a figure multiple times to get the posture right or refines the shadows in the painting phase to make them convey the emotion he wants. It could be the process of going through multiple sketches until finally coming up with the one that will be used for the final piece. Iteration is the refining factor within each phase, usually accompanied by struggle and frustration.

So that's enough about art. Let me break this down in running terms: Phases are the big-picture moments in our training throughout our running careers. Iterations, on the other hand, are the way that we refine our training to meet our individual needs. I started running in 5th grade, and there have been a ton of phases and iterations in my training journey.

My First Phase: Exploring the Unknowns

In 5th grade, I ran a 5k with no training and threw myself to the wolves. It was a long time ago, but I remember feeling super nervous and underprepared before the race. However, I needed to step off that ledge and explore the unknown. I did a sprint/walk method for most of that race and quickly discovered that I was not fit enough to run a whole 5k. But this phase paved the way for me to start running and to continue to explore the unknowns.

Over the next couple of years, I started running more and ran a few miles once or twice a week—way more than I'd done before. This phase of patient exploration laid the foundation for the rest of my running career. As I ran more, I learned to control my efforts, which was part of the iterative process of refining my running.

This exploration process is one of the most critical stages in becoming a runner. You must go out and start running without knowing where you're trying to go. It may seem aimless, but it teaches you about enjoying the journey over the destination. It makes starting a lot easier because you don't need a plan or the right shoes or anything to put one foot in front of the other a couple of times a week. The phase starts with simple exploration and then leads to refinement (finding the right shoes, controlling your efforts, starting a running plan, etc.) through iteration.

In this phase, you’re just testing the waters and learning through exposure and repetition.

My Second Phase: The Competitive Running Phase

In 7th grade, I joined the cross-country team and started a new phase of my running journey. This phase would go through many iterations over the next 11 years as I learned the value and joy of running with others, competing at a high level, and exploring my limitations. This is the most extensive phase of my running journey, the one that's taught me the most and that I'm still in.

During this phase, the biggest question I've tried to answer is, "How does my body respond to different types of training?"

Am I a high-mileage guy? Am I more of a 400m/800m specialist who really thrives on intensity? Am I somewhere in between at different times, depending on the season? Can my body handle high mileage? How about intensity? Is my form good? What should I think about when running?

These questions can only be answered through iteration or, as we defined it earlier, refining our training to meet individual needs. You have to test all of these questions and see what you’re good at. My goal in this phase was to become the best runner I could be, but my path to getting there was unclear and loaded with roadblocks.

It's like this: imagine you're trying to climb a mountain in the dark. The moon is rising behind the mountain, and you can see the peak, but the path to get there is unclear and uncertain. The only way you can get to the top is to start climbing the mountain and feeling your way to the top. And I forgot to mention that everyone's mountain is different; some are filled with packs of wolves and snowstorms, some people have guides to help them climb, and others even get to climb the mountain in broad daylight. That's the complexity of what we're dealing with here.

Middle School & High School

I found out in middle school that I was a good runner because I would win many of the middle school cross-country races on pure grit and talent. I had no clue what I was doing as far as training went, and my coach was trying to figure out systems that could work for me. My coach at the time had some experience as a runner but limited experience in coaching athletes to their potential, which meant that much of my training was trial and error and building mental strength through tough workouts.

I soon discovered that my body responded well to strenuous training efforts. Still, my form was pretty bouncy and inefficient unless I ran fast (we’ll talk more about this later).

So, through trial and error, I refined my training with my coach and reduced my 5k time from 18:30 in 7th grade to under 16 minutes by senior year. It wasn't a perfect system that we developed, but I learned how to fight and fight well, which was an essential skill in high school.

College

I ran about 40 miles per week my freshman year, slowly increasing to 50 or 60 over the next few years. The intensity of my training during my first year was very high, and I was injured for most of the year. Sophomore year was a different story, but through these trial and error moments, we refined our training process and discovered that my body responds well to long, higher-intensity workouts. Still, we never really tried to increase my total running volume. Somewhere in my mind, I wondered if I was missing out on building fitness by not running more miles. All the data and coaches told me that slow, easy miles were the key to getting better and faster, so I had to know if that was the case.

The summer before my senior year in college, I started running higher mileage and doing around 2-3 weekly workouts. I averaged 92 a week for 12 weeks and honestly felt more substantial than I'd ever felt in my entire life. This was a defining iteration in this training phase that would take me from being good to being great. However, I ended up with a stress fracture in September of that year and was out of running for months. What was supposed to be a defining moment in this running phase was a huge setback. This was a necessary iteration in training, and it taught me much about myself.

But the thing about iterations is that they aren't always linear, and they require adjustments.

When I recovered from my stress fracture, I started building up mileage again, and I was determined to get back to running around 80 miles per week. When I was running higher mileage, I'd felt the fittest in my entire life, so in my mind, the mileage was obviously the key. Throughout this training phase, I was on the cusp of injury for about 6 months, significantly impacting my confidence. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd run 120 miles weekly because my confidence was so low. After all, my body couldn't handle the demands. This adjustment I was trying to make in this iteration was not enough to put me in a position to run, let alone race.

So, at the end of the country season, I returned to my roots. Remember how I learned that I wasn’t good at running slow in middle school? Well, maybe the slow running all the time with the high mileage was slowing me down, and I couldn't put all my confidence in that anymore.

All the data said I needed to run more and run slower, but my body (and biomechanics) said something different.

I decided to stick to some basic principles and test their validity. Everyone says that if you apply stress and then rest, your body will adapt to that stress, and you will build fitness.

My old coach used to say stress + rest = success. If my body was good at running fast, why not apply larger stresses and take the rest days easier? Based on what I know, this should work.

This looked like lower mileage on easy days and higher intensity on workout days. I've always been more of a fast, twitch-oriented distance runner, so why not double down on my strengths? My running plan for this iteration included threshold work, tempo runs, long runs, and race pace work, sometimes on back-to-back days. But the recovery days were short and slightly quicker (think 4 miles at 6:30 per mile). This was a new iteration of training built on the previous iterations throughout my running journey, culminating in one perfect plan that fit my training needs.

So What?

Ultimately, I looked at what my body was good at, doubled down on that, and grew my training confidence to unprecedented levels. Each iteration before this served as a foundation for the next, and each played a pivotal role in learning my potential. It was rarely linear, but it didn't need to be. There was consistency in action toward a greater goal that didn't look the same from one iteration to the next. However, it filled in the larger picture of what it looked like for me to truly learn what I was capable of.

Confidence in my training was more important than what I was doing, so I focused on what I was good at. The rising tide lifted my confidence in other areas by increasing my strengths, making me a stronger athlete. I was doing things that challenged me and built fitness based on what I'd learned about myself during my running career.

Now, this process is bound to look different for everyone. As I said, everyone's mountain is different and has different strengths and weaknesses. However, the most significant thing here is that it is okay for there to be different iterations in training. It won't always look the same throughout every phase, and there might be times when you run into roadblocks and dead ends. In these times, we have to look at our strengths and double down on them. This is how we scale the mountain successfully.