After the first few years of heady progress, runners often find that their improvement curve plateaus. Though they continue diligent work, new PRs—even incremental gains—become difficult to achieve. But once in a while, veteran runners experience the type of breakthrough they dream about, where a small change in training spurs a new level of excellence. This week, Running Times is highlighting runners who made tweaks to their routines—like increased intensity, more strength training or even new running partners—that lifted them to a new level of performance.
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The Runner: Aaron Davidson
Age: 30
Breakthrough: 25-A Focus on Form
Aaron Davidson says he ran 15:10 in the 5K "more times than anyone should in his life." For five years, Davidson, a runner at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, chased the sub-15:00 threshold.
Jason McCullough, Davidson's college coach, urged him to be more mindful of his own fitness level and pace while racing, but Davidson ignored that counsel, insisting he needed to create a cushion to accommodate his inevitable late-race decline.
"I was too fast and too dumb at the start, too often trying to pace off the leaders or guys faster than me," Davidson says.
In 2011, by then a coach himself at Shawnee Mission North High in Kansas, Davidson finally acquired the maturity to adopt a more patient approach.
Davidson focused on hitting each kilometer at 3 minutes. As a result, he reached the 4K mark of races better prepared to tackle the final kilometer. A simple solution, Davidson acknowledges, but one so many runners struggle to implement. He has since lowered his 5K time on the track to 14:45.
"It's a fine line between being aggressive and putting yourself into a race and trusting your fitness," Davidson says. "That's something I had to learn the hard way."
The Coach's Take
Alan Culpepper, a two-time Olympian who has now turned to coaching, says that to run an optimal pace, athletes need to extract emotion and focus solely on their splits and their mental and physical condition.
"To execute a patient strategy, it takes confidence in your fitness level and the plan," he says. "You're taking control of your race rather than simply hoping things work out."
In the first half, Culpepper urges self-control. In his own races, he leaned on mental cues, repeating phrases like, "That's perfect," and, "You're right on," to inspire confidence and calm.
"It's tough to hold back when you feel good," Culpepper says. "You're ensuring that you'll feel better when the race becomes most challenging."
For runners struggling to match performance to fitness, Culpepper suggests testing the more patient approach at least once, especially when a specific finishing time is the primary goal.
"If you know you're fit enough to hit a certain time goal, that's when this strategy works best," he says, adding that runners executing this strategy in the longer distances will almost certainly enjoy an added jolt of energy and confidence as they pass competitors.
The challenge is not to overthink the race—don't focus so tightly on hitting splits. "You're trying to straddle that line between being deliberate and patient without limiting yourself and being too analytical," Culpepper says.
More breakthroughs:
How to Better Pace a Marathon Based on Effort
Increased Intensity
Strength Training
Health - Injuries
