June: Numbers

   You needn't be reminded that life is a tyranny of numbers. Just glance at your wristwatch, which might as well be handcuffs for the claims it makes on your day. Numbers are all the more ruthless for runners. Time and distance are the sole and obstinate measures of running. Without them, you'd as well dream your workouts. They'd hold no meaning, no consequence for improvement.

   Most of us can recollect at least one childhood sprint in which running had no goals, no numbers at stake whatsoever-just pointless exertion-making body parts work together, testing limits, expending muscles into sublime exhaustion. The memory is vivid: the taste of the air or the heavy warmth of the sun on your shoulders when your legs finally succumbed. To run so perfectly in the moment brings startling awareness of the competing demands running makes on your body. It's a great way to educate your workouts.

   Distance runners, for example, rarely know how long they can pour on a sprint, a crucial advantage in closing a race. And most noncompetitive runners see no reason to understand this ability at all, until an unfamiliar and intimidating hill looms (sprint muscles are the engines for climbing). Speed is a rudimentary fact of running. To know your limits is to know your abilities, which change over time. It only makes sense to periodically discover how long you can sustain a sprint, never mind how fast. Such knowledge is useful only if it's intuitive. Stopwatches and mile markers are useless.

   They're also useless for solving pain, which migrates with fatigue, torturing all manner of body parts along its malevolent path. Even within a small range (from the inside of your foot's arch to the outside, for example), you'll instinctively deduce that the problem lies where the throbbing screams the loudest at mile 3, or after 45 minutes of effort, say. In fact, pain's trajectory, rather than its resting place, will more likely help you find a solution. Lose your time and distance references; pay attention to how the hurt drifts.

   Shrugging off numbers will even help you become a stronger runner. All of us are misers with energy, working at a slower pace than our bodies can muster. There's no question that methodical speed goals-lowering our split times or shaving 2 minutes off our customary run-are the smart path to improvement. From time to time, our bodies should have a say in the goals we set. Take a run at the fastest sustainable pace you can. Be willing to curtail your workout early so long as you don't sacrifice pace. It will show how much speed lurks within you, how much work still lies ahead.

   Such reckless freedom invites injury, of course. Worse, feelings and intuitive judgments are deceptive in ways that hard numbers aren't. How often have you finished a race or a workout feeling as if you'd delivered a stellar performance, only to have the stopwatch call you a fool? Like it or not, numbers are the true orthodoxy of running. It's just that sometimes you need a second opinion.