The Tyranny of the Comfort Zone, by Matt Fitzgerald

Recently I enjoyed an opportunity to interview Dr. Charles Pedlar for my forthcoming book, The Runner’s Edge, which I coauthored with Stephen McGregor, PhD. Pedlar is an exercise physiologist employed by the English Institute of Sport to provide physiological support to elite British endurance athletes. This support consists of administering physiological testing, consulting with coaches, and helping both coaches and athletes plan training and troubleshoot problems on the basis of the data he collects.

Among the elite distance runners Pedlar has worked with are 2008 Olympic 1500-meter finalist Andy Baddeley, 2008 world junior 1500-meter champion Stephanie Twell, 2009 London Marathon runner-up Mara Yamauchi, and 2009 European indoor 3000-meter champion Mo Farah.

I asked Pedlar a series of questions about how he uses speed and distance devices with his elite clientele. I guessed that one use he made of this technology was to sometimes hold runners back from running too hard, and Pedlar confirmed that he does indeed use speed and distance devices in this way. However, I was surprised to learn that he also uses them in the opposite way. Pedlar explained, “Another thing that happens is that, as athletes tend to improve rapidly over the first few weeks of training, they then find a comfort zone and sit there, so we use intensity targets to push them on.”

While I am well accustomed to the idea that most non-elite endurance athletes spend too much time training in their comfort zone and are afraid to really suffer in training, I sort of assumed that elite endurance athletes required no prodding. But if Pedlar’s experience with world-class performers is typical, then the tyranny of the comfort zone is universal in endurance sports.

Very few endurance athletes think of themselves as avoiding suffering in their training, but in my experience most do. They embrace a certain kind of suffering, which is the grind of high volume, but they shy away from exposing themselves to much of the acute suffering of burning lungs and legs that is experienced in challenging high-intensity workouts.

In fact, lately I have noticed a trend of endurance athletes trying to put a positive spin on their suffering avoidance by couching it in terms of a Lydiardian training philosophy. High-intensity training is risky, even dangerous, they say, and therefore its place in the training process must be minimized to prevent injury and overtraining. It’s not that these athletes are afraid of the misery of high-intensity training. They’re just being smart.

Yeah, right. Having been an endurance athlete since 1983, I am experienced enough to see this philosophy for the excuse-making it really is. Now, I must confess that I fear and loathe lactate interval workouts as much as the next runner. But I do a lot more of this type of training than most runners because I have simply been around the block too many times to live in denial of its effectiveness.

It must be clearly stated that the capacity to tolerate suffering is as critical to success in endurance racing as the various components of physical fitness. And like those physical adaptations, the capacity to tolerate suffering can and must be trained. The endurance athlete who is serious about realizing his full potential in competition must suffer for the sake of suffering in training.

Read more in the full article about how suffering in training will improve your racing.