My first car was a 1989 Chevy Lumina.
It was a gem.
My grandmother, aka Nana, was kind enough to gift me the car when I turned 16. I loved it.
It was a beautiful maroon color with a full bench seat in the front.
It was great.
It actually had a little pep in too. Nana called it “zippy.”
I whipped that car around my hometown with pride. I loved how it felt on a sunny day. The trapped air against the fabric seats released a kind of “sweater that was stored away for summer” smell. Probably not a great candle scent, but for some reason I loved it in that car.
So a model made in 1989 was a bit long in the tooth when I drove it in 2002. And as a 16-year-old dumbass, I did not know what to do to maintain the health of the vehicle.
I am a safe driver. But, maybe I didn’t pay the closest attention to signs that the car needed service. You know like the lights on the dash or the crazy sounds a car makes while driving.
Dealing with the check engine light didn’t sound fun. While in high school my main priority was fun. So I didn’t deal with the check engine light.
It made sense to me.
Then the car stopped working. It literally shut off while I was driving. It wasn’t like it didn’t start one day.
No, the breaks locked and your steering wheel tightened. And it happened more than once.
It turns out the warning lights on the dash are more than a recommendation.
The engine was utterly F’d and I was going to be without a car for a while.
I still miss it.
Maintaining a car for a 16-year-old dummy is hard.
But maintaining fitness for a runner is simple.
To properly progress and improve as a runner you need to change your stimulus. So switch your workouts.
But change is scary. And your current workouts are working well.
To avoid plateau and burnout you need to change.
What you need to do is implement a “maintenance workout” to your training plan to keep your previous gainz.
Do half of the stimulus from a previous workout cycle every other week.
So, if you did a cycle of threshold workouts and ended with 4 x 7 minutes. Your maintenance workout would be a bi-weekly dose of threshold of 2 x 7 minutes. Learn more about threshold workouts here.
As you progress, you will need to figure out which maintenance workouts make the most sense for you. So stick to the ones that make the most significant difference in your goal race.
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