Building v. Training

Hi, 

Coaching Track and Cross Country was one of my favorite things I have ever done. Running is  a cool sport to coach because your job is to work alongside athletes to find their peak. There is obviously a component to the sport of winning, but only one person gets to do that, so as you go up the ranks it becomes less about being the best in the world, and more about how good can I be at running.

There is a concept that I don’t hear talked about much from Steve Magness, and it is the difference between building and training. 

One of the tricky parts about the difference is that the things you do inside of each are actually probably the same, it is more about the cadence that you do the things that make the difference. 

I have been thinking about this a lot and have come up with some working definitions that are suspect to tweaks. 

Building: The process of repetition for the purpose of getting to a position of consistency. One rep may sacrifice another. 

Training: The point where you can repeat the actions necessary for getting better without having to sacrifice any other actions. One rep does not sacrifice another. 

Here is an example, when I am building fitness, I want to test my ability to run 5 miles hard to see where I am at, even if it means I will have to take the next day easy. 

When you are building, you are open to changing your schedule to make sure that your system can handle the workload. 

Here is another example, when training, you know that your best workload for the week is 2 easy runs, 2 harder runs, and 1 speedwork. When training you know that you can handle all of those efforts without having to modify or sacrifice the others. 

When you are training, you are able to put workload into the system and not sacrifice any other workloads as a result. 

To put simply, building is crude and training is iterative. 

This doesn’t just apply to running. 

I have 2 scenarios for you this week. 

Scenario 1: My fifth year at Northwest, I was getting my MBA, and my Track coach, Mark Mandi, decided to also pursue getting his MBA. 

During a morning run, he mentioned to me that he was really struggling with the amount of writing and reading the program demanded. It wasn’t because it was too hard for him, he just wasn’t used to doing that type of work. 

Over the course of that run, I reassured him that as he does it, he will be able to do more of it, he was just “out of shape” when it came to that type of reading and writing. 

Surely enough, as the program progressed he became more proficient in not just reading and writing, but in his efficiency in doing them. 

I am pretty sure he graduated with a much better GPA than me. 

Scenario #2: I have recently been playing around with the idea of being a freelance ad buyer. As I think about my time, I am certainly free enough to handle the workload of 1-3 clients. The issue has become that I am not prepared for the workload of getting 1-3 clients. 

Business development is a skill set that is very new to me, and the process of doing it is a lot more strenuous than I thought it would be. 

When I break out my time, I cannot just account for doing the thing that I can iterate on (Ad buying), I also have to consider how much time it will take to build the skill of business development. 

What it really comes down to is knowing what you are already good at, and the things you aren’t. 

When you know that, you can get an idea of how strenuous an activity will be. This will help you devote the proper amount of resources to the completion of that activity. 

Here is an idea that I am adding to, it's the idea of the 4 levels of competence. 

Level 1: Unconscious Incompetence: I don’t know what to think about, I don’t know if I am good or bad. 

Level 2: Conscious Incompetence: I know what to think about, but I know I am not good at it. 

Level 3: Conscious Competence: I know what to think about, and I am good at it. 

Level 4: Unconscious Competence: I don’t have to think about it, I am good at it. 

On the left side of this chart is building and the right is training. 

I am telling you, breaking things into building versus training will really help you figure out what you can realistically do with the time you are given. Most importantly, it will give you the opportunity to give yourself grace when things are harder or don’t happen as fast as you want them to. 

If you are in a training phase or building phase or a hybrid… Keep going. 

If you know anyone who needs a freelance ad buyer, let me know. 

Kyle