My first massage + strengths/weaknesses

First I have to admit that before yesterday, I'd never had a massage. Fortunately, that has now been rectified. I had no idea what I was missing! Why haven't I done this sooner? It was a generous gift from a friend after completing another marathon - definitely one of the best gifts ever! I walked out of there feeling so relaxed and refreshed. Hopefully my legs will appreciate it tonight when I take them out for our longest post-marathon run of 13K/8mi.

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As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I wanted to share this article written by Greg McMillan of McMillan Running:

Work Where You're Weak

All runners have strengths. All runners have weaknesses. For a competitive runner moving to the front of the pack (or your age group), it becomes increasingly important to correctly identify your strengths and weaknesses and to use this knowledge to maximize your performance.

Runners can be divided into three general types -- Speedsters, Endurance Monsters and Versatile Runners. Think about your training and racing history and see which description below sounds most like you.

SPEEDSTERS

The Speedster (S) dominates his peers in any workout where the repeats are short and fast (5K race pace or faster). Track workouts, fartlek runs and short races get S excited and leave him fatigued but not trashed. However, long runs, tempo runs, marathon training and longer races take more out of S than a day of hard intervals on the track. When comparing race results with his peers, S is often frustrated that he can perform so well at short races but as the distance increases, he gets left behind.

ENDURANCE MONSTERS

For the Endurance Monster (EM), long runs, marathon training, tempo runs and any workout slower than 10K are no problem and usually revitalizing. The more miles per week the better: recovery is quick from long workouts, and the EM feels strength growing proportional to the volume covered. However, EM finds it very difficult to get her legs to go fast. Short, fast training like 200m-400m track workouts and hard fartlek runs leave EM feeling deflated. Short races like 5Ks also leave EM wrecked for days. EM also finds that she can almost double her 5K PR in a 10K and nearly double her half marathon PR in her marathon.

VERSATILE RUNNERS

The Versatile Runner (V) is the most common type of runner. He performs well in all types of workouts -short/fast and long/slow. V also performs equally well in races of 5K to the marathon, placing nearly the same compared to his peers in each distance. He's not perfectly balanced, however, and may find some subtle tendencies towards one type of workout or race. A comparison of race times over distance, compared to "standard" curves (such as at runningtimes.com/race-equivalent) also reveals a trend toward better performances at shorter or longer races.

The article goes on to provide tips to customize the training for specific types if you're interested.

Of these three classifications, I suppose I fall into the "Speedster" category (although I certainly wouldn't call myself a speedster). Where do you fit? Are there any truly versatile runners out there?

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post. I appreciate all of your feedback/opinions/ideas. I find this stuff really interesting, but for now I'm going to take Road Warrior's advice and stop over-analyzing to enjoy my PR. :)

Tomorrow I promise to tell you a bit more about my next race, my goal(s) and how I'm going to get there.

Have a good one!

P.S. It's Giveaway Mania over at RunToTheFinish! Check them out here, here, here and here!