I came across a clever American term, ‘pace lock,’ the other day. I knew immediately what it was referring to because it’s something I often encounter with people who come to me for coaching. While budding runners may have built up their distance and/or frequency of running – and even got faster overall - they’ve got into a rut of doing all their sessions at the same ‘neither here nor there’ pace. Often, it’s a pace that’s neither fast enough to qualify as tempo or speed work nor slow enough to count as an easy or recovery run. If it’s just a bad habit, you can break it by giving each session you do a name (and therefore, a purpose): eg. VO2 max intervals, Lactate Threshold run. If it’s a mindset issue – in other words, if you feel you can’t run any other pace, try the following exercise. Find a circular route of around 1km (or opt for 2 laps of the track (800m) if that’s easier) and run around it at your usual pace. Time the lap. Now take a minute’s rest and run it again, this time, aiming to complete the lap 15-30 seconds faster. Time it again, take a rest and now run the lap a third time, ensuring you run 15-30 seconds slower than the first lap. That’s three gears you’ve got now. Use them!