When I started running way back in the 20th century, I wanted longer legs. Long, lean legs for a flowing stride that would simply eat up the ground. As a runner in the 21st century, I find that I need longer arms. I'm up to my elbows in watches, GPS units, heart-rate monitors, and iPods. And I'm not alone. Some runners look like they are straight out of a science fiction movie-water bottles in holsters circling the hips, gadgets running up and down the arms relaying detailed information on location, position, elevation, temperature, speed, heart rate, and distance from the target. A pre-dawn encounter with a 21st-century runner in full gear can be quite scary!

There is nothing wrong with our 21st-century technology. Over the last few decades, remarkable advances such as heart-rate and speed/distance monitors have enhanced our ability to better prescribe and monitor training for a variety of runners. Coaching is now so much easier, and new runners can avoid the problems runners in the 20th century faced. Any training can now be adjusted to any runner.

The problem is that we are at risk of becoming too dependent on the technology-so dependent that we forget the art of learning our bodies. And, learning our bodies is what this sport is about. After all, we can't predict the conditions for race day, so we need some internal gauge to properly adjust our pace. How will you know how to adjust your pace if your marathon day turns out to be hot and muggy? What if it is windy? How can you adjust if you've only relied on external devices to guide your training? Too often, we're slaves to the tools instead of using the tools to learn ourselves. We need to calibrate our inner GPS.

Inner GPS Training

I've worked with some of the world's best coaches and have successfully coached a full spectrum of runners-beginners, high school, college, masters, and even elites. I attribute part of this success to what I call "inner GPS training." The crux of inner GPS training is that it reconnects your body and your mind. You use workouts that help you better judge race pace internally, allowing you to adapt to a myriad of external factors (heat, cold, wind, altitude, terrain, tactics) that can affect performance. And the best part about inner GPS training is that it's fun, reduces performance pressure, and I suspect that it even helps prevent injury, since you're never over-extending yourself. Instead, you're working within a smart, yet challenging, training zone.

In inner GPS training, several key workouts each week are done by effort. Effort comes first. Then, you correlate different effort levels with different paces, heart rates, etc. Done correctly (it only takes 4-8 weeks) inner GPS workouts provide insight into your body and mind. Once the connection between your internal effort level and your running performance is made, and you've "dialed into" your effort, you'll never have a bad workout or race. You'll be able to adjust your effort to fit the conditions, terrain, or how you feel on the day.

Below you will find my Six-Week Inner GPS Training Program. As you head into the spring, these workouts are a great way to build the initial fitness you'll need for your race-specific training later in the season. You also begin to correlate your effort levels with various paces and heart rates so you have a better understanding of what paces, heart rates, and effort levels work specifically for you. You'll exit this program more fit and more confident in your training.

The next step in inner GPS training is to begin to correlate varying effort levels with specific paces and heart rates. While you usually avoid looking at the watch during the workouts, you now spend time reviewing the training data. Set up a chart so that you can compare paces and heart rates to effort levels. You also want to observe how this changes in various conditions: how you are feeling on the day, hydration status, life stress, and any other condition that affects how you perform. You can even match effort levels with different types of training, whether training for endurance (easy to medium effort), stamina (medium to medium-hard effort), or speed (medium-hard to hard effort). Put some thought into your training and begin to get a better feel for your running. Armed with this information, you'll always be able to adjust your pace so that you stress the body at the correct level and avoid overtraining.

Scheduling Your Inner GPS Workouts

The best and most important time to use inner GPS training is early in your training cycle. At this time, you really want to learn your body-how hard you can push, how well you recover, and what effort is best for different distances. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be even better prepared when it comes time to do race-specific training, which relies much more on external feedback than does early season training. Remember, we need to learn effort first, then rely on the tools, not the other way around. When getting geared up for a new training cycle, we often get all our calculations complete to know exactly what pace and heart rate we should run at every day. I say throw this out the window! Focus on just running by effort first. Then, after each run, begin to correlate your different effort levels with the tools. Find out what an easy effort relates to in pace and heart rate. In this way, the tools become the gauges that we use to help monitor effort.

It's also important to begin with inner GPS training because it reduces performance pressure in workouts. Here's an example: In my work with a world championship runner, I frequently have her do effort-based workouts early in the training cycle. The primary reason is that she is so competitive with herself and knows exactly the times she ran for every workout in the previous training cycle. So, if I give her the same workout, she gets frustrated if she can't hit her previous times, even though those came when she was in peak shape. Instead, I give her inner GPS fartlek workouts that mimic the regular track-based workouts I would usually prescribe. If she would normally do 1,000m repeats, then I'll prescribed a fartlek workout of 5-7x3:00. In this workout, she relies only on effort, as I've removed any performance standard that she may calculate. After a few effort-based workouts, I can send her to the track and she'll be more fit and ready to hit times that she's comfortable with. This scenario is beneficial for any runner who freaks out over workout times (and you know who you are!). It also works great for younger runners as these athletes really need to learn their bodies and avoid competing against the clock early in the training cycle.

Time-Based Training Has Its Place

Inner GPS training should not take the place of your traditional time/distance-based training. If you want to run 17 minutes for 5K, you better well know exactly that pace! Rather, it is to serve as a lead-up to time/distance-based training so that you can get more out of your race-specific training phase. As mentioned before, inner GPS training is best done at the start of the training cycle, when times and distances are less important and general fitness and effort identification rule the day. Later, however, you need to use the technology available to get ready to race. At this time, challenge yourself to hit certain times for certain distances and learn to dial in race pace so you can run like a metronome.

Now You're Ready

By calibrating your inner GPS, you'll be ready for whatever a workout or race throws at you. Whether you're dealing with bad weather, undulating terrain, fatigue, or even just having "one of those days," you'll be able to adjust your workouts and races to achieve the best performance on the day. And I find that consistently good performances across a training cycle lead to great performances in races.

Six Week Inner GPS Training Program

Week 1:
Workout #1: Easy Run: On one of your easy runs this week, choose an out-and-back course. Hit your lap split when you reach the halfway/turnaround point. The challenge of this run is to see if you can judge your effort to return to the starting point in precisely the same amount of time it took you to go out. Its much harder than it sounds, since your natural tendency is to speed up throughout the run.

Workout #2: Stride Workout: Warm up for 15 to 30 minutes, then perform 10 to 12 repetitions lasting 25 seconds each. Run them at 90 percent of your top speed. Take 45 to 60 seconds recovery jog between each repeat. This workout looks very easy on paper, but with a slight error in effort, youll be fatigued by the time you get to the last few repeats. This not only develops your leg speed but also helps with pace judgment in shorter races, like the 5K.

Workout #3: Progression Run: Run easily except for the last two miles of the run. Hit your watch when you have two miles to go, and finish the run at half marathon pace. The trick is that you cant look at your watch during the run. How close were you to half marathon pace?

Week 2:
Workout #1: Easy Run: Choose a route that you know takes a specific amount of time, say, one hour. Start your watch, then stash it at your starting point. See if you can complete the route within one minute of your intended time. You wont have your usual checkpoints along the route, so youll have to tune in to your effort level.

Workout #2: Fartlek Run: Warm up for 15 to 30 minutes, then perform 10 to 12 repetitions lasting one minute each. Run them at 5K race pace or slightly faster. Take one-minute recovery jogs between each repeat. Begin to feel 5K pace. Check your pace from your GPS or speed/distance monitor. Were you close to current 5K pace?

Workout #3: Progression Run: Run easily except for the last mile of the run. When you get to this point in the run, hit your watch and finish the run at 5K pace. Remember, dont look at your watch during the run! You just had a lot of 5K pace work in the fartlek run. Can you now find it when slightly fatigued?

Week 3:
Workout #1: Easy Run: Strap on your heart-rate monitor and go out for an easy run. Plan to run at your normal heart rate for your easy runs, but cover the watch face and turn off the out-of-zone alarms and just run by effort. After the run, unveil the watch face and check your heart rate for the run. Could you keep it in the correct zone?

Workout #2: Fartlek Run: Warm up for 15 to 30 minutes, then perform the following sequence of fast runs: one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, four minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute. Follow each fast segment with one minute of recovery. Notice how you have to adjust your pace for each repeat based on the different durations. Also notice how you have to adjust your effort to be able to complete the entire workout. Mentally, this type of workout is very beneficial.

Workout #3: Progression Run: Run easily except for the last four miles of the run. When you get to this point in the run, hit your watch and finish the run at marathon pace. (If you coach young runners, adjust the length of fast running to challenge their endurance pacing abilities.) Could you settle into marathon pace? Could you run a consistent effort across the run?

Week 4:
Workout #1: Tempo Intervals: Head out to a marked course. Run 5x1 mile at 10K pace and take three minutes between each repeat. The catch? You cant look at your watch once you begin the repeats. Just run a mile, hit the watch but dont check the pace. Then, jog for what you think is three minutes and hit the watch again (no peeking!) and start the next repeat. Repeat this throughout the workout, then go back and see how you did. Could you feel 10K pace? Could you estimate your recovery interval correctly? This is a great workout for helping dial-in this medium-hard effort. You not only get exposure to 10K race pace but you also get a good feel for your recovery rate, as well as how much recovery you need between hard efforts.

Workout #2: Hill Workout: Find a hill of moderate slope (812 percent grade) and run 6 to 8 repeats up it with each repeat lasting 1:15. See if you can dial-in your effort up the hill so that each repeat finishes at the same point in exactly 1:15. Youll learn how to adjust your effort up hills.

Workout #3: Long Run: Run for time on this long run instead of distance. Choose an appropriate duration, say, two hours, and just go out and run around town. Dont run on your normal routes, where you have time checks. Instead, avoid any check marks and just go out exploring. Youll likely get tired before you normally do, and the run will feel unusually long. There is comfort that comes from running the same route, so running on a new course helps train the mind to keep going even when tiredsomething every marathoner has to deal with.

Week 5:
Workout #1: Easy Run: Repeat the easy run from Week 3.

Workout #2: Stride Workout: Warm up for 15 to 30 minutes, then perform 10 to 12 repetitions lasting 40 seconds each. Run them at 90 percent of your top speed. Take one-minute recovery jogs between each repeat. As with the first stride workout, pace judgment is key.

Workout #:3: Tempo Intervals: Run 8 to 10x800m at the same pace, and only take 20 seconds between each repeat. Sound hard? It is. Not because of the workout but simply because we are used to running 5K pace or faster for 800m repeats. In this workout, though, you must slow down and gauge your effort better in order to complete the workout without getting too fatigued too early. It is great for assisting in developing a good sense of effort.

Week 6:
Workout #1: Tempo Run: Most of us are used to doing tempo runs based on distance. In this one, plan to run at a medium-hard pace for 25 minutes. Run on your normal, marked tempo run course, clicking your watch as you pass your markersdont look, though. You want to see how well you can feel tempo pace.

Workout #2: Hill Workout: Now that you are quite fit and really dialed into your effort level, repeat the hill workout from Week 4.

Workout #3: Progression Run: Your final Inner GPS challenge is the tempo interval workout from Week 4. You should find that you are not only more consistent in your repeats but can run them faster with the same effort, and that you are better able to judge your recovery between each repeat so that you have a perfect workout. Youre now ready to commence more traditional time/distance-based training like track intervals, base on the knowledge of your true, effort-based paces for each workout.

Greg McMillan is a National Champion runner, USATF certified coach, and exercise physiologist.