Runningness, the bane of the strength athlete, your average Globo-gymmer and your neighbourhood Condor. But what is an athlete without runningness anyway?

I wouldn’t call myself a runner through any stretch of the imagination, but I do run. I run and I love it, but I’m not a ‘runner’. I guess if I need a label I’m a Crossfitter, and one of the eye-openers that Crossfit presented to me was the fact that even though I enjoy running on its own, doing it during a WOD is a whole new world of hurt. So I never want to be a ‘runner’. What I really need is runningness.

I see runningness as the ability to run at a decent pace during a WOD where you are also putting your body through other movements that generally try their best to limit you in some way. Whether it’s squats frying your quads, or KB swings taking out your core stability, or box jumps competing for the same lung capacity. Basically it’s a mental barrier, and the only way to beat it, is to play the mind game. Oh and run. A runner will tell you that in order to improve you running, you just need to run more.

I kind of agree, but for me the reason to run more is to find that place in my head where the doubt starts and find a way to eliminate it. The running I do during WODs has become an active recovery component to prepare for other movements, so I just don’t give it the attention it deserves. Improving my runningness will no doubt improve my WOD times, at least for all those lung-busting metcons that only seem to overwhelm me when they include a 200m or 400m run.

I have neglected my runningness in the last year, but that changed last night when I hit the pavement for a 6km run on my trusty old route. I think isolating running and gradually adding it to my schedule will help me focus on winning the mental game. So, starting with last night’s run, I plan to add 1 or 2 more evening runs to my schedule and aim to get back to my pre-Crossfit volume.