I’ve been writing this blog post on and off for a while with a view to
sticking it up after Beverley, but in the light of Trafford being declared
short, it got a bit of a last minute rewrite…
The starting point for this (overly long and self-indulgent) post was
my surprise at the amount of friends who wanted to know what I’d been doing differently to make a reasonably big
jump at Trafford.
Clearly, the answer was to pick a race near Manchester that hadn’t been
measured properly. For all I jest, I will say that despite the measurement
issues, I’ll be back at Trafford next year (assuming it runs) as it will still
be a very fast course even with an extra 100 m – it’s basically completely flat
with no sharp turns at all. I’m fairly certain that anyone expecting Trafford to
suddenly get much slower will likely be disappointed (though obviously won’t
produce quite so many PBs).
All said though, how much does it matter? Of course, having a PB you’re
proud of scratched off like that is unpleasant. On the other hand, I firmly
believe that the series of good runs I’ve had this spring, particularly at the
National 12 and Beverley, were the direct result of me believing that I was in
33 low 10 k shape rather that the ~33:3x that Trafford would have most likely been.
Going back to the initial questions and reason for this blog, my
initial reaction to the questioning was to try and laugh it off as (a) I’m
really not that quick and (b) I don’t do anything special – the limitations of
work, family and a body that’s creaking round the edges means I get as much
fitted in as I can but it’s not as much as I’d like to.
The more I thought about it though, the more I wondered whether there
was some merit in looking back at the 20 weeks preceding Beverley, both to show
there’s nothing ground-breaking (or particularly interesting) in what I did,
but more importantly to me, to see how well what I did stacks up against what I
tell people to do when I’m coaching.
For those that, understandably, don’t want to be bored to tears by the
analysis, the brief overview is this:
Consistently run as much as you can. Eat well and lose a bit of weight
if it’s there to be lost. Run your easy runs easy, your hard runs hard and stay
out of the grey zone between these paces. Improve how you run.
For the rest of you (probably just me) I’ve gone through each of the 8
principals that I try to use with the athletes I coach and compared my training
to them. For brevity, some of these principals are grouped together.
I’d be the first to admit that this list contains nothing special and
is probably not in keeping with the latest findings of sports science. However,
as I am dealing with runners, myself included, who are not anywhere near elite,
I believe that focussing attention on attempting to maximise the uninteresting 95%
first rather than the last 5% allows the biggest developments in the medium
term (and lays the foundations for someone better qualified than me to be able
to get you something out of the last 5% when you get to that point).
The 8 principals are (in no particular order):
1. Build an aerobic base through as much easy and steady running as you can fit in
2.
Develop
your resistance to discomfort through running some faster sessions
3. Roughly split your total training time as
around 80% easy running, and 20% faster running.
4. Consistency wins out in the end
Well points 1-4 are all blindingly
obvious, and make up the bulk of the vast majority of training guides for the
last 50+ years (Lydiard, Daniels, P&D, Hadd, etc.).
One thing I do emphasise though is
trying to identify even small time windows to get an extra few miles in. Many
people will resist this, asking what the point of an easy 30 minutes is. Well,
if that’s all the time you have available it’s a damn site better than not
running, particularly if you can carve out 2 (or more!) of these slots into
your day. Is a 4/4 double as beneficial as doing 8 in one hit? Probably not. Is
it better than doing 4 (or nothing)? Of course it is.
The other thing included in this is pace.
I spend most of my time coaching telling people to run their (easy) runs
slower. Whilst pace itself isn’t always a great guideline, it often acts as a
useful guide, particularly when used alongside HR.
Logically, since the aim of your easy
runs is aerobic development, and we know that the marathon is 99% aerobic, if
your easy / long runs are at or near marathon pace then either (a) they are too
fast and not optimally developing your aerobic system or (b) that’s not your
marathon pace. Look at your runs, use some common sense and leave the ego at
home for your easy running.
By running your easy runs easy, it
allows you to recover better. This allows for increased mileage before getting
overwhelmed with niggles and a higher level of quality in your hard sessions.
As these two things are the biggest drivers towards improving performance, the
question is why wouldn’t you train this way?
So what did I do?
The simplest place to start my analysis
was the raw numbers. In the 20 weeks before Beverley, I ran 887.3 miles,
equating to 44.4 miles per week at an average pace of 7:55 minutes per mile.
This is not big mileage in real terms, but as it was building up post injury,
I’m happy with it.
I was also pleased to see the level of
consistency of doing something productive most days. With Sam, it’s often hard
to find time for many longer runs, but short runs, and especially short
doubles, have kept the aerobic development ticking along. My log from Fetch
doesn’t show the doubles, but does show the consistency.
Fetch
log-Red is running, Black is XT, Green is Cycling and grey is a mixture
The next step was to look at the
breakdown of my running paces over this period. To do this, I established the
number of miles run at each of 8 pace groups. The groups broadly correspond to
3k, 5-10k, HM, “grey paces” then three aerobic groups and a catch all for
recoveries, drill sessions and the like when the watch is still running.
The “grey” paces (6:20-7:00) generally
correspond to the sort of paces that (on a flat road at least) are not really
providing a significant boost to aerobic development, nor are they providing
much of a stimulus to develop my faster running. That said, pace alone doesn’t
tell the full story as some of these runs will have been sessions off road, or
on downhill stretches of aerobic runs, pace making, or in some cases just a bit
of ego creeping in, and simple pace judgments does not differentiate between
them (sadly the HR data I have for this block is patchy at best).
So what did the breakdown of these paces
look like? Overall, fast running (HM or quicker) equated for 15.2%, the grey
paces 7.3%, and the aerobic running 77.5% of the total. Certainly, this was not
too far away from the 80:20 split I attempt to coach to. A further breakdown of
these paces can be seen in the graph.
With the data, I then wondered what the
progression of my faster sessions was over the period. To have a look, I split
the training block down to 5 4 week blocks (mostly to reduce the effects of
illness and races from individual weeks), and plotted the average mileage for
each block with a breakdown of the miles run at each pace.
As can be seen from the graph, in the
first block I averaged 30 mpw with minimal quality as I was building back up
after some ITB issues. The next 4 blocks all fluctuate between 40 and 50 MPW,
but with the quality hitting a peak in block 3 (which included the build up to
Trafford) and then lowering slightly as I tried to manage my peak through the
12 stage and on to Beverley.
Overall, from looking back at my
training logs, it’s reasonably clear that I’ve achieved the majority of these 4
targets during this period, so I would say that I’ve done pretty well against
them.
5. Recovery is important
Your body needs to adapt to the training
load you put it under. It does this by resting. Resting doesn’t have to mean do
nothing – some people feel better for a gentle half hour run, but make sure you
learn to listen to your body when it’s telling you that you need a day off.
How did I do?
These days, I don’t schedule rest days,
but take them when I need them. Looking at my log, in the 20 weeks building up
to Beverley, I had 13 days off. Of those 4 were due to a cold, and the
remainder were from listening to my body. From that, I’d say I achieved this
one.
6. Incorporate running drills into your week to
improve muscle patterns, and develop room for optimal movement
Drill
sessions can easily be disregarded as icing on the cake, and less beneficial
than going for a run. I would suggest, however, that improving your running specific
mobility will help you run better. Incorporating drills into your week allows
better movement patterns to be slowly ingrained into your running.
How did I do?
As
I incorporate drills into Mondays and Thursdays, it becomes routine for me to
do them, so in that respect, it was an easy tick for this one. I’m pleased,
though, that I also went through drills before races and Wednesday track
sessions, reinforcing the patterns and allowing me to warm up well before
quality work.
7. Incorporate mobility, strength and
conditioning into your training.
This
isn’t about becoming a bodybuilder, rather ensuring that you have enough
strength to hold form and run well. Bodyweight circuits are a good place to
start.
How did I do?
This was a bit of a mixed bag this time
around. Thursday night circuits mean that I usually get at least one S&C
session into my week. This is good. Less good was fitting in a second session
at the gym each week (around 1 in every 2 weeks discounting taper weeks), and
even worse was me becoming more sporadic with my mobility work that I find
helps me keep on top of little niggles. Overall then, some good things, but
could do a lot better.
8. Lose some weight if it’s there to lose.
This
is a difficult issue, and the last thing I want to promote is eating disorders.
However, if you are carrying a bit more than you would like to, then losing
weight in small, sustainable, incremental amounts will make you quicker. With
this one, the slower the loss the better really – starving yourself is not
sustainable and highly likely to hinder performance. As a rough guide, this is
a good article on the topic. http://www.bodyforwife.com/the-caloric-deficit-cheat-sheet/
How did I do?
I had some to lose. I’ve lost it
sustainably. Objective achieved.
Conclusions
Looking back at it, over the spring, I’ve managed to hit most of my
targets. This has been due to being relentlessly consistent with getting off my
arse and doing something most days. Within this, I’ve had a good balance of
easy and hard running, and have reaped the rewards of that.
I’ve also managed to listen to my body, and through this, drills, and
mobility work, I’ve managed to rack up a decent block of training at moderate
mileage without getting particularly niggled or injured. Finally, losing some
timber has undoubtedly helped me go faster.
So overall then, this block has been positive, and I’ve managed to do
mostly what I tell others to do and have seen the benefits. The obvious
question is what next? The plan now calls for a concerted 7 week block to get
sharp for Doncaster, then try and ease the mileage up a bit more through the
summer to lay the foundations for hopefully a strong autumn of PB chasing.
I wanted to end this with a quote from “once a runner” because it’s a
fair summation of how I see training, and because it’s well worth a read if you
haven’t read it.
“What was the secret, they all wanted to know in a
thousand different ways the secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly
prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy
mental tricks as it did with that most unprofound process and sometimes
heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough soles
of his running shoes.“
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