Ryan – Page 108 – HillRunner.com

How to recover and mistakes in interpreting research

October 13, 2014 / Roundups / 4 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

This week, I read several interesting things but I think two topics works well for these posts. If you disagree with me, feel free to say so in the comments or contact me via the contact form or any other place you can find me.

For this week, I’d like to focus on two things: recovery and interpreting research. I think recovery is especially an important topic right now as many of us are finishing up our racing seasons and looking toward 2015. As for interpreting research, it’s always difficult. Conflicting studies, our own personal biases, confusing technical language. There are many barriers. Personally, I’m always trying to guard against these mistakes but I’m not perfect. We all fall into these traps from time to time, no matter how careful we are, and it’s always good to get a reminder to be on guard.

How to recover

The people I’m coaching are finding out or soon will find out how seriously I’m taking recovery this year. It’s going to be a bigger focus than I’ve made it in prior years because I think that post-season recovery is the first key to success going into the next season. I’ve been a little lax in the past about it but not this year. I’m going to be as serious about this as I am about peak training. You need to recover completely or you’re not going to be successful next year.

What does this mean, though? A lot of people can’t imagine taking time off of running completely. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m the poster boy of this. To me, what it means is don’t run if you don’t want to. If you do want to, purposely limit your volume and intensity for a while and treat it as recreation, not training. Enjoy yourself and don’t worry about your next race or season.

Most important, even if you’re going to do absolutely no running, don’t do nothing. Remain active. This also goes for when you need some extra recovery during a training season. Whether via running or some form of cross training, you’ll recover more rapidly and completely if you keep active.

Here’s a discussion of this point. It also has some good points about icing and anti-inflammatories. There are always cases where any or all of these things are warranted but, for general recovery or in many cases for recovery even from specific injuries, it’s very possible you’ll recover more quickly and completely without the ice and anti-inflammatories and with some level of activity.

Interpreting research

I read a lot of research. Every week, I’m reading several papers, articles and various other pieces on research. Sometimes straight from the source, sometimes someone else’s analysis, often both straight from the source and an outsider’s analysis.

I have to say, it’s not easy reading research. Studies seem to contradict each other often. Especially if reading straight from the source, the language is often tough to get through. Most importantly in my opinion, we always bring in our preconceived notions and biases. It’s hard for me to read an article on HIIT training without looking for where the study that says it’s the next great thing had flaws or a research paper on a study that found aerobic exercise improves our cognitive abilities without wanting to gloss over any flaws in the study.

However, if we want to get the most out of what we’re reading, we must guard against these things. We’re humans and we’re not perfect but, the more we can watch for these things and guard against them, the better we can do in making the most of what we’re reading.

On that note, here are some things you can watch for in your own reading and in the analysis of others. If you ever see me falling into these traps, please let me know. Again, I’m not perfect and I will never claim to be. I try to guard against these pitfalls and I hope that’s clear in my writing but I suffer from these shortcomings just like everyone else.

Nothing new on race day

October 9, 2014 / Training / 3 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

"Never try anything new on race day."

We’ve all heard this advice by now and I’m sure we do our best to live by that rule but how well do we do?

Many of us fall short because we don’t consider the corollary to that advice. Practice race day in training. Wear the shoes, socks and gear you’re going to on race day. If you’re running a race that’s long enough to require fueling, practice not just fueling but doing so with your race day strategy and with the equipment you will have on hand on race day. Possibly most important, do this at goal pace and on a route that is at least similar to what you’ll be racing on.

Why do all these things? Simple, you don’t want any surprises on race day.

Why wear race day gear? Hopefully the answer when it comes to shoes is obvious. You have to make sure the fit and ride are right or you could be in for a world of pain, especially as the race distance gets longer. As for the rest of your gear, you never know what stitch or piece of fabric may rub on you the wrong way and produce blistering or chafing. I’d rather find that out after a 10 mile tempo run than at the 10 mile mark of a marathon.

Why practice fueling? First, you need to make sure your stomach can handle whatever you will be taking in for fuel on race day. There are few things worse than getting sick mid-race due to the fuel you’re taking. Just as much, though, you need to practice with what I’ll call the fuel delivery tools you will have available on race day. If your plan is to take water or sports drink from aid stations, how good are you at drinking from the paper cups they will most likely be handed to you in? Are you planning to drink from a paper cup on the run? If so, you need a strategy for doing so in order to ensure more fluid ends up in your stomach than on your face and shirt and you need to practice that strategy until you can execute it to perfection every time.

Why at goal pace and on a route similar to what you’ll be racing on? Have you ever tried drinking from a paper cup at easy run pace? It’s not easy but not terribly difficult. Have you ever tried at race pace, especially if race pace is significantly faster than easy run pace? The first time you tried, you probably ended up wearing more of whatever you were drinking than you managed to swallow. You might have even choked on it. When running at race pace, your breathing is more heavy, you are probably not quite as smooth and you can’t adjust as well.

So get out there and practice race day in your training. By doing so, you can make sure that your execution on race day will be as flawless as possible and you won’t encounter any unfortunate surprises.

Hill training and sleep

October 6, 2014 / Roundups / 3 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

A couple things that greatly interested me popped up over the weekend. Here are some quick thoughts on them:

Hill training

We hear all the time about the benefits of hill training. While there are reasons going beyond hill training for it, the name of this site should tell you something about what I think of it. It just works. Runners and coaches around the world know this.

This is a case where the coaches and runners are ahead of the science, though. How many studies have we seen that show hill training works and why? Well, now we have this:

Running on a 10 percent incline can improve the overall performance of long distance runners, according to a study completed by Derek Ferley, education and research coordinator at Avera Sports Institution. He conducted the research as part of his doctoral work in health and nutritional sciences at South Dakota State University.

I have some problems with this. First, the workouts don’t appear to be apples to apples. The hill repeats group was doing 30 second repeats and the flat intervals group was doing repeats of 2:16 in duration. Second, it was all or nothing. The three groups consisted of no workouts, twice a week hill workouts and twice a week flat interval workouts. I’d love to see a fourth group that did hills once a week and flat intervals once a week. Finally, as pointed out, the fitness test at the end was performed on a level grade. If you’re training to race on a track, this may hold meaning. Anywhere else, we’re not likely 100% level in nearly any race.

So it’s the beginning of some answers to the questions that could be asked but I see some flaws in this that warrant further study. I also see the ability for nearly anyone with a motive to twist this to say something they like.

Sleep

I’m a big proponent of sleep. There are numerous studies that show the benefits of more sleep, even up to 10 hours a night, have real benefits for athletic performance, recovering from workouts and various other factors that matter to athletes. However, I’ve always wondered whether we should be able to expect to sleep straight through the night or whether that kind of sleep is really beneficial for everyone. I don’t remember the last time I’ve slept through the night without waking at some point, at least for a short period of time. I know others who simply can’t or won’t sleep for more than 4 or 6 hours a night. Are we hopeless cases who will never fulfill our potential?

Maybe not:

Our modern society, with its many stimuli, and an environment full of light, has partially created this hysteria about sleep, and combined with the myth that an 8-hour block of continuous sleep is essential, does all of us a disservice. Donât forget about the well-documented benefits of incorporating naps into your day.

I have no doubt that 8 or even more hours is beneficial for many people, especially athletes who are pushing physical limits and need plenty of recovery. However, there are exceptions and we could be doing more harm than good stressing over sleep if we are the exceptions.

Also, naps are good.

When will we see a 1:59 marathon?

October 2, 2014 / News/Elites / 7 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I wrote a little about this Sunday when posting about Dennis Kimetto taking the marathon world record under 2:03 but I don’t think I’ve written a full length post on this so here it is.

Every time the record is broken and, especially, when a "minute barrier" is broken like we saw on Sunday, the discussion always starts: how soon until we see someone run a marathon in under two hours? It seems like, every time we go through a new "minute barrier", we get predictions that breaking through the two hour barrier is imminent. It’s only a matter of 5-10 years. I’ve been hearing that it’s only a matter of 5-10 years for over 10 years now and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the talk has been going on even longer.

The fact that "within 10 years" has been going around for over 10 years should say something about how likely these predictions are. However, let’s look at the factors involved. I’d like to look at things by the numbers and consider recent trends in distance running and what they might mean for the future.

The Numbers

First, the progression of the world record. Let’s consider how long it took for each "minute barrier" to be broken:

2:08: 1985

2:07: 1988 (3 years)

2:06: 1999 (11 years)

2:05: 2003 (4 years)

2:04: 2008 (5 years)

2:03: 2014 (6 years)

I started with the 2:08 barrier because there’s debate about when the 2:09 barrier was broken. It was either 1969 by Derek Clayton (this is a disputed record, due to a course that was possibly 500 meters short) or 1981 by Rob De Castella.

There are a few ways we could look at this:

Fastest case scenario: The progression from breaking the 2:03 barrier to breaking the 2:00 barrier follows the progression from 2:08 to 2:07. That means 3 years per minute or 9 years from now we’d see a sub-2:00.

Slowest case scenario: The progression from breaking the 2:03 barrier to breaking the 2:00 barrier follows the progression from 2:07 to 2:06. That means 11 years per minute or 33 years from now we’d see a sub-2:00.

Middle ground: The progression from breaking the 2:03 barrier to breaking the 2:00 barrier follows the average progression from 2:08 to 2:03. That’s 5.8 years per minute or roughly 17-18 years total for 3 minutes.

One thing to notice about the above trend: Notice how the 2:06 barrier took 11 years to break? The 1980s was a golden era of marathoning. One could argue it only took 4 years to break the 2:08 barrier, then 3 years to break the 2:07 barrier. Then it took 11 years to see the 2:06 barrier broken. This is the reversion to the mean we would expect to see. I wouldn’t be shocked if, after seeing "minute barriers" broken fairly regularly recently, we are heading toward another dry spell relatively soon. Even if not, don’t expect that 4-6 years per minute improvement to accelerate.

So the progression so far suggests, in my opinion, that we’re looking at another 17-18 years, give or take, before we see a 1:59 marathon. What other considerations should be taken?

Recent Trends

I mentioned that the 1980s was a golden era of marathoning. If that was a golden era, then this is a platinum era or something along that line. Why?

Money

The top rung of the marathon ladder right now is awash in money. Between huge appearance fees, generous prize money, time incentives and additional prize money from the World Marathon Majors, the best of the best marathoners can make a lot of money. More than that, though, money in distance running on the track is drying up. In fact, the 10,000 itself – the event we’d expect to be the closest crossover to the marathon – is a dying event on the track. It’s very infrequently run outside of championship meets and not a big money event. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen times stagnate or even regress in that event. The world record in that event will turn 10 years old next year and nobody is challenging that record. By world class running standards, nobody is even close. That’s at least partly because all the talent that used to be running the 10,000 is moving up to the more lucrative event.

As all the best talent moved up to the marathon, skipping the track or at least spending much less time on it, we see runners at their prime trying the marathon. In the past, the usual trend was to run track through your prime, then move up to the marathon. This was surely the path followed by Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie. Since Geb, though, we have Patrick Makau, Wilson Kipsang and Dennis Kimetto breaking the record. These are not big name track guys moving up to the marathon. They are marathon specialists.

This money in the marathon and the resultant marathon specialist running the marathon in his prime is a historical shift within the sport. It’s a one time event that will produce a surge in improvement over the short term but will not drive continual progression. Eventually, the progression will slow. I wouldn’t be shocked to see the 2:02 barrier broken within the next decade but then things are going to move a little more slowly unless or until we encounter another historical shift.

Approach

The late Samuel Wanjiru was a fearless runner. He’d attack from nearly the very beginning of a marathon and would not relent until he crossed the finish line. He is often credited with changing the philosophy of the top marathoner. Instead of a marathon being a 20 mile warmup followed by a 10K race, it became a race from gun to tape.

This racing philosophy and the corresponding training philosophy is mentioned by the great Renato Canova in his review of the record.

This approach surely played a role as guys are more willing now to lay it all on the line early. Sure, it results in some epic disasters at times but it also results in guys coming closer to their ultimate potential.

Again, though, this is a one time occurrence. As guys refine this approach in order to walk the line of epic disaster without going over, they will continue to incrementally improve but the big gains from changing the approach to racing a marathon have already been accomplished.

Doping

It would be remiss of me to ignore another point that was brought up to me after I made my comments about this on Sunday. I was reminded that this golden age of marathoning doesn’t just coincide with more money in the marathon. It also coincides with more stringent doping controls in track and field. Is it likely that the drug cheats are moving to the less stringent marathons? Absolutely. However, in the same way that I describe money creating a relatively short term spike in improvements above, the drug situation would do the same thing. The difference would be that, if marathons follow track and field some time in the future, we’d actually see a regression in performances. That would mean expect to wait even longer.

Note: I’m not accusing Kimetto or anyone else individually of doping. I don’t believe in saying "he’s so fast he must be doping". I believe you better have some kind of solid evidence before making such severe accusations. However, it would be naive to think nobody is. It’s possible that dopers are raising the depth of the field and that’s requiring honest athletes to push that much harder to rise above the pack.

Conclusion

This is truly a golden age of marathoning. We’re seeing amazing times at almost every race that could not have been imagined even a decade ago. If you like insanely fast times, I hope you’re enjoying this. Just don’t expect it to continue at this rate indefinitely and definitely don’t expect it to accelerate. That means don’t expect a 1:59 marathon in the next decade. Maybe in the next 20 years but I’m not even convinced we’ll see it in that amount of time.

Strength training for injury prevention/treatment

September 29, 2014 / Training / 1 minute of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I’ve been quiet on my recent Monday and Thursday blog posts recently. Let’s call it a late summer break so we could all enjoy some free time. Here’s a short one to begin getting back on schedule.

Anyone who has received my advice or been closely following my blogging recently knows that I’m a big fan of treating and preventing injuries using a multi-faceted approach. Specifically, I think both strength training and flexibility/mobility training need to be considered. It used to be that everything was about flexibility. Get your soft tissues loose so they can pass through a full range of motion and they won’t be so tender. That makes total sense but here’s another thought: make your soft tissues stronger and they will be less susceptible to breaking down. Make sense?

It works for the IT band.

It works for PF.