Training

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

The time is here! Only four days to race day! The work is done, you’ve been resting up and you’re probably bursting with energy right now. Don’t you wish the race was tomorrow?

Well, it’s Sunday. So what do you do between now and then to best be ready to go?

First and foremost, you don’t over think the race or spend too much time stressing out about it. Believe me, the weather forecast isn’t going to change every 5 minutes so there is no need to check it every 5 minutes. (For the record, I just checked for you and it looks chilly but dry!) Take care of the details but, after you’ve checked that you packed your shoes the first 10 times, you don’t need to check the next 20 times. Lay out a sound race strategy (think even splits/effort) and have faith in it. Don’t second guess it every 15 minutes. All of these things and all the other nervous habits you do will not help you and will in fact waste mental energy you could be using in the race.

Beyond not stressing over the details you’ve already worked out, what else do you need to do?

Hydrate. Now. Hydration is not something that’s accomplished in the 2 hours before the race or even in the day before the race. Hopefully you’ve already been taking care of hydration. If not, start right now by taking a break from reading and going to get a big drink of water. It can be hard with family Thanksgiving meals and other events going on but try hard to take care of your hydration.

Speaking of Thanksgiving meals, fuel healthfully. Stick with food you know and are comfortable with but focus on healthy food. And try not to overeat in a single meal tomorrow. Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner but try to do so in moderation. In the past, aggressive carb loading or even depletion/loading for marathoners made a lot of sense. These days, with the amount of carbs most marathoners consume on the course, it’s not as critical and there are risks associated with changing your diet too significantly. The better approach is to eat a normal, healthy diet and maybe add on a few high quality carbs along the way.

As for race weekend, I also have a few thoughts:

I’m not sure what the Seattle Marathon people will think of me saying this but, when you go to the expo, try not to spend too much time there walking or standing around. Get your race packet. If you want to listen to a speaker get there early and get a seat. If you want to visit a few vendors plan it out ahead of time and do so quickly. Then get out and get off your feet.

Have a plan for dinner. Whether you’re doing the race’s pasta feed, eating at home if you’re a local or working out your own restaurant plans, have this plan in place ahead of time so you can eat what you want when you want.

In the evening, do something to take your mind off the race for a while so you’re not wasting energy stressing over it. Watch a movie, read a book, whatever you want. Just distract yourself.

On race day, it all comes down to execution:

You should have your pre-race plan down. You’ve practiced with long runs and you know what you need to do. When you need to get up, when and what you need to eat before the race. Execute this plan. Then get to the start line early enough that you don’t have to stress over whether you will be there in time.

You also should have your race plan down. How you’re going to handle the hills early and late, what kind of pace you want to carry, how you should feel at different points in the race, what to do when you hit a rough patch, what to do when you hit a good patch at different points in the race. Execute the plan. Enjoy the run and the accomplishment.

Then, after the race, be sure to celebrate!

For the runners I’m coaching, you’ll get a more detailed, personalized version of this post tomorrow. For the rest of you, I wish you well.

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

It’s getting close! Are you getting nervous yet? Checking the weather forecast every hour?

I often say this time the hardest time of marathon training for many runners. You’re used to working hard. There is a certain level of comfort that comes in doing the hard work. Now, that’s being taken away from you. You’re not working hard anymore and, after months of consistently working hard, you’re being asked to rest. Rest? What? That’s like a foreign language to runners. We know work!

It’s very important to get the rest in now, though. We’re 10 days out right now. The most optimistic estimates are that a workout begins to benefit you 10-14 days out from when you do it. That means, under the most optimistic assumption, today is the last day that you can do a workout and it will result in you being more fit when you line up on race day. In other words, nothing you do from here on out is going to make you more fit on race day. Your focus needs to shift from building fitness to resting and refreshing your body, while doing just enough to remain sharp and ready to run hard when race day comes.

So how do you do this? Well, the first thing I always say and the thing I’ve told several people already this week is that it’s time to think differently. Remember that you are far more likely to do harm by doing too much than by doing too little. If you are at all unsure about how much you should do now, err on the side of doing too little.

In a more broad sense, the general consensus, if there is such a thing when dealing with a taper, is that cutting volume while maintaining intensity is the most effective way to taper. This means cut your weekly mileage but not your workouts. You can do a lower volume in your workouts but keep doing them. How much to cut your volume depends on many variables and is different for everyone but I find that a range of reducing by 25% to 50% two weeks out and 50% to 75% on the week before the race works for most people. That’s a pretty broad range so here are a few things to consider when deciding how much to cut:

1) What was your training volume going in? If you were running 40 miles per week before, it’s harder to cut 50% and 75% than if you were running 80 miles per week.

2) How are you feeling? If you’re feeling good, you may not need to cut back as much. If you’re feeling beat up, physically or mentally, a more significant cut may help you recover and feel better by the time race day comes around.

As for workouts, keep doing them but cut the volume similarly. So what would have been a 4 mile tempo run might turn into 2-3 miles this week and 1-2 miles next week.

It can be tough to cut back on your training and keep up your confidence, especially if you identify as a hard working runner. If you’re struggling, review your training log. Look over all the miles and workouts you’ve been logging, all the hard work you’ve been putting in. You’ve done the work. Now is the time to rest up and absorb all that hard work so it will pay off on race day.

As for the pre-race nerves, they are normal. Reviewing your training log may help soothe those nerves. Checking the weather hourly probably won’t. For that, you may want to find some distractions.

Next week, I’ll post on Wednesday so we all can enjoy our Thanksgivings. In the meantime, rest up, make sure you’re still drinking plenty of fluids and eating healthy. And try to check the weather sites only once or twice a day.

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

Here we are, only 17 days to the Seattle Marathon! It’s hard to believe all the work that has been done, all the miles run by the thousands of runners who will be lining up just 17 days from now to take on the streets of Seattle. If you’re one of those runners, though, this is a tricky time. So what should you be doing?

Some of you might have already run your longest run and are just resting up now. Some of you might have one more good effort planned for this weekend. There is no one size fits all right way to do this. Some people need extra rest and others need to keep the training going.

I do think there are some guidelines, though. If you’ve been working very hard for a very long time, you’re likely to be more fatigued so a longer taper makes sense. If you’ve been working very hard for only a short period of time, you aren’t carrying as much fatigue so you don’t need as much time to recover. Likewise, if you had a solid base before you started training, the load may not have been as significant and you might be able to race well off a shorter taper.

So, whether you have already begun your taper or will be shortly is a very independent thing. Some of the runners I coach have already begun their tapers, others will be starting soon. All, though, will be working at some reduced level of training within the week.

Outside of your training, what do you do? Take care of the little things. Make your plans. If you’re traveling from out of town, hopefully you have the big picture items taken care of. You have your travel and lodging plans in place and reservations made. Do you have a plan for meals? Do you know when and how you plan to get to the race expo to pick up your race packet?

If you have anyone going to watch, this is the time to get the plans in place or, better yet, delegate the plan making to someone else so you can focus on taking care of yourself. Anything you can do to alleviate your stress and responsibility will help you run better on race day.

From this point out, remember, less is more. It’s not often I say that but it’s true in the final few weeks. There are circumstances where one more long run or one more something else makes sense but, if you’re unsure, play it safe. Little you do at this point will help you on race day but a lot you do from here on out could make race day harder. If you haven’t already, it will soon be time to shift your focus from training hard to resting and restoring.

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

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to focus my Thursday posts on the Seattle Marathoners I’m coaching and who simply want to follow along to get some helpful tips as they go through the final preparations for their big day. The marathon and half marathon are on November 30th, the 5K is on November 29th. Here, I’ll primarily be discussing the marathon but my suggestions for the half marathoners would be nearly identical and I think even the 5K runners can gain from it. In addition, I think these posts will have useful tips for anyone to reference back to as they go through the final weeks before their goal races.

So we’re 24 days out. Some of you are just about to start your taper. Some of you may extend the training another week and be just over a week from starting your taper. Either way, you’re working through the final, most intensive stages of your training. You’re probably tired right now. And you likely have your longest run (or are again running your longest distance) this weekend or next. This is going to be tough, isn’t it? The correct answer is an emphatic YES. And that’s just how it should be. You’re preparing to run a marathon. That’s a tough thing to do. Consider this coming long run your dry run.

What do I mean by your dry run? I mean treat it like your marathon. If the conditions allow, wear what you plan to wear on race day. At least go with the shoes and socks you plan to wear on race day. Practice your fueling plan, both pre-race meals and in-race fueling. If you have the training background to handle it, consider running at least a little at goal pace late in the run. If possible, even consider running a route with a similar elevation profile. For Seattle, this means moderately hilly early and late with some flat miles in the middle.

What else should you be thinking about this week? Take care of yourself right now. You have a big long run coming up and you’re starting it tired. This is good training but it’s also stressful on your body. If you have a foam roller, The Stick or other similar tool, use it. Do the best you can to make sure you’re getting good sleep. Make sure you’re eating well and drinking plenty of fluids. These things will help you get through this physically demanding period and set you up for a successful taper and race day.

You’re working hard right now and feeling tired. Keep in mind that the taper is near. Push through this phase, take care of the details to make sure you’re ready to execute the plan on race day, then you’ll get a break.

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

Another recovery post? The last one…unless I get more questions.

I’ve noticed a few questions creeping up over the last two weeks that generally revolve around the general question of how much fitness will be lost in this month-long recovery phase and how long will it take to get that fitness back.

Those are great questions and the concern of losing fitness and needing a lot of time to get it back is the biggest stumbling block I see people struggling with when considering or trying to convince themselves to give themselves this time off. It’s surely my biggest stumbling block when I finish a racing season still feeling good and feeling fired up to go after next year’s goals.

So how much will you lose? It’s hard to quantify what you will lose but it’s obvious you will lose something. In my opinion, though, this is the wrong question so I’m not going to go into all kinds of technical details when they won’t answer what really matters.

Instead, we should be asking ourselves how long it will take to get that fitness back and what the alternative is. If you take a month completely off or do minimal running, whatever that means for you, with no thought of training, how long until you can return to a normal workload at similar paces? What happens if you don’t take that month off?

It’s been my experience that, after a month of minimal running, a runner can expect to be carrying a normal workload within 1-2 months.

So does this mean you’re setting yourself back by 2-3 months by taking a month down? Well, keep in mind some of the repercussions of not taking that down time. Stagnation, injury, burnout, lack of motivation. You may be ahead 2-3 months from now if you don’t take that down time. However, when are the races that really matter? 6 months from now? 12 months from now? With renewed motivation and a rejuvenated body, you’ll be far ahead by that time after taking some time down now.

Yes, you will definitely lose some fitness if you take some down time now. However, you will end up with some down time sooner or later. If you take it now, you will be back to your normal self within 2-3 months and ready to push toward new levels. If you don’t, you will almost surely be forced by illness, injury or lack of motivation to take it at a time when you have less time to recover your fitness and push forward.

It’s your choice: now or later.