Training

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

Over the past two weeks, I went over how to define training capacity and how to find your training capacity, as well as what to do when you’ve found it.

This is the part 3 of a 3 part series on training capacity:

1) What is training capacity?

2) How to find your training capacity and what to do when you have found it?

3) Other training capacity considerations.

This week, in the final post in this series on training capacity, I want to discuss other considerations. Mainly:

1) Physical AND mental

2) Outside stresses

3) Your training capacity can and WILL change (don’t forget to address age)

4) Sometimes you’ll miss – adjust and move on

Training capacity is determined by physical AND mental capacity

We often think of the physical aspect. My body is breaking down, I must have gone beyond my capacity. My body is holding up, I’m doing fine.

That’s not all there is, though. How is your motivation? It doesn’t help at all if your body is holding up fine but you’re dragging mentally. I’ve seen it numerous times and you probably have seen it at least occasionally also if you think about it. A runner is running well, all is going right. Then, for apparently no reason to the outside world, the runner disappears. When the runner reappears, you find out there were no physical problems. Instead, the runner just lost interest.

Just as with physical capacity, our mental capacity plays a critical role. Just as with physical capacity, you can do things to increase your mental capacity but your starting point is no reflection on you as a runner. Some of us are easily highly motivated and will push through a grueling workload, others don’t have that motivation and need ways to keep things fresh and fun. Where you fall in that spectrum might affect your ultimate potential at the edges but it doesn’t have to predetermine your life as a runner.

Outside stresses play an important role

Are you facing an especially stressful time in your work or home life? This will affect your training capacity. If you don’t account for that, you will pay the price. Don’t be afraid to cut back some when stresses outside of running build up.

Running is a great release for many of us when we face stressful times but training at your capacity is also a stressor of its own type. Your body is only capable of handling so much stress at any given time. When one stress increases, another has to be decreased. The good news is that, when your outside stresses fade back down, you can increase your training load again.

Your training capacity can and WILL change

Our training capacities are always changing. As we gain fitness, we’re becoming more capable of handling a larger training load. If we lose fitness, our training capacity decreases. As we age, our training capacity is affected

To account for this, always pay attention to how you’re feeling and continue to reassess where your current capacity is. When you are gaining fitness and your capacity is on the rise, though, don’t be constantly increasing the load. It’s too easy to go too far if you do that. I like the idea of adjusting your load upward about once every 3-4 weeks.

If your training capacity is decreasing, though, make the adjustments immediately. As I’ve already mentioned, you’re better off at 90% of capacity than at 110% of capacity.

As much as we don’t want it to happen, as we age, our training capacity also changes. For most runners, the best way to handle this is to adjust the amount of time between hard days or, as I’ve seen work well, to take one of the weekly hard days and lessen the intensity of it.

Sometimes you’ll miss – adjust and move on

Hitting your right training capacity is a tough balance. Plus, with your capacity always changing as mentioned above, sometimes you won’t adjust right as the change happens. It happens to all of us. When it happens, don’t make a big deal of it. Instead, find your way back to equilibrium, pay attention to find that right balance again and understand what changed and why so you can keep watching for the same or similar things to happen again and adjust before problems creep up next time.

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

Have you found your training capacity? Are you sure? If you have, do you know what to do with that knowledge?

This is part 2 of a 3 part series on training capacity:

1) What is training capacity?

2) How to find your training capacity and what to do when you have found it?

3) Other training capacity considerations.

How to find your training capacity?

So we now understand that your training capacity is more complex than just how many miles a week you can run. It’s a measure of the total training stimulus you can handle. It’s taking into account both the volume and intensity of your running as well as the auxiliary training you’re doing. It’s a measure of the whole package.

With that more complex definition, how do you determine what your training capacity is? As the definition of the term gets more complex, finding what it is also gets more complex. Fortunately, there’s a way to do it that, while requiring patience and hard work, is very possible for all of us to do.

What is that way? Increase a little at a time and paying attention to how your body responds.

Sounds easy, right? No? Well, let’s dig a little deeper.

Start by holding a training load that you have successfully held recently. Now, build up some component a little. Maybe increase your weekly miles a little. Maybe add another workout or increase the intensity of a workout you’re already doing. Whatever you do, though, remember what I said about patience? Don’t do too much. How do you feel at the end of your next week? Still feeling good? Add a little more and reassess at the end of the next week. Beginning to feel a little strain from the training but still feel like things are sustainable? That means you found your training capacity. Feeling worn down or beat up? You just went too far. Back off immediately.

The key is that you want that delicate balance between feeling like the training is a piece of cake and feeling worn down by the training. You want to feel like you’re working hard but also feel like you could keep going for a long time at that level. When you found that level, you found your training capacity, the "sweet spot" you want to spend a lot of time at.

What to do with your training capacity?

Once you’ve found your training capacity, you want to stick with it. What if you need to change your training balance, though? Let’s say your racing season is nearing and you want to add more intensity. Then add more intensity but remove or cut back on something as you do so. Remove some volume, shorten your long run, cut back on the auxiliary training. Do something to keep things in balance. As you do this, again, pay close attention to how you’re feeling to keep that balance.

The main thing to remember is, if you’re getting close to that line between sustainable training and overtraining, you have to be careful to not cross over. That means, if your training focus is shifting, you have to take something away or cut back on something as you add or increase something else. It’s true that your training capacity may gradually build over time (more on that next week) but it won’t do so as quickly as we need to change our training focus as our season progresses. So don’t be afraid to reduce one variable to build up another. It’s a necessary part of finding the right training balance.

In the end, you want to ride that "sweet spot" as long as possible. Sure, you will venture a little too far at times and you will fall a little short at other times. When you do, don’t get worked up about it, though. Just adjust to get back into that sweet spot.

Next week, we’ll review some other training capacity considerations.

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

Do you know your training capacity?

Most people don’t. They assume they know but I’ve seen that many runners don’t even know how to define their training capacity, much less determine what theirs is.

In the next three weeks, I’d like to explore training capacity. I was originally going to write this all into one post but I think it would turn out too long and too much to digest all at once. So I’m going to break this into three parts:

1) What is training capacity?

2) How to find your training capacity and what to do when you have found it?

3) Other training capacity considerations.

So, with that, here we go…

What is training capacity?

Before you can determine what your training capacity is, you have to define the term. Many people think of miles per week as the definition. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I can run 70 miles per week no problem. I’ve done it several times this year already. However, right now, I couldn’t run a 70 mile week while sustaining 7 minute per mile pace on my easy days and doing two grueling workouts and a long run every week.

I prefer to think of your training capacity as the total training stimulus you can handle. It’s about more than just volume. It’s also intensity, auxiliary training such as strength workouts or cross training and more. It’s the total picture.

The more intensity you do, the less volume you can do. This isn’t a change in your training capacity, it’s a change in the focus of your training. As your intensity increases, your training stimulus increases. Think of your training capacity not as just a measure of how much volume you can handle but as a measure of how much total training stimulus you can handle. This will give you a more complete and accurate picture of how much training you are capable of.

Next week, I’ll discuss finding your training capacity and what to do once you’ve found it. Until then, I hope this gets you started thinking in a new way about what your training capacity is.

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

Team HillRunner.com before an early fall race in 2013

What are you doing now to win this fall?

What you’re doing now will determine how your racing season goes this fall. Whether a "win" for you means winning a race, placing in your age group or reaching a time goal, the work you get in during the summer will go a long way toward determining whether you get that "win".

We all know distance running isn’t an instant gratification sport. You have to put in months of work to get good results. Well, check the calendar. Your fall race may be as little as two months out and surely isn’t more than five months out. You may have already hit the heart of your training schedule if you’re two months out. Even if you’re five months out, what you’re doing now will affect how hard you can work a few months from now when you are in the heart of your schedule.

So get out there. Make today count. Your fall racing season depends on it.

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

Note: This is an article I first wrote at least a decade ago for the articles section of HillRunner.com. As I’m in the process of retiring that section, I’m moving all articles to the blog in their original form. This is the final one. I would likely write this somewhat differently if I were to rewrite it today but I want to keep it in its original form.

Over and over again, I see the debate come up. What is more important? Quality or quantity? Is it that simple, though? Can we really narrow this question down to one or the other? In recent years, it seems like many people would have you believe it is that simple. They refer to quotes such as "if you want to run fast, you have to run fast" and say that race performances are dependant on quality and quantity is not important. They frequently talk about "junk miles" as if anything that isn’t a hard day is useless. Interestingly, it seems as if the "mileage junkies", as some of these people like to term high volume runners, don’t take the same kind of angle. I can’t think of one high volume competitive runner who has done high volume training to the exclusion of quality workouts or one high volume proponent who has stated that quality done at the right time is not an important aspect of training for competition. I can, however, think of many high intensity runners who have done high intensity to the exclusion of aerobic conditioning and also many people who say high volume training is unimportant, some who even say it is detrimental.

If you are interested in maximizing your performance potential, you have to consider all the variables that go into your performance. Just like a race car mechanic. It doesn’t matter how good the tires of the car are if the engine has no power. It doesn’t matter how powerful the engine is if the drive train can’t handle that power. It doesn’t matter how strong the drive train is if the tires can’t hold up at high speeds. For a runner, it doesn’t matter what speed you have if you don’t have the aerobic capacity to run at a high effort level for the duration of the race. It doesn’t matter what your aerobic capacity is if your muscles do not have the strength and stamina to go the distance. It doesn’t matter what strength and stamina you have if you don’t have the speed to turn it into a fast race pace. With any piece of the running puzzle missing, you are not a complete racer and you will not perform up to your highest potential.

So how do you get all the components needed? By mixing the right amounts of both quality and quantity at the right times. This comes back to periodization, which I’ve already discussed in another article, but in terms of this article it means finding the right balance of quality and quantity. In this way, quality and quantity are not opposing forces. As a matter of fact, if you don’t view them as opposing forces, you can bring them together to work as a pair of complimentary forces pushing you to whole new levels of running performance.

The obvious question that comes up next is how to find the right balance of these two powerful forces. Well, if you have been reading popular magazines and websites over the past decade, the first step is to forget everything you have read. Go back to the drawing board and re-learn the basics of training for competitive distance running. The first rule of distance running is that you have to be able to cover a distance or even farther comfortably before you can race the distance. This means base training. Run a lot of miles and become real comfortable with running the distance and longer. This is the basis for everything that comes later and this is where quantity is the focus. After at least a few months of this, you should be comfortable covering your race distance, farther if your goal race is on the shorter end of the spectrum (half marathon or shorter) and maybe a little shorter for the real long races (marathon or longer), and your base should be pretty well established. At this point, you can maintain your base while establishing the speed needed to race the distance. This is where quality becomes the driving factor in your training plan. You are prepared to cover the distance, you can now maintain that by maintaining at least some of your quantity and now focus on building the quality to push yourself to speeds that you had never been capable of reaching before. The final result is being able to run a fast pace thanks to the quality and being able to maintain that fast pace all the way through your race without hitting the wall thanks to the quantity. Obviously, this is simplifying a well thought out training plan quite a bit but it points out how both quantity and quality are needed in order to reach optimal performance.

A lot of people will tell you that doing high volume will detract from your speed workouts, which will hurt your race performances. Don’t buy into this. It may be the case if you’re doing more than your body can handle, likely in terms of running too fast but possibly in terms of running too far, on your recovery days. However, I can tell you from experience and I could find many others who could share similar experiences that my best workouts came during my highest volume periods of training. During 2002, my highest volume period of training ever at that time, I was doing workouts that were blowing my mind. I was running repeats at 10-20 seconds per mile faster than I had ever previously been capable of doing on lower volume training. Why? Because, instead of beating my head against the wall with more and more intensity, I took a step back, found my balance, and gained an incredible amount of fitness by building my base to a level I had never been at before. My high quantity helped fuel the very high quality training I did when the time was right and the combination of the two led to my reaching the highest level of fitness I had ever experienced. If I had excluded either the very high quantity or the very high quality I had been doing, I never would have reached the level of fitness I did through a balance of both powerful forces.

In the end, if you are looking to perform at your best, it’s not about one or the other. You can’t ignore or even short one aspect of training if you want to be the best you can be. You need to hone the powers of all aspects of training and bring them together for ultimate fitness. That means you have to go through periods of high volume training, whatever that means for yourself as an individual, as well as periods of lower volume but higher intensity training. If you leave any of the aspects out or even if you shortchange any of these aspects, you will not perform up to your capabilities.