Training

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

I had a couple conversations recently that made me realize that some of my past statements about cross training may have given a false impression of my current opinion on it. I’d like to take a few moments to clear up any misconceptions and to explain where I believe there is value in cross training and where there isn’t.

First, though, a little on the history of my views on cross training. I think maybe my history will shed some light on how I’ve come to my current viewpoint and maybe how these misconceptions about my current viewpoint happened.

I’ve always been a very resilient runner. In my 24+ years as a runner, I’ve suffered one injury of note, a relatively minor pulled hamstring. My body has always held up to anything I could throw at it, from 150+ mile weeks to track workouts that many runners would consider insane to ski hill repeats. Not only did my body hold up to this level of training but I never lost motivation. I was always ready for the next run or the next workout. For a long time, when I was almost solely focused on my own running and how to maximize my own abilities, I questioned the need of cross training. If you can run more, why not run more? Why take away from your running to do something else? The specificity of training principle, which I always have and always will strongly believe in, says this is a mistake.

Then, as I started to focus more on training theory and helping others, I noticed a different world than my own. I recognized runners around me who just couldn’t do what I was doing. For whatever reason, their bodies just didn’t hold up to the running the way mine did. Or their motivation would lag whenever their training climbed. I also noticed runners with a host of priorities. From triathletes to runners who also participated in other sports, they weren’t solely focused on running the way I was. It’s at this point that I realized there were three very good reasons for cross training.

1) Physical Limitations

While my body could take anything I threw at it, not everyone out there was that way. I may not have recognized it at some points but, all my running life, I was surrounded by people whose bodies would just break down if they tried to do too much. So their running was limited by injury risk to a greater extent than it was by time and energy. It made perfect sense for these people to supplement their running with additional exercises.

2) Motivational Limitations

Another thing that was never a problem for me was keeping my motivation up. I simply love running so I’ve never had serious motivational issues. Sure, we all have those days that we’d rather not be out running but, when they are short term issues, you can just plow through them. However, once I looked closely again, I could see runners around me for whom trying to carry a big training load just wore on them mentally. They could not keep their motivation up to carry the big training load through running only. For them, cross training would keep things fresh and they could increase their overall training load through it.

3) Other Priorities

Finally, I’ve always been a runner. Not just first and foremost. I’ve only been a runner. Since taking up running in 1990, I’ve never had any interest in cycling, swimming or any other sport. I’m all in. That’s not the case for many runners, though. Whether they compete in sports like triathlon where running is only one of multiple disciplines they will be using or sports like swimming or cycling where running will have some tangential benefits but doesn’t play a direct role, they do have other things to think about. They have to prepare for those other disciplines they want to compete in. What may look like cross training to the runner may, for them, be primary discipline training in another discipline they want to be good at.

What to do?

So what do we do from here? Well, it depends on who you are and what your situation is.

If your goals revolve around running, then you want to run the most you can while remaining healthy and motivated. If you’ve hit that upper limit of your running capacity and you still have time and energy, find something else you can do to supplement your running while still remaining healthy and motivated. The most important thing, though, is to make sure that those extra exercises are supplementing, not replacing, your running. If your goals revolve around running, then you have to make running your top priority and prioritize that.

If you have goals outside of running, then it’s a little more difficult to draw the line. You have to decide how important running is to you compared to the other sports in your life. Then you have to structure your training accordingly. Do what you can to have running supplement your other sports and to have your other sports supplement your running but you’ll have to draw the line at some point. When that happens, you’ll have to decide where your priorities are.

Final Word

If you can run more, why not run more? If your goals are focused on running, I still believe this. If you can’t run more, though, because you will get hurt or lose your motivation, why not use any extra available energy to supplement your running with other exercises? Of course, if your goals go beyond running, it makes perfect sense that you have to train for those other goals.

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

Last week, I joined Renatta from the Seattle Marathon on a Google Hangout to discuss primarily goal setting, though we also touched some on training.

You can view the talk here if you’d like:

Please be gentle. This is the first public speaking I’ve done in quite a few years. I do think I loosened up around 25 minutes, though, and had some fun with it. I also don’t think I stumbled over myself too badly.

If you don’t want to see that much of my face with a bad camera angle and poor lighting, I also have a copy of the audio and will soon have it available online.

Also, I didn’t waste any time in getting back in the saddle. I did another interview less than a week later. When it becomes available, I’ll let everyone know. Until then, I hope you find some of my advice in here useful.

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

In the summer of 1999, I got a call that seemed strange to me. My old high school coach, Coach Conway, was asking me to help him write a training plan for the cross country team. I was a college student and runner with not a day of coaching experience. He was a coach with decades of experience and state champion teams and individuals in his past. Just over a year earlier, I was present as he was inducted into the Wisconsin Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Why would this very experienced, very accomplished coach come to me asking for help writing up a training plan?

Well, because he was a great coach and great coaches don’t rest on their laurels. They are always trying to learn new things. He knew that the college program I was running in used the Daniels training method well before the first edition of Daniels’ Running Formula was published. My coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stout talked with Daniels on at least a semi-regular basis. Earlier that summer, Coach Conway borrowed my copy of Daniels’ Running Formula and obviously liked it. He wanted to implement some ideas from the Daniels method into his training plan and, knowing I had first-hand experience with the plan, asked me to help him out.

This is one of the marks of a great coach. You’re always looking for a better way, you never rest on your laurels and you’re always willing to ask for help, even from people who may never expect to get asked by you.

On that note, I came across this interesting article last week:

Athletic coaches must be open to self-examination, lifelong learning, experts argue

Coaches are often lauded as experts at what they do, and, consequently, it can blind them to their athletes’ individual needs. As a result many problems in sport are misunderstood or solved ineffectively. To address this, coaches need to engage in the critical examination of the knowledge and assumptions that inform their problem-solving approaches for them to become a positive force for change in making thoughtful, healthy, ethical decisions and choices for their athletes, experts argue.

Not only do the best coaches never stop learning and never stop asking for help. They admit their mistakes and learn from them. The bottom line is they are always trying to make themselves better. Anyone can do the same thing year after year and say they have years of experience. The best always innovate and have years worth of experience.

Of course, this all applies to runners as well. Whether you have a coach or you’re a self-coached runner, are you continuing to learn? I don’t care if you’re in your third or thirtieth year of running, knowledge is always changing. If you don’t keep learning, you’ll be left behind. Be a lifelong learner. And, if you have a coach, make sure your coach is also a lifelong learner.

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

What a ridiculous question, right? We don’t want the placebo effect, we want the real thing. The placebo effect is all in your head. You’re not really benefitting from it. Or are you?

Suppose a study (as some do) says runners perform better when they believe they are getting a certain supplement or treatment, even if they are getting the placebo. Is the treatment a benefit? Is the placebo? If you’re running better or remaining healthier, does it matter?

Is the placebo effect really a bad thing? If it leads to you running faster or it leads you to being healthier, isn’t that a good thing?

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

Recently, I encountered two separate discussions elsewhere that raised an interesting idea. The idea is of covering the marathon distance or more in a single weekend while training for a marathon.

As anyone who knows me well knows, I’m a big fan of back to back "long" runs on the weekend. However, I believe you need to have a sufficient base for this kind of training. It’s not for everyone. Most importantly, it’s not for those who aren’t already sustaining a high base of training volume. If you’re running 50 miles per week, I’d much rather see you do a light run of 3-5 miles the day after your long run, which may not be more than 18 miles. It’s "only" a 21-23 mile weekend but you still get the feel of running on tired legs. In addition, you have 27-29 miles to spread out over the remaining 5 days. With that much training capacity for those days available, your overall training will be much better and more well balanced.

But the most critical part of the marathon is the ability to run long, right? What better way to prepare to run long than to log some serious miles on the weekend? It makes logical sense, doesn’t it? Well, take a step back to look at it. If you do this, you’ll probably just log 2-3 easy runs over the course of the week because your legs will be so shot from the weekend. If you do 21-23 miles on the weekend, you’re still getting some serious distance. You’re only giving up around 5 miles. In the meantime, you will have the extra energy to get in a good tempo run on Tuesday or Wednesday and you’ll maybe even be able to get a mid-week run of 10-12 miles in. The net gain by doing a little less on the weekend but getting in much more during the course of the rest of the week will be significant.

Some might say that the suggestion is to only do this once. However, you have to build up to doing this, right? Probably at the same time as you’re building your weekly mileage. So how many weeks do you spend with roughly half of your weekly volume occurring on the weekend? How much are you getting out of the other 5 days a week during those weeks?

Obviously, for some runners, the story is a little different. If you’re running 80 miles a week, a 30 mile weekend makes perfect sense. After all, 80 miles is an average of 10 miles a day for 6 days with a 20 mile run on day 7. However, for a 40-50 mile a week runner, you can’t do 30 or even 26 miles on the weekend and get that same kind of balance. A maximum weekend of 21-23 miles makes much more sense.

In the end, you need to find your best balance. Will a single 26-30 mile weekend for a 40-50 mile per week runner be harmful? Probably not. However, ask yourself what it will do for you. Then ask yourself what it will force you to give up. Is it really going to be beneficial?