Training

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

I was listening Friday to a TED Radio Hour podcast and an engineer was on there, describing prosthetic technology straight out of science fiction movies. He developed this technology. He was obviously an extremely intelligent person.

When being interviewed for this podcast, he didn’t need to use all kinds of big terms that would just confuse almost every listener. He was able to describe our nerve connections and how they attach and communicate to muscles with analogies to real world things that the lay person could understand. The nerve is like a telephone line. When the muscle it connects to is taken away, it’s like removing the phone from the line. You can plug in another muscle just like you can plug in another phone.

I had already started writing this blog post before listening to that podcast. As I listened to him describing nerves and muscles like telephone lines and telephones, I thought of this post. This engineer was the perfect example of what I was writing about.

Let’s compare this engineer to many of the running "experts" we see online these days. They drop terms like LT, VO2max, ATP, glycolysis, mitochondria, so on and so on without explaining what they mean. Do you know what they mean when they use these terms? Does it concern you that they don’t explain these terms? It concerns me even when I know what they mean.

Does the individual using these terms want you to understand what they are saying? Does the individual truly understand what they are saying?

If the individual doesn’t want you to understand what they are saying, how valuable is what they are saying to you? People who are secure with themselves know that you need at least a basic knowledge of what is being discussed to get the full value of the discussion. Maybe you don’t need to know all the scientific details but you need to know, for example, that your mitochondria are the parts of your muscles where energy stored in your body is combined with oxygen to produce the energy your muscles actually use. Just using the term mitochondria is meaningless but explaining it in this way gives you insight on why having more and larger mitochondria is critical.

Likewise, if the individual doesn’t truly understand what they are saying, does it mean anything? Sure, having more and larger mitochondria is a good thing. Or is it? If you don’t have some understanding of what mitochondria are, how do you know?

When reading a person’s writings or listen to a person speaking, if you don’t understand the terms they are using, don’t assume they are too smart for you and you just trust them. Challenge them to explain what they mean. If they truly understand, they will be able to do so in a way nearly everyone can understand. Just like the engineer. If he can explain advanced prosthetics in a way anyone can understand, anyone who knows their subject matter should be able to do the same. If they can’t or won’t, I’d question their knowledge of the subject matter or their self confidence.

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

HIIT is all the rage right now. Improve your aerobic fitness in 10 minutes or less of high intensity work by greater amounts than you can in 60 minutes of moderate aerobic running.

Sound like an infomercial to you? That’s because, in part, it is. However, there is some truth to what you hear that runners should keep in mind.

What is HIIT?

First, we should define what HIIT is so we know what we’re talking about.

A common definition I see offered is 4 repeats of 30 seconds with 4 minutes of recovery in between.

All definitions I’ve seen fit roughly this concept. A relatively small number (always less than 10 from what I’ve seen) of repeats of a short duration (I’ve seen anything from 8 seconds to 1 minute, usually 30 seconds or less) with varying recoveries.

What are the benefits of HIIT?

Claims are that these short but very intense workouts improve your "aerobic fitness" (usually measured as VO2max) even more than a 60 minute easy or moderate effort.

Note that VO2max is very important. It’s your measure of maximal oxygen utilization. Obviously, the more oxygen our bodies are able to utilize, the better off we are.

You’re running roughly at your VO2max when you run all out for 15 minutes so, for most runners, it’s between 2 mile and 5K race pace. VO2max is a limiting factor in running performance and is considered one of the critical physiological markers for runners in all long distance events.

What are the drawbacks of HIIT?

It sounds like we all should be doing HIIT, right? If it is the best route to improving our maximal oxygen utilization, doesn’t that sound like something we want to be doing? Well, maybe we should do it but not exclusively. There are two things to keep in mind.

First, HIIT training is good for VO2max but it may not be the best.

I’ve not yet seen a study comparing HIIT training to longer repeats of 2-5 minutes in trained athletes. Most people who know running will tell you that these longer repeats will be more effective in improving a well trained runner’s VO2max than repeats of less than 1 minute.

Second, VO2max isn’t everything for the distance runner.

Other factors such as lactate threshold, ability to burn fat effectively, even basic fatigue resistance of your muscles play a big role in endurance events.

But there are benefits so should I be doing some HIIT training?

Yes. Can you believe it? I’m saying you should be doing this hyped up fad workout!

But here’s the good news. You might already be doing it!

Do you do strides? If not, you should. If so, you’re already doing it. Most of us do strides ranging from 15 to 40 seconds so these fall roughly in line most with HIIT training suggestions.

Here’s some good news to go along with the potential VO2max benefits. Strides are also great for improving your form and running efficiency. That makes you a better runner, whether you’re focusing on the mile or the marathon.

So what’s the bottom line?

The bottom line is do some of these workouts. Whether you want to call them strides or HIIT training or just short repeats, I don’t care. Just make sure you’re getting the benefit of this useful workout.

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

"Is is still possible to improve as a runner and qualify for Boston being consistent week to week rather than necessarily day by day?"

This is a question I was asked recently by a runner who needed some flexibility in her day to day schedule. Not every week is she able to get in the long run on the same day of the week so we were exploring the idea of a bit more flexibility.

Some runners thrive on a consistent schedule. Every Sunday is your long run, every Tuesday is your speed workout. You don’t have to think about it. You just do it. Personally, I’m one of those runners. My life outside of running is relatively consistent and I just like not having to think about when to fit specific runs in. It also works for my family life. My family knows, if I’m not racing, expect me to be running for 2 hours Saturday morning. Sunday morning’s run will be shorter.

For other runners, this routine just doesn’t work, though. Work or family life may not be as consistent. If you try to force that long run on Saturday, it will work sometimes but other times it just won’t happen. If you’re one of those people, don’t try to force things.

I often say the key to developing as a runner is consistency. The key to consistency, though, isn’t doing your long run or primary workout on the same day of the week every week. It’s doing all of your planned runs every week. It doesn’t matter if your long run is on Thursday this week and Sunday next week or if your workout is on Monday this week and Wednesday next week. What matters is that you’re getting all of these runs, along with as many easy runs as possible/reasonable, done on a consistent basis.

Be flexible. Keep the big picture in mind and use that flexibility to make yourself more consistent.

By the way, here is how I responded to the question at the beginning of this post:

"You can absolutely qualify for Boston being consistent week to week! Really, week to week and month to month consistency is what we’re looking for. Whether you do your long run every Friday or Sunday doesn’t matter as long as you’re doing it every week (or most weeks at least). Same with the workout. The day of the week doesn’t matter, what matters is that it gets done more often than not."

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

I used to take large doses of antioxidant supplements daily. My supplement was a combination of Beta Carotene, Vitamin C and Vitamin E. It was recommended to me by my doctor way back when I was in high school and I kept taking it until just a few years ago. I figured it might help and what’s the harm?

Did you notice that I stated I "used to" take these supplements? I’ve been following Steve Magness for quite some time and he, along with a few others, was pointing out studies (such as this and this) that said not only was antioxidant supplementation not beneficial but it might actually dampen the body’s response to training.

Now, a new study that again took up the topic of how antioxidants affect our training has come out. The results? Well, not a ringing endorsement for antioxidant supplementation. While running performance didn’t seem to be affected, there was clearly a difference between those taking the antioxidants and those who didn’t at a cellular level. There was evidence of an increase in mitochondria in those who were on the placebo, while there was not in those who were taking antioxidants. Remember, mitochondria are often referred to as the "power plants" of the muscle cells, where glucose and oxygen are processed to produce the form of energy the muscle cells can use. At the cellular level, more mitochondria is one of the key results we’re looking for when we do aerobic training.

It’s a little confusing that we would see a difference in mitochondria production but not a difference in running performance but the lesson here is that, however you look at the results of this study, antioxidant supplementation did not help the runners.

It’s not just the vitamins we know about that make our foods healthy. There is more going on and supplements that pump us full of this incomplete nutrition aren’t helpful and might even be harmful. Focus instead of eating whole foods. Nature has things pretty well figured out, don’t assume we can engineer things that will work better than nature. If you don’t know how the supplements might affect you, don’t assume like I falsely did some time ago that they couldn’t hurt. That could very well be a bad assumption, just as mounting evidence suggests my assumption was.

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

You don’t need a watch on race day if you practice running by effort in training

As anyone who is or has been coached by me knows, I usually target effort in workouts. I often assign workouts such as mile repeats at 10K effort or a tempo run at half marathon effort or 1/2 mile repeats at 5K effort. While some people naturally gravitate toward working in accordance to efforts, I think I drive others crazy. "What pace should I be running?" "Should this by my target pace or the pace I think I could run right now?" "I don’t know my 10K pace/effort."

As I usually do my best to explain, what I’m targeting is truly effort, not pace. I want them to become more independent, not as reliant on the watch or whatever other aid they may prefer and more reliant on themselves and their bodies’ responses to their efforts.

But why do I prefer to prescribe workouts by effort and not pace or some other parameter and how do you do a workout by effort?

Why do workouts by effort?

In my opinion, there are a lot of good reasons to focus on effort, not pace or some other parameter, but I’ll focus on a few key reasons.

Training by effort allows you to refine your ability to race by effort: Running by effort, whether in a training environment or a racing environment, is a skill. Just like all skills, it needs to be practiced. There are some race day skills that can only be developed on race day. For those we can develop in training, we should to the fullest of our ability.

But why race by effort?

Training and racing by effort allows you to better handle variables out of your control: You’ve trained through this brutal winter we’re having. You know what paces you’ve been running but, when the better weather of spring rolls around and your first race shows up on the schedule, what do those winter paces mean? Nothing. You know you’re more fit than those paces. Further, what if the race course is more or less hilly? What if it’s windy, unseasonably warm or you’re dealing with some other weather variable? Paces can lose a lot of meaning in many scenarios. However, if you know what the effort should feel like, that’s a constant you can rely on.

Running by effort removes your susceptibility to technical glitches: Batteries, especially for high tech devices, wear down rapidly. What happens if your GPS device battery dies on you? What happens if your GPS device doesn’t lock into satellites correctly? Everyone I have talked with about this has had at least one run where their paces and splits were all screwed up or their battery died on them. What do you do if race day is that day for you?

How do I do workouts by effort?

The idea is to think of the workout you’ve been prescribed and break it down into its components. Then, target each component to its corresponding segment of the first 1/2 to 2/3 of a race.

For example, if I saw 3×1 mile at 10K effort, that first mile should feel just like the first mile of a 10K, that time where you are definitely extending a good effort but you’re still feeling controlled, relaxed and smooth. The second should feel like the second or third miles of a 10K, that time where you’re working hard, you’re breathing hard but it’s still rhythmic and controlled and you’re settling into a tough but controlled pace. The final mile should feel like the third or fourth miles of a 10K, that time where you’re pushing pretty hard, challenging yourself, but you’re still under control, you still feel like you have some gas left in the tank for those last 2 miles. As I also mention often, I think almost every workout should be finished feeling like you could have done at least one more repeat if you had to. You may be simulating a race effort but you’re not racing. Save the feeling of the last mile or half mile of a race, that all out effort to reach the finish line as quickly as possible at all cost, for race day.

If I saw 8×1/4 mile at 5K effort, I’ d break it down to each repeat corresponding to its 1/4 mile segment of the first 2 miles of a 5K. For the first, I want to get out quick but be under control. For the second through the fourth, I want to work the pace but stay under control. For the final 4, I want to dig deep but feel like I have something left.

The most important part, though, is that I don’t want to get too caught up in my splits. I don’t want to target a pace. Maybe I’m tired from the past week’s training and my paces are a little off what I think I could run in a 5K race right now. That’s fine. I know what I’ll be capable of on fresh legs. What matters is I just simulated the effort I was targeting in this workout.

Give it a try next time you’re planning your workouts. Target a race effort and don’t worry about the splits, just aim for the effort. There will be a learning curve but getting on that curve in your workouts just might help you to a better result when race day arrives.