Archive for September, 2009
Speed
Posted by: | CommentsThere are few runners among who don’t wish we were a little faster. Just like the key to running farther is running farther, the key to running faster is running faster. So simple and yet so hamstring burningly difficult. Lots of runners do their speed workouts on Wednesday, probably because in a running week that includes a long run on Sunday, the spacing of speed and distance workouts gives enough recovery time.
I’m not big on track workouts and most of my speed work in the past has really been informal – hills or friends (I’ll talk about that in a minute). But I’ve got a time in mind that I’d like to hit for my marathon (3:50) and since it’s been 5 years since I ran a marathon and I’ve had a baby since then, I’ve slowed a bit. So today I did my first formal speed workout. There are several options for speed work, I’ll cover a few including what I’m trying.
Yasso 800s This is what I’m doing for my training. It sounds easy enough and has lots of believers. This is specifically for marathon training. You take your marathon goal time and attempt to run 800 meters (or about 1/2 a mile) at a time equal to that, i.e. if you are shooting for a 3:50 marathon, you should be doing 800 meters in 3 minutes and 50 seconds. After each 800m you do a 400 meter recovery. My training plan had me scheduled to do 6 cycles of this with a 2 mile warmup and a 2 mile cooldown. I only made it 3 cycles and then just finished the rest of the distance with an easy run. But it really pushed me and I’m going to keep it in my plan each Wednesday until my race and work up to 6 cycles. Read here for more detailed info on Yasso 800s.
Track workouts If you have access to a track, there are so many track workouts you can do to increase your speed. Here is a good one if you are training for a 5k or 10k.
Fartlek File this under sounds nasty but isn’t, well not nasty in the way you think. Fartlek literally means “speed play” in Swedish. You don’t need a track or to keep track of distance, it’s an informal way to add a little speed work into your run. Remember when you were a kid and you’d be walking with a friend or sibling and have a spur of the moment “race you to the mailbox” challenge? Fartleks are kind of like that, you add short bursts of speed in to a run, 30 seconds to 3 minutes. You don’t even have to schedule a fartlek session on your training plan, fly by the seat of your pants as my mother would say and just add it into a run when you are feeling good.
Run Hills I used to do my Sunday runs with a training group and we’d run the Omaha Marathon course which was hilly. We’d alternate our complaining with our hill mantra which was “hills are speed work in disguise.” You can do formal hill repeats which is just what it sounds like, repeatedly running the same hill or resist your natural urge to avoid the hills and pick a hilly course for your run a few days a week.
Find a faster friend There are so many benefits to running with someone else or a group and one of them is that it might just make you faster. Group runs are really good for this because you usually have a nice range of paces and you can find a pack at a pace you’d like to maintain and run with them. I think that we naturally speed up when we are running with someone else anyway. It’s probably part bravado or if you are like me, I think “well I don’t want to slow this person down so I better keep a quick pace” and that person is probably thinking the same thing and we are both probably running faster than we would alone!
You don’t have to be shooting for a marathon to benefit from speed work, it can help you training for any distance. And it shakes your muscles out of the complacency of those runs every day that can get to a point where they are routine.
Add this to your running mix and don’t let anyone slow you down.
Time heals (most) all (running) wounds
Posted by: | CommentsThere was an interesting article the other day in the Wall Street Journal about how many maladies just require time to heal. Colds, flu, back pain, etc. all just mostly require some time to let the body heal. The same is true with many common running injuries. At some point in your running career, you’ll likely be sidelined by injury. If you are like me it will probably be because you were looking at your shoes during a race and fell over the safety cone marking the race course. Here are some common running injuries that mean it’s time to take a little rest.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome: A common cause of knee pain in runners is actually caused by inflammation in the iliotibial band, a ligament that runs on the outside of your leg from your hip to your shin. Women are prone to ITBS, possibly because of anatomy – our hips cause our knees to turn inward when we run which creates inflammation when the IT band rubs on your knee. I’ve had this and it hurts but the best thing for this really is to stop running and let it heal. Read more about ITBS here.
Stress Fracture: One reason why it’s so important to gradually increase your mileage is to avoid stress fractures. Common in the bones of your lower leg and feet, these are repetitive stress injuries to your bones and not usually a true fracture or break. If you have pain that you think is shin splints or a cramp but gets worse as you run, it could be something more serious like a stress fracture. Stress fractures can be tough to diagnose and require a bone scan and simply take time to heal.
Shin splints: Pain in your shin that stays relatively constant or gets better during your run could very well be shin splints. Cutting your mileage way back, cross training, and rest are key to kicking shin splints. If you are prone to shin splints, try this exercise to help prevent them.
Overtraining Syndrome: Training for a race is hard on your body, not only are you prone to injury but your immune system is also working overtime leaving you vulnerable to illness as well. If you seem to be feeling achy and tired all the time, are getting colds and sore throats, and generally just aren’t psyched to do that run – listen to your body. Your non-running time is just as important as your running days when you are training. Sleep is key, this is when your body heals and rebuilds so make sure you are getting enough. If you are feeling run-down take some time off. You may feel guilty that you aren’t running but from experience I can tell you that a few days off is so much better for you than a few lousy days of running just to log the miles.
Runners are a motivated lot, it’s hard to not run when running is so much of who you are. But if you are sidelined with an injury take that time to discover something new. I had a fracture in my foot after running the Chicago Marathon one year and couldn’t run for 6 weeks. That’s when I discovered spinning class. I loved the workout, met some cool people in spin class, set in motion my triathlon goals, and best of all increased my cardiovascular capability and leg strength. After I started spinning I ran my fastest 1/2 marathon.
Another good cross training activity when you can’t run is swimming. Put this one in your music mix and go out and run swim a few miles.
Going the distance
Posted by: | CommentsI really wanted to post yesterday but I did my long run, almost 19 miles, and the only titles that were rambling around in my head were “Holy moley my legs hurt” and “Oy vey I can’t move.” After some sleep and a little birthday cake at a toddler birthday party yesterday, I’m ok to sit upright long enough to type. Ok, it’s not that bad. I’m just a little achy.
I ran into my friend who is training for her first 1/2 marathon on the trail, she was set to do 7 miles yesterday. I know that the fact that I was doing more than twice as many seemed a little overwhelming to her but it wasn’t that long ago when doing 7 seemed like that to me. People who are newer to running or training for their first distance race can look at people who are routinely running marathons and think “that’s so far, I’ll never get to that point.” But the truth is, we all start from a base of zero. I didn’t just open my door one day and run 20 miles. In fact when I first started running I would add in some walking. I’d run 9 minutes and walk a minute, when training for my first marathon I always did a little walking during my long runs.
There’s no magic bullet in running, if you want to be able to run farther then you have to, well, run farther. The easiest way to build your long run mileage is by adding 1-2 miles a week to your long run. Going from a 5 mile run to a 10 mile run would be overwhelming physically and psychologically if you tried to make that jump at once. But adding just one mile a week to your base of 5 miles builds your endurance gradually. It’s easier to mentally adjust too, telling yourself it’s only ONE extra mile makes it seem much more do-able. You get to the point too where everything’s relative. Once you do a 10k, a 5k seems like a piece of cake, when you finish a marathon you can knock off a half-marathon much easier.
Some people are better sprinters and doing long runs don’t seem worthwhile, but even if you’re not training for a longer race, there’s value to the long run. Here’s a good Runner’s World article about the merits of long runs. Even when I’m not training for a race I like to do a long run on Sundays, old habits die hard I guess.
Here’s an appropriately titled pick for your running mix, Run On.
Who inspires you?
Posted by: | CommentsA few years ago I was visiting my friend who lives in Boston. It happened to be when the Boston Marathon was being run and as luck would have it, she lived just a few blocks from part of the course. We went to watch for a while and I happened to see Dick and Rick Hoyt run by. I had heard of them before because they are well known in running and triathlon circles. They are a father and son team, dad Dick pushes Rick in his wheelchair when they race. Not only do they finish marathons and Ironman triathlons but they sport pretty good times as well! If you are not familiar with their story, go read it, it will most certainly inspire you on your next run.
Often though you don’t have to look far to find inspiration all around you. This morning on my run I saw a mom pushing a triple jogger with triplets. And she was running! I know how tough it is to get one kid wrangled into a jogging stroller and push that thing so this was one amazing mom. There’s plenty of inspiration all around me, my mom who has rheumatoid arthritis and had rotator cuff surgery is running again and ran almost every day last week. My little brother stopped smoking (YIPPEEE) and stopped eating meat and started running and has lost over 20 pounds. My friend Sandy is training for her first half marathon and building her mileage. Each one of them is doing something that is challenging them and that’s one of the really cool things about running. Even if you don’t race you can challenge and push yourself just by running faster or farther. You’ll not only be doing something good for your body but you’ll be learning a lot about yourself. Whether your run is easy or tough, either way you get a daily affirmation that you are strong and who doesn’t need that?
Here’s one of my favorite songs that inspires me, especially on the rainy days we’ve had this week.
