By 24 days
into my Mt Mitchell Challenge training I was beat up. I pushed through a speed
session despite the fact that I was still sore from running and weight training
earlier in the week. Later, I cut a long run short because my muscles were so
fatigued I couldn’t keep my form. Every morning my feet felt like someone had
beaten them with a nightstick. And I got grumpy at my dogs during an easy run.
To me, that’s a huge red flag.
Overreaching
is part of training, but too much is dangerous. My training plan might be too
aggressive for my life, age, and fitness. Right now, I am going to try fix two
major problems and see how it goes from there. These two problems are (1)
trying to overlay my 10-day training plan onto a busy schedule arranged on a
7-day week has become a source of distraction and anxiety, and (2) I am almost certainly
running my “easy runs” too hard.
Squaring the 10 day training cycle with my 7 day life:
The
problems with the 10-day cycle are unpredictability and impracticality.
Unpredictability, in the sense of not being able to easily remember what kind
of session is coming up next, creates distraction and anxiety. Not that I was
totally freaking out, but I definitely felt like I was wasting energy and time
trying to keep track of a schedule that is not consistent week-to-week.
Moreover, the schedule was impractical in the sense that I simply cannot access
a track any day of the week, I simply cannot get away for a long run any day of
the week, and there are days when it is virtually impossible to get to the
weight room. I need to have specific workouts fall on specific days of the
7-day week.
I placed my full 10-day cycle
training plan onto a calendar and summarized it on a weekly basis in terms of
the number of long runs, hill sessions, speed sessions, easy runs, and rest
days. As it turns out, there were almost always 2 easy and 2 rest days per
week. Weeks varied in the composition of long runs, hills, and speed. Then I simply
set some rules (based on my personal and professional time constraints) and
rearranged sessions within each week. The result is below.
The main thing that had to give was
back to back long runs. Instead, I have scheduled my long runs the day after a
hill or speed session. This still satisfies the principle of running long on
tired legs.
Final note/disclaimer: This is my training plan. I am not a coach. I am
not an exercise scientist. I am certainly not a lawyer. I do not recommend this training plan for
anyone. Chances are, if you try to follow it, you will get hurt, you will fail
to reach your performance goals, and might even die. Moreover, any good coach
would tell you that all training plans are merely aspirational guidelines and
should not be followed slavishly. Good healthy athletes should pay attention to
their bodies, their doctors, and real coaches when planning and modifying any
particular activity.
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| Interval workouts are listed as repetitions x (intense distance + recovery distance). For example, 4x(200+1400) means go hard for 200 meters, run steady for 1400 meters, and repeat a total of four times. Warming up and jogging home from the track adds up to 5 miles per session. |
Trying to run easy enough
Speaking of
tired legs, being sore on a morning that I planned to run intense track
intervals (and after a full rest day) probably means I shouldn’t have done that
interval session. My mileage is not insane at this point, and two well-spaced
rest days per week should be adequate. So, I have two (not mutually exclusive)
hypotheses to explain my soreness and exhaustion. First, I am probably running
too fast on easy and long run days. According to the research, most runners make
this mistake, and I see no reason why I should be different. Second, my
strength training is probably too intense and too inconsistent. I’ll make a few
comments on that in a later post. Here, I describe my strategy for re-calibrating
my easy runs.
Several authorities have promoted the idea that runners should be spending 80% or more of their training time at “low intensity” (e.g., Lydiard, Maffetone, Fitzgerald, and others). In addition, research seems to show that recreational athletes (like me) spend way too much time running too fast, even if they think they are “going easy”. In contrast, successful elite runners seem to run very easy 80% of the time and very intense (focused, purposeful workouts) about 20% of the time. Elite athletes spend little or no time in the middle “moderate intensity” zone that seems to have the least training benefit.
My focused and purposeful intense workouts are my interval sessions and hill sessions. According to my plan, these occupy 30 to 90 minutes of my weekly training time. That means all of my scheduled easy and long runs need to count toward my 80% low intensity. But what is low intensity? Different authorities and coaches use different rules of thumb, based on various physiological variables like heartrate, VO2max, metabolic efficiency and ventilatory threshold. I don’t have any of those data for myself, but a decent statistical estimate (from this runnersconnect article) is that 55% to 75% of 5K pace corresponds to this “easy” level of intensity where injury risk is low and training effects on the aerobic system are maximized. The problem is, the pace data probably come from controlled studies of runners on flat ground or treadmills. My “easy” runs regularly include over 1,000 feet of ascending and descending, so I need to be able to modify my effort by feel to stay in the zone.
Therefore, I have taken a week (5 runs) to calibrate my ability to run at “low intensity”. First, I estimated my ideal flat ground easy pace based on a roughly 18 minute 5K. I think I could do a little better, but 6 min/mile leads to nice round numbers: 6 min/mile = 10mph. 75% of 10mph is 7.5mph = 8 min/mile. My goal was to teach myself what 8min/mile feels like on relatively flat terrain, so I could try to avoid going above that level of perceived effort on my regular hilly runs.
I have found (I think) that I can gauge (and control) my effort by my breathing pattern. After settling into roughly the right pace at my habitual stride rate (180 – 190 steps/min), I experimented with various breathing patterns (see Coates for an in-depth treatment of breathing while running, No Meat Athlete for a different spin). For me, a 4-3 pattern feels about right at my easy pace (that means 4 steps per inhalation and 3 steps per exhalation). When I speed up to 7:30 min/mile or faster, I automatically shift to 3-2, and when I slow down past 9:00 min/mile I feel like I’m breathing way too hard for the effort.
I do believe that the 4-3 breathing pattern corresponds well with “conversational pace”. Jeff Gaudette at runnersconnect.com suggests that a 3-3 pattern corresponds to “easy pace”. I am following Coates in using an odd pattern to ensure that my exhale is not always starting on one foot (a pattern that seems to contribute to imbalances and injury risk). So, if not 3-3, do I slow it down to 4-3 or speed it up to 3-2? I have been at 3-2 for most of my intended “easy” runs in the past, so slowing down to 4-3 seems like the right move. This line of reasoning supports my conclusion from my experiments with pace and breathing.
My assignment is to learn to slow down on hills so that I maintain that 4-3 breathing pattern (at ~180 - 190 steps per minute), and avoid feeling beaten up and sore. I already feel better after one week of pulling back on intensity while maintaining my planned mileage.
Managing intensity while descending is much trickier business. For now, I will try to be conservative and plan to make descending a major training focus in January.
