swimriderundave’s BodyBlog

So I’ve been to dozens of coaching clinics for running, triathlon, and swimming and have picked up on one recurring theme in regards to improving one’s race times: VOLUME.  In order to rack up the volume for running, one has to really back down on the intensity and do frequent bouts of ‘EASY’ running.  You look at all the top athletes and ask them their training history.  I guarantee that at some point in time in their athletic development, they completed week after week of high-volume low intensity training.

I’m currently training a two-time olympic runner (1996, 2004) who spent several months training in Africa with the Kenyans.  She mentioned how some of the men who were capable of running 13-minute 5k’s (that’s a 4-minute mile pace) were running 12-minute miles during their base training phase.  Bobby Mcgee, a Running Coach from South Africa, mentioned how the Japanese Women Marathoners would do run-walk intervals to support their 120-mile weeks (also done during base training…and who won the women’s olympic marathon?).  My point is, volume is the most effective way at increasing one’s fitness to achieve better race times and in order to rack up the volume, you have to learn how to turn down the intensity.   Of course there are other methods but if they were just as effective, I’m sure that elite level athletes would probably already be doing them.

Question is, where does intensity come into play?  In a typical periodization scheme, intensity usually comes in AFTER several months of base training.  That’s when you start incorporating speed intervals, hill intervals, time trials, etc.  But my point is, in order to have an effective race season, you have to pay your dues and build your base.  When was the last time you focused on building your base,…doing at least 12-16 weeks straight of running (or run/walking) at least 6 days a week?  That, my friends, is a solid scheme for ‘base’ training that most people won’t commit to because it requires humility (I’ll talk about that in a moment), commitment, and patience.  Don’t get me wrong,… if one was to simply start a season by doing hard intervals on the track, I’m sure their times would improve BUT, their physiological make-up would be different from those that have done their base training and therefore their rate of recovery would be much slower. 

I must confess that until several weeks ago, I have NOT been able to commit to developing a solid base, particularly for running.  I know for a fact that my ego had something to do with it.  Let me explain… My 5k PR is 19 minutes.  I was able to run it simply by running 2-3 times a week.  That’s about a 6:20 minute/mile pace.  Now I’ve tried in the past to establish my base but I would always break down because of fatigue or injury because I was running too fast during my workouts.  I thought that a 9-minute mile would be a good running pace to run 6 days a week (at least 4 miles a day) but aparently, not.  In the last few weeks, I’ve been running at an 11:30 pace and it has allowed me to put in about 35 miles per week.  And yes, I do get passed by other men, women (pushing strollers), and children.  It’s humbling but I know that it’ll make me faster runner in the end.

I’ve known about periodization and base training for the past 11  years but have always tried to take the easier route.  I’ve made gains by training my ‘own’ way and would often plateau and eventually injure myself.  BUT,…I would still preach periodization to my athletes and force them to follow its protocols….I was a hypocrite.  I’m now in my 4th week of base training and plan to continue to rack up the mileage thru late October.  I’ll start the ‘quality’ workouts in November where I’ll decrease my volume while increasing my intensity.  My ‘A’ priority race is the California International Marathon in early December where I plan on qualifying for Boston.  My stand-alone marathon PR is a 3:52 from 2 years ago when I rode a century (100 miles) on the day before the run.  I’m sure I’ll do better this next time around.

The worst thing I could ever do was purchase my Garmin Forerunner.  Rather than focusing on limiting my intensity like I should have, I used it to play the ‘numbers’ game, where I’d go out and run harder than I should just so I could say I ran 5 miles at a 7-minute pace.  This numbers game was bad in the sense that I’d try to better my numbers each time until I would break down with an injury.  And then I’d lose whatever little fitness I gained while trying to recover from the injury.  I had a friend who showed me his Garmin and bragged about holding a 5 minute pace.  I ran with him and could honestly say that yeah,…we ran at a 5-minute pace but only for 100 yards!!  If you’re trying to become a faster runner, cyclist, or even swimmer, don’t get caught up in the numbers game.  This ego-driven activity takes your focus away from when it really counts….race day.

Anyway,…that’s all I have to say today.  Along with the 35 miles of running I  do per week, I’m also trying to get in at least 150 miles of cycling and at least 8000 yards of swimming so needless to say I’ve been pretty tired lately…..but the weights coming off!!  Stay tuned for more progress pics!!

I’m sure you’ve all heard the term ‘Junk mileage’.

In a base building scheme, there’s no such thing as junk mileage.  In fact, your goal is to acquire as much mileage as your body can handle and recover from.  Junk mileage comes into play when you’ve already built your base and are in a phase where your doing quality workouts.  An example of junk mileage would be running an additional 5 miles after doing a quality set of 20 quarter milers on 80 seconds with 2:30 rest in between.  It just doesn’t make sense to run the additional mileage after such a set.  That’s junk mileage.

DAVE

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.