I had some spare time this week so decided to reacquaint myself with one of my favourite running books “The Big  Book of Endurance Training and Racing’, by Dr. Phil Maffetone. If you read just one book this year make it this one. The Holy Grail of running books in my opinion with some advice that will change your running life for the good. Admittedly there are a few aspects of the book I’m not so sure about but each too his own, for the most part it preaches good old fashioned common sense tips from a man who had experience measured in decades and a list of World Champions that includes perhaps the greatest triathlete ever , 6 time Hawaii Iron-Man Champion Mark Allen. ( https://philmaffetone.com )

Maffetone divides his book into three sections. The first one deals with building your endurance foundation before moving onto Diet and Nutrition and finishing off with a section on the importance of self-care and injury prevention. That just about covers the running spectrum as we know it. As I said before it really is the holy grail of running books.

I won’t spoil the book for you if I summarise, very quickly, what Maffetone is all about but must stress this is a summary, you really need to read the full monty to get the full picture.  In the first section he preaches building endurance by training constrained by a heart rate figure dictated by following four simple rules. This is your Maximum Aerobic Training (or Maximum Aerobic function), once you have calculated this heart rate figure you then train to stay below it, not interested in pace or time. The theory is the more you train at this reduced pace, in the aerobic zone, the fitter you become. Over time the pace will increase while the heart rate will still be stable. This is the theory behind his technique, similar to the Matt Fitzgerald train slower, to race faster. ( http://mattfitzgerald.org )

I must warn you Maffetone may not be for everyone’s taste. He has some radical theories on running shoes preferring as little support as possible and pouring scorn on the ‘high heel‘ padding favoured by the shoe industry as a whole. I must admit to changing over time from the good old fashioned Asics Kayano’s to running these days in Nike Luna Racers. I’m light on my feet and very much a Supination (under pronation) foot strike. This means I can generally run in any shoe and have a garage full of all different kinds of shoes (I never throw out an old pair of running shoes, too many good memories, much to my Wife’s disgust )  I understand running shoes are so important to all runners so will reserve judgment on selecting running shoes as to me it is so personal and each person is different,  I cannot really condone sweeping statements about footwear selection.

Maffetone’s next section is on nutrition and again he has some great sections which I’m sure will help but also some very ‘interesting’ ideas on carbohydrates particularly  a two week test where you take carbohydrates out of your diet completely  to see if you are carbohydrate intolerant. I couldn’t bring myself to do this as I love my carbs so yet again me and Dr. Phil have a small difference of opinion. He has some great points on Protein, Fats, Electrolytes  and Water as well as  offering  great advice on nutrition for endurance athletes. A really good read and worth digesting. (That was a play on words by the way.)

Finally Maffetone dives into the importance of self care and avoiding injuries. Another great section and all good common sense advice. Yet again he pushes the limits with his advice about avoiding sun protection as Vitamin D is good for you, living in Australia with it’s high skin cancer rates I find it hard to agree with him on this point. He is also very anti-supplements which I probably agree with him but again I may need to sit on the fence.

So to sum up, in my opinion, Maffetone is spot on when it comes to building endurance by slow running using your heart rate as the limiter, combined with distance. His thoughts on nutrition and injury prevention is provoking and again in my opinion for the most part credible, there are also great  sections on over training, competition, reducing stress, improving brain function  and even training at altitude,  I highly recommend this book with the caveat that there are some ideas that may be out with the normal consensus of the running community but this may not be a bad thing. Finally, as with all running literature, you take out what applies to you. For me it was the building the endurance base and slowing down my  ‘slow’ runs. There were great  nuggets of useful information  but I also felt some ideas didn’t resinate with me, these I chose to ignore.

One thing I do agree with  is Maffetone’s thoughts on steak and eggs. He loves them and so do I , so tonight Dr. Phil I’m having steak with a couple of eggs and salad, the sacrifices one makes for his sport.