read more posts by
bigkevmatthews@gmail.com
Fartlek is a Swedish term to describe ‘speed play’, training method that blends continuous training with interval training. Fartlek runs are a very simple form of a long distance run. Fartlek training “is simply defined as periods of fast running intermixed with periods of slower running.”
Today was my Mona Fartlek day, a 20 minute workout that I adore. Though lesson to self, eating banana bread 2 hours before is not such a good idea ! I can normally get to around 5.6k for the session. Steve Monaghetti stills hits over 6km I hear and in his prime was nearer 8km. !! He is a running legend though.. enjoy the article on a true sporting great below.
I was lucky enough to meet Steve at a photo shoot for the Perth City to Surf in 2014 and again this year as he was Ambassador for the Perth marathon. Both times I was taken aback by his down to earth attitude and his willingness to embrace all our questions and comments.
This session is good as it is fairly short but you know it’s doing you good. Golden rule no2 , add pace after the distance phase. This bad boy workout is all about pace.
Steve Moneghetti is set to leave a lasting legacy that goes beyond his set of marathon medals. As a young man from Ballarat he and coach Chris Wardlaw devised a session that fitted in with his usual stomping ground of Lake Wendouree helped him become a four-time Olympian.
Steve Moneghetti
The Session: Mona Fartlek: (2x90sec, 4x60sec, 4x30sec, 4x15sec with a slower tempo recovery of the same time between each repetition. The session takes 20mins in total.
Distance Mona covered: The session was most often used on Tuesday night at Ballarat’s Lake Wendouree. The first time Mona did it as a 20-year-old he did not complete the Lap of the Lake (6km) in the 20minutes but in his prime he completed the Lake in 17.19 and then continued on to finish his 20min session. He still does it most Tuesdays and even at 52, covers 6km.
History
Mona devised the session with his coach Chris Wardlaw over the phone back in 1983 when he was just 20. He wanted a solid fartlek session, one that would help improve his speed as well as endurance and stimulate an ability to change pace mid-run, something that helped later on his career when tackling the Africans, who had a habit of surging mid-race.
The session became a Tuesday-night ritual for Mona and while it was set up for Lake Wendouree, he’d use it whether training at altitude at Falls Creek or overseas preparing for a championship marathon.
It is still widely used today with Ben Moreau and a host of Sydney athletes doing the session. A recent feature in the UK has led to a number of British runners adopting the session along with a number of runners in the US, although some are calling it the “Mono” session.
A good idea is to set your watch to beep every 30 seconds, so that you don’t have to look down at it all the time.
Mona says
“I was always a stickler for routine and I feel that this session, coupled with my usual Thursday night session of 8x400m with 200m float set me up and gave me continuity with my training.
The 15-second reps came at the end and really forced me to concentrate on accelerating hard when I was fatigued. One night when I was in top shape I covered nearly 7km with Troopy (Lee Troop).”
Tip for other distance runners
For many runners, the session will be too demanding initially and you will need to build into it.
Mona recommends just walking or jogging the recovery as you adjust to it.
Middle distance runners may wish to reduce the length of the session, halving everything (ie: 1x90sec, 2x60sec, 2x30sec, 2x15sec) to make it a 10minute session.
As runners we are creatures of habit and nothing confirmed this more than the Strava heat map attached below. ( http://www.strava.com ) What Strava does (if you pay for premium membership) is take all your recorded runs (in my case well over 1,000 and rising 2 a day !) and map them onto a map with the different colours indicating the runs you run the most. The bright red lines show where I spend all my time.
As you can see I spend all my time running around Kings Park and the Bridges on my lunch time runs and then up and down the coast on the weekends. You can also see my go-to run of choice, a 10k loop from my house to Star Swamp and back through Carine Park that I run 4-5 times a week minimum. This run is normally my recovery run and I can just about give you a breakdown of kilometer times to the second of each one of the 10k’s. For example the first kilometer is always between 4:40 – 4:50 min/k and I run k2 at 4:37min/k (this one is normally within 1-2 seconds) etc. etc…. These runs are built for time on feet and as I discussed yesterday recovery runs. A run you can run in your sleep but one where sometimes an autopilot is just what you need to rack up the kilometers without the need for mental engagement.
Golden rule number 8 is about consistency and this heat map shows me that I am Mr. Consistent. As well as establishing your go-to runs consistency is also about maintaining a good foundation, even on the off-season. (not really sure what an off-season is in my case?) The biggest threat to this is of course rule no.3, injury. Once injured consistency is no longer an option and it’s back to rule no1 , distance, to rebuild.
No one said this running was easy..
After my post this morning on the benefits of recovery I was excited to run again this afternoon for more ‘quality recovery’ time. Amazingly I felt so much better this afternoon compared to this mornings recovery run. No little niggles which were certainly there this morning. The second recovery run was chalk and cheese really. Felt a lot more relaxed and had to hold myself back.
Unfortunately the same could not be said of the old Adidas Adizero shoes. These bad boys look to have run their last run, a tad early compared to the Adidias Glide Boost. My Glide Boosts are on 1358k and still feeling great while the Adizero’s have only ran 592k. My marathon shoe at the moment is the Adidas Adios Takumi Sen 3, man these are amazing shoes but they are racing flats so if you weight more than 70kg forget these bad boys.
My go to shoe in the past has always been the Nike Lunaracers. These shoes combine the padding and weight that no other shoe can. So light but also so forgiving. I have been wearing these for many years. Lately they have been a tad hard to get hold off which is how Adidas caught my eye. Luckily enough I’m light on my feet so really can wear just about anything. I even wear the Brooks Puregrit for my trail running. These are awesome shoes by the way.
The old ‘replace your shoes at 400k’ is in my view a shoe manufacturers dream. I ran 190k last week, do they want me to replace my shoes every 2 weeks. No way ! Luckily I never throw out my old shoes, into the garage they go. (Must to my Wife’s disgust) There must be well over 50 pairs in there now and a lot have a lot more life in them. Time to take a look tomorrow and see if I reuse a few, but not the old Asics Kayano’s . These were the shoe ‘back in the day’ but now they would be like wearing lead weights. These days it’s all about minimal heel drop and as light as possible.
I could go on for hours on shoes, one of my favourite subjects, but it’s a Sunday night and I’m off to bed.
If you like some shoe recommendations check out the Runners Worlds site :-
http://www.runnersworld.com/running-shoes/runners-world-2016-summer-shoe-guide
Today was a 18k recovery run. It started out as a 10k recovery run but being the Queen’s birthday it is a public holiday over here in Perth so knowing the family was still asleep I snuck in a few extra recovery k’s. While ‘recovering’ my mind wandered to the propose of this type of running. I actually enjoy a recovery run as you get to ‘smell the roses’ so to speak , where as most time I don’t even see the roses as my head is down and I’m concentrating on the Garmin splits (damn you Strava!) . This morning was no exception, the first 2-3k’s were a struggle with a few niggles, these niggles disappeared and before long I was enjoying the run enough to add on 8k, as you do.
I find the article below from Kyle Kranz a different viewpoint on the recovery run. A positive spin I believe as Karl is saying the recovery run is still stimulation for adaption, he puts forward the point hard runs take you to fatigue while the recovery run is run is a fully fatigued state, your legs are then recruiting more and different muscle fibers. Makes sense to me as Karl also mentions that recovery runs allow you to run longer and as I have already discussed distance is the key, the runner who runs the most normally runs better.
So next time you cruising along smelling the roses take heart in the fact that you are still improving as a runner, it’s a win , win situation the recovery run……
Recovery runs don’t exist.
What you think of as a recovery run does not enhance recovery.
Let’s dig a bit deeper.
There are two main types of runs.Workouts and easy runs.
Key workouts are done at anything faster than your habitual easy pace and typically require a number of non-hard days between them so you can again do a key workout at a high quality. Easy runs are done at an easy conversational pace.
People will often title the run proceeding a key workout, a recovery run. This implies that the purpose of this run is to enhance recovery.
However, I’m inclined to disagree with this.
Don’t get me wrong, you should still do the run, however this is more an issue with semantics.
If you think this run is augmenting your recovery or adaptation, you’re mistaken.
All runs are training. Every time you lace up your shoes and hit the ground running, you’re stimulating your body. It does not matter how slow or short the run is, if you’re running, you’re giving your body stimulation for adaptation.
When does this adaptation and recovery occur? When you’re sleeping, eating, walking, working, etc. Any time you are not running, you’re recovering.
With athletes I work with, I do use the term regeneration run to emphasize the easy nature of the run, however for all purposes it’s simply another easy run.
These runs, while they do not enhance recovery, do inflect less stress on the body. They are crucial for running more, which is one of the best way to become a better runner.
So if these runs do not benefit recovery, why not just skip them and let the body recover better?
Because for the same reasons doing doubles is beneficial, so are these “recovery runs”. These workouts, done in a semi-fatigued state after a hard run, are simply great stimulants for adaptation. Hard workouts take you to fatigue, these easy runs are ran fully fatigued.
That’s very important. If the regeneration run is also done in close time proximity to the key workout, your glycogen stores (body carbohydrate used as fuel) is probably a bit depleted, and training in a glycogen depleted state has also been shown to possibly improve fitness. This study from the University of Copenhagen shows that when a leg is trained more frequently (but at the same total volume) than the other leg, the leg that experiences two sessions in a day instead of one two sessions over two days adapted and strengthened more.
Another way that these “recovery” runs do not help recovery but instead simply improve fitness is that when you run in this fatigued state, you’re legs are recruiting more and different muscle fibers. This can help improve your muscle fiber cycling, which is when the body “turns off” fatigued muscles and “turns on” more fresh fibers while running.
These runs done in a fatigued state are simply more chances for your body to adapt and grow. This makes you stronger, more fit, and faster. Not the enhanced recovery, because there is none.
So after the City to Surf marathon I gave myself one day off before launching into a 100k recovery week , followed by three 100 Mile weeks (160k+) including the biggest ever week of my running career this week , 190k and 14 runs. Today I managed a 30k long run this morning, wolfed down a few pancakes, took the dog for a walk and then snuck out for a 12.3k run to give me the 190k and 42.3k for the day. So here I am typing this happy to know that it’s time to turn the distance foundation into pace pre-racing.
The Running Centre did a survey of a number of athletes recently who had trained with them and broke the 3hr marathon mark. They examined their 10k times, half times and marathon times in-conjunction with the number of kilometres trained over a set period. While looking at different training methods, different zones i.e. did they train mostly at tempo pace or more recovery runs, or thresholds etc. After all this analysis the end result was basically distance was the most over riding dominant factor. He who runs the longest will normally run fastest. Running is an honest sport and basically the more you do the better you get. It’s ain’t rocket science. (I wonder what people who study Rocket Science say when they’re talking about complicated matters… like Rocket Science, they have to say ‘well you know, it is Rocket Science’ or maybe ‘it’s ain’t Quantum Physics’.. ?)
Over the next 6 weeks I have 5 races planned starting next Sunday with a 10k, then the following weekend the Fremantle half, ( https://www.wamc.org.au/major-events/fremantle-half-marathon/ )a week off and then the Rottnest half. ( https://www.wamc.org.au/major-events/rottnest-marathon-fun-run/ ) Then it’s straight into the World Masters Games ( www.perth2016.com ) for a 5k starter on the 29th October before the reason behind all this high distance training, the World Masters Marathon on November 6th. I’m hoping for a podium in my age category (45-50). As I have home advantage (the course is the same one as the Perth Marathon which I have run the last 3 years ) and will be acclimatised, maybe it’ll be enough.
This will be a good test of the distance Golden Rule no.1 morphing into pace, Golden Rule no. 2. Maybe 5 races in 6 weeks is a tad testing but i wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yet again after a hard 30k this morning Mark and I sat down for the obligatory pancakes and cappuccino before starting on the obligatory conversation about the benefits of said meal. The cafe we are currently frequenting do the most awesome pancakes with a generous topping of fruit and they are buttermilk pancakes, which sounds healthy? I posted a photo last week as we are creatures of habit us runners and ran the same 30k loop as last week, with the same ‘treat’ meal. My question is though, is this a treat or more a requirement to refuel ? I’m hoping the later because as runners we give up so much in life ( I think so far this year I’ve had 4 beers and maybe 3-4 glasses of red wine; which is a pretty good year for me, ‘good’ in the sense of more than normal!!) As I mentioned in an earlier post I have no social life and my Wife just goes out with her friends leaving me to babysit the kids and retreat to my bed for the early night pre-run. Karen, my Wife, even mentioned yesterday that her friends see us a separate people in a relationship i.e. they don’t see us socially together. Harsh, but probably a bit too close to the mark for my liking.
Anyway I digress, back to pancakes. I googled ‘are pancakes good for you’ and surprising enough there was enough evidence, from running sites, that they are, so they should be seen as treats but as compulsory recovery meals. So here is the answer to all runners prayers everywhere. This ,together with carbo-loading pre-marathon, might be just enough to make it all worth while, with extra maple syrup……article by Ted Spiker http://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition/the-ultimate-guide-to-pancakes
On Friday morning, I meet five runners for a four-mile spin through Savannah, Georgia. Lydia DePue leads the running program at the local Fleet Feet Sports shop, which celebrates Fridays with a costume run; hence, her bunny ears. She mapped today’s course, which starts and ends at Clary’s Cafe. We have two items on our agenda: (1) an easy run amid the Southern scenery and (2) a righteous order of pancakes afterward.
As one who often falls into the rut of running by myself on the same flat route on the same nondescript roads, I enjoy every step of this group outing. We run on the cobblestones, under the oaks, and along the river. We run through the historic Colonial Park Cemetery and Forsyth Park. We talk about race strategy and Savannah’s must-eat-there restaurants.
I want to respond, “Some people?”
As runners, we live in this loop: We burn. We earn. We yearn.
Of all the foods that a runner might use to lube the anatomical engine, there’s little doubt about what tops the list—those circular stacks of flour that can be morphed into any flavor, texture, or style you want. Buttery, syrupy, nutty, fruity, mushy, crispy, cakey, creamy, chunky, sugary, chocolaty. Short stacks, high stacks. As big as a catcher’s mitt, as small as a monocle. One, three, five, a dozen, oh sure, I’ll finish yours, too. For a runner, the pancake is to a weekend morning as a turkey is to Thanksgiving, as a hot dog is to a ball game, as a martini is to James Bond.
Soon, we circle back to Clary’s (established 1903), a local landmark featured in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—an appropriate fact, I think, when discussing the lore and legend of the pancake.
Aah, pancakes. So good. And so evil—if left to the renegade whims of tongue and stomach.
After the run, we sit at an outside table next to the road we ran on. The talk ricochets around all things running—fund-raising, expo locations, Boston, Dean Karnazes, and something called a double-pump, which takes you over the Talmadge Memorial Bridge three times in a back-to-back 5-K and 10-K.
While my mouth talks, my mouth waits.
I order two pancakes. On one side, they’re tree-bark brown. On the other, more doe-colored. But their arrival is announced by their size: They’re so big that I can’t even see the plate—a helicopter could land on them. I add butter, I add syrup. With coffee and a side of bacon, each bite of pancake is firm yet soft, sweet yet substantial, light yet filling. Perfect gustatory balance.
This, I know, is the finish line.
Zoom in to our table at Clary’s, and you’ll see a bunch of sweaty-headed, synthetic-fabric-wearing runners eating a satisfying postrun breakfast. Zoom out and you’ll see that same scene played out every weekend in just about every neighborhood where people run: Athletes of all speeds and sizes talking about runs of past and future over pancakes of all flavors and diameters. A pancake’s beauty, of course, lies in its simplicity. But the endless potential variations are what make them sublime. (I like mine brown. My wife likes them mushy. My kids like Uncle Tim’s.)
Though some might argue that pasta or GU represents the perfect running fuel, others make the case that nothing stacks up to, well, stacks of pancakes. “They’re a dense source of energy, meaning that you don’t have to stuff your face to get a great deal of calories out of them,” says Lisa Dorfman, R.D., director of The University of Miami’s graduate studies program on nutrition for health and human performance.
But for runners, they’re more than that. They’re warm and spongy. Indulgent yet fulfilling. The ideal vehicle to carry berries or nuts (good) or buttery and syrupy (evil) passengers. They can be glammed up with all the flair of the Vegas strip, but hold up wonderfully on their own in their pure nakedness. “Pancakes reflect our sit-down breakfast time, now that we’ve evolved into a ‘shove a bar in your mouth and call it breakfast’ culture,” Dorfman says. “The pancake is a good-feeling kind of food.”
There is evidence of pancake-looking creations from many centuries ago, and perhaps the first English recipe was recorded in the 1588 book called Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen. “It was just the natural thing you’d do if you had flour and were trying to make something quick,” says food historian Ken Albala, author of Pancake: A Global History.
Different cultures have different recipes and names, Albala points out. The word pancake originates from an ancient Greek flat cake called plakous. Today, the French make them paper-thin and crispy and call them crepes. In Russia, they’re known as blini, slightly thicker than a crepe. And in the U.S. and Canada, we call them pancakes, hotcakes, griddlecakes, or flapjacks and make them thick and fluffy.
Besides being a comfort food to many cultures, pancakes are a staple for athletes. Up until the 1960s, the feeling in sports (bred by football coaches) was that you ate steak and eggs before the big game. But in the late ’60s and early ’70s, a shift took place. As research pointed us to the same conclusions and the numbers of fitness runners grew, we saw a rise in so-called carbo-loading.
“I was doing a book with [football coach] Hank Stram,” says marathon-coaching legend Hal Higdon. “He had his football players having spaghetti the night before the game. We started to figure out that the big lineman who needed to have energy in the fourth quarter was the same as the runner getting past the 20-mile mark in a marathon.”
So began the ritual of the carbo-load: It started in the form of pasta and potatoes the night before a race, but it eventually extended into traditional breakfast foods as well, such as waffles, bagels, and pancakes. Logic (or maybe hunger hormones) would tell us that if we burn carbs during a hard run, one must replenish carbs afterward. And, by gawd, after we run we replenish with pancakes. And syrup that trickles down our ‘cakes like a Colorado stream. And melting butter that, as you decorate your stack with it, makes you feel like you’re living in slow-mo.The love of pancakes struck U.S. Olympic marathoner Ryan Hall as a baby. He would stand in his crib and wait for his mom in the morning. When he saw her, he spoke: “Pancakes.”
It was one of his first words.
“Yeah, we had a lot of them growing up,” Hall says now.
As Hall got older, he drifted away from them. But when he started running marathons in 2007, he would wake up starving. Cereal wouldn’t cut it. So one day, he threw a scoop of Muscle Milk (for protein) into some pancake mix. And that was that. Now, Hall eats one big pancake a day. On the road, he totes a hot plate and fry pan to make his own gluten-free recipe.
“Sometimes, I throw in sour cream, ricotta cheese, and chocolate chips,” he says. “They sit great in my stomach and fill me up. After workouts, they really hit the spot.”
On July 4, I enter the Killer Dunes Race in Nags Head, North Carolina—a two-mile race over the largest sand dunes in the east. Throughout, my legs and lungs burn, as my 12-year-old twin boys blaze ahead of me. Afterward, my boys, wife, and I make a beeline toward Stack ‘Em High, the local pancake joint.
As I wait in line dripping sweat on the people behind me, I look at the chalkboard menu: Chocolate Crunch, Chocolate Monkey, Chocolate Nutter, Berry Berry, Berry Crunch, Blue Crunch, Blue Monkey, Crunchy Monkey. Some nutty, some decadently sweet, all bleeping beautiful.
I make my choice: a chocolate coconut topping called Coco Loco. A Mounds-bar-flavored pancake, if you will. And oh, I will? I take every bite of that sweet pancake the way I take every step up those dunes. Slo-o-o-o-o-wly.
Between the race and the meal, it feels like bodily equilibrium. Work hard, eat hearty. And that’s what it’s all about, really—that any of us can do the work and enjoy the rewards, whether we’re struggling runners, lifelong age-groupers, or elites.
Like all of us who live in this euphoric loop of burning and earning, Hall knows the power and majesty of our favorite fuel. “If I could eat one thing for the rest of my life,” he says, “it would be pancakes.”
In the October issue of Runner’s World, we featured 10 unique pancake concoctions based on RW contributing chef Pam Anderson’s Multigrain Medallions recipe. But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy our hunger–so we came up with 40 more.
By CAITLYN DIIMIGWake-up Call: Mix orange zest and nutmeg into batter.
Big Chipper: Mix chocolate chips into batter and top finished pancakes with whipped cream.
Banana Nut: Mix chopped walnuts and banana slices into batter.
Twice-baked: Mix cooked mashed potato, thyme, and cheddar cheese into batter.
Berry Medley: Top pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.
Puppy Chow: Mix chocolate chips into batter. When pancakes have cooked, spread peanut butter on top and add a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Lemon Zing: Mix lemon zest or lemon juice and poppy seed into batter.
‘Cakesgiving: Mix pumpkin puree and nutmeg into batter.
Pancake S’more: Mix mini marshmallows into batter and top finished pancakes with cocoa powder.
Hawaiian: Cook Canadian bacon/diced ham and add to batter. Top cooked pancakes with diced pineapple.
Vitamin C Booster: Mix fresh raspberries and lemon zest into batter.
Peaches ‘n’ Cream: Top cooked pancakes with fresh peaches and mascarpone.
Down Under: Mix banana slices into batter and spread Nutella onto cooked pancakes.
Pineapple Upside-down Pancake: Mix diced pineapple and brown sugar into batter and top cooked pancakes with fresh sweet cherries.
PB & J: Spread peanut butter and strawberry preserves (or a fresh strawberry puree) on top of cooked pancakes.
Patriot Cakes: Top cooked pancakes with raspberries, blueberries, and plain yogurt (mix in vanilla extract with yogurt).
Café Hotcake: Substitute Chai tea latte concentrate for milk in the original recipe and mix in a pumpkin puree into batter.
Tropical Treat: Mix banana slices into batter and top cooked pancakes with fresh-cut mango and papaya. Use blender to puree fresh-cut pineapple and pour over cooked pancakes.Cherry Cocoa: Top cooked pancakes with fresh cherries and a sprinkle of cocoa powder.
Caramel Apple: Mix diced apples into batter and top cooked pancakes with caramel drizzle.
Island Style: Mix unsweetened coconut flakes and lime zest into batter and top cooked pancakes with chopped macadamia nuts.
Fiesta ‘Cakes: Mix pureed black beans into batter. Top cooked pancakes with sour cream, chives, and salsa.
Christmas ‘Cakes: Mix peppermint extract into batter and top cooked pancakes with cocoa powder.
Pom-cakes: Top cooked pancakes with fresh pomegranate syrup and finely chopped mint leaves.
Citrus Craze: Substitute orange juice for milk in original recipe, mix lemon zest into batter, and top cooked pancakes with mandarin oranges.
Carrot Pancakes: Mix shredded carrot, fresh ginger, and diced apricot into batter.
Sweet Southerner: Mix sweet potato puree, a splash of bourbon into batter, chopped pecans, and brown sugar into batter.
Crunchy Cakes: Mix cinnamon and granola into batter and top cooked pancakes with plain Greek yogurt, honey, and more granola for an added crunch.
Strawberry Rhubarb: Mix rhubarb into batter. Puree strawberries and pour onto cooked pancakes.
All-American: Top cooked pancakes with apple slices and vanilla ice cream.
Vegan Special: Substitute soy milk for milk in original recipe. Mix silken tofu and cocoa powder into batter. Top cooked pancakes with blackberries.
Ricotta Pear: Mixed diced pears into batter and top cooked pancakes with ricotta cheese and maple syrup.
Curry Coconut ‘Cakes: Substitute coconut milk for milk in the original recipe. Mix curry powder, turmeric, fresh-cut peaches, and mango into batter.
Lumberjack: Cook bacon, chop it, and add to batter. Top cooked pancakes with maple syrup.
Key Lime: Top cooked pancakes with whipped cream cheese and lime zest.
Green Dream: Mix finely chopped pistachios, goat cheese, and lemon zest into batter.
Mediterranean: Mix feta cheese into batter and top cooked pancakes with Kalamata olives.
Speakeasy Special: Mix a splash of Grand Marnier and orange zest into batter. Top cooked pancakes with sliced almonds and honey.
Beer Batter: Substitute a dark, heavy beer or a raspberry beer for milk in the original recipe. Mix orange zest and lemon zest into batter.
Funky Blue: Mix brown sugar into batter and top cooked pancakes with a caramelized onion and blue cheese spread.
As I run my long run Sunday Saturday night is all about getting ready for the early morning start (we meet up at 6am come hell or waters high!) and the time on legs and everything that encompasses. Normally the long run is at recovery pace but as you near the end of a marathon training block it’s time for that long run at MP pace (marathon pace) . This is normally, or at least should be, a challenge. This article from Ed Eyestone from Runners World sums it up really…
Whether you hope to win your age group in a local 5-K or run a sub-2:19 marathon to qualify for the 2012 Men’s Olympic Trials, the long run can help you accomplish that goal. How can I be so brash to suggest the long run has such wide-reaching benefits for achievements so diverse? Easy. I see it work every year. I’m convinced the improvement most of my freshmen runners experience in their first year is largely due to the cardiovascular development they acquire from running long.
Long runs deliver a slew of physiological benefits: The heart gets stronger because it works harder to boost blood flow to leg, arm, and core muscles. Our ventilatory capacity—the ability to move oxygen in and out of our lungs—increases as we develop our respiratory muscles. Muscle strength and endurance improves because mitochondria (the energy-producing structures in cells) and capillaries (tiny blood vessels that transfer oxygen and waste products into and out of cells) become more dense. Long runs also teach the body to use fat rather than glycogen, or stored sugar, as a fuel source. This saves our limited glycogen reserves for fast running at the end of a long run or marathon. Finally, going long calluses you mentally and gives you confidence in your ability to cover many miles.
In order to reap the rewards of the long run—and avoid injury—keep the following three principles in mind.
NOT TOO FAST
Think conversational. For slower runners who race at close to their training speed, that’s 30 seconds to one minute per mile slower than 10-K race pace. For experienced racehorses, it’s about one to 1:30 per mile slower.NOT TOO LONG
If you’re gunning for a faster 5-K, your long run will likely last an hour; marathoners should build up to three hours. Run longer than that, and the physiological gains are outweighed by the stress put on your body. I believe that anything over three hours should be saved for race day—if you’ve consistently run at the proper pace for two to three hours, and tapered adequately, you’ll safely complete 26.2 on race day. Over six consecutive weeks, stair-step your long run as follows: two hours, two and a half hours, three hours, two hours, two and a half hours, and three hours. Taper the run down for three weeks before marathon day.NOT TOO FAR
The appropriate distance of your long run is one and a half to twice as long as your normal-length run. Another way to determine distance is to make your longest run 20 to 30 percent of your overall weekly mileage. So if you’re running 40 miles a week, you could run eight to 12 miles for your long run.
GO FAR: Long runs should last between one and three hours.
Golden rule number 6 is baseline everything. This involves a Garmin ( http://www.garmin.com.au ) or any other device that records distance, pace, heart rate, steps, temperature etc. I have mentioned before that over the last few years I have become a Strava tragic ( http://www.strava.com ) . I cannot run without the resulting data being uploaded as soon as possible afterwards. Strava, although predominately still cycling software, has been embraced by the running community and has turned itself into the Facebook of running. Over time it has added the ability to add photos, comments and now you can even tag fellow runners and add groups. I envisage soon the interface will start to morph more and more into a social media type look. In Australia it has been taken the place of CoolRunning which use to be the go-to site of choice for runners, which is a pity as I use to love that site. ( http://www.coolrunning.com.au ) i did manage to get to a 1000 posts before it really stopped being the place to go. I’m hoping it can reinvent itself but Stava has become so widely accepted it will be hard to dislodge.
So baseline, what does that mean and what is the benefit ? In the ‘good old days’ before GPS watches and the Internet (Yes, once there was no internet !) a runner would keep a diary of distance (normally estimated) but pace and heart rate or cadence was unmeasurable. Once GPS watches and the internet came along all this changed. Now the data you produce from the GPS watch can be uploaded to a variety of software tools in the internet and all sorts of reports produced. Training peaks ( https://www.trainingpeaks.com ) is a good example of whats available.
So what is the benefit ? If you don’t baseline how do you know when you improve ? All this data is useful to show how week on week, month on month, you are improving. That may be running the same pace at a lower heart rate, or average pace increasing for known runs or just keeping tracks of your PB’s and race times. Software takes out all the guess work and the watches themselves give you so much information, real time, there is no hiding from a bad run or instant gratification from a good one.
I remember back in the day running marathons with a stop watch and the mental arithmetic needed to work out splits and target times as you reached a K marker, which was normally in the wrong position anyway. Not knowing what pace you had just run or were running at the time and always leaving it late due to either bad maths or optimistic finishing pace. Happy days. Always made the last 10k of a marathon a surprise. These days you can set your watch for a certain pace and even ‘virtual partners’ to race against. No surprises, instant feedback. Sometimes I miss the challenge of that last 10k when you can finally work out what you need to run and still have no real idea if you are going to make it until you round the last corner and see the finish line…. maybe one day I’ll dust down the stop watch and go ‘old school’….. who am I kidding ?
Weekends mean racing and I love racing. Nothing gets the old competitive juices flowing like a race bib on your chest. Some people shy away from competing but to me it is everything. I’m not racing for position normally just trying to beat a PB (PR). That’s why I love running, the only real person you’re competing against is yourself. I always use to go by the old adage you had 7 years of PB’s from when you start to run ‘properly’. Be that in your twenties, thirties or beyond. (There’s probably a age limit when this window will shorten i.e. if you started in your 70’s).. Anyway I was about on track for this as my running career started in earnest when I trained for the Comrades ultra marathon in 2008 ( http://WWW.COMRADES.COM , now that’s another story) and I thought I’d peaked in 2013/14. By changing my diet and training I seem to have hit a second wind and recorded a few PB’s this year so we’ll see if i can prove the 7 year PB window wrong.
Racing is putting all the hard work to the test. Running is the most honest sport there is, there’s no option for high tech zip wheels, lighter frames, silly helmets to gain an advantage. Just you, the distance and a watch. Racing is when you test yourself against yourself initially and your peers and age group if you so desire. The most important competitor though will always be yourself.
Don’t be nervous about racing. I must admit my family know that a weekend of a marathon I am one to be avoided. I normally perform well on the day but the day before, hell the week before, you are filled with doubt. When I get to the line and the gun goes all that is forgotten as I get to do what I love best, run and run as hard and fast as i can. I am not one for ‘running’ marathons, I race them.
I’ve attached three classic Steve Prefontaine quotes below to get you inspired for the weekend ahead.
What more can I say, go out there this weekend and be the best you can be. Then Monday start to work on being even better.
Weight loss is often overlooked by runners but an important part of the recipe in the meal of running. I believe every runner has an optimum weight, one that allows them to run their most consistent pace over their chosen distance. The distance usually dictates the weight initially i.e. Usain Bolt isn’t going to run his best marathon looking like he does at the moment. Whereas Mo Farah probably needs to eat a few cheeseburgers if he’s going to challenge Usain for a 100m dash.
As a marathon runner I’m normally looking what my Wife describes as ‘skinny, bordering on ill’. She has never been a big fan of my marathon ‘look’ after I have probably dropped 6-8kg from when we first met. (though that was 20 years ago) In those days I was a 3-5 times a week gym junkie and I can see her point of view, marathon runners ain’t built for modeling normally. Currently I’m sitting on 69kg which for a 6 foot tall man isn’t probably the ‘norm’ but for a marathon runner is just about perfect. I’m happy to be where I am and realise this is making a big difference to my training and pace. Because of the extra workload I’ve been putting in lately, and also dropping a lot of sugar from my diet, I’m probably 3kg less than normal. This has not gone down well with my Wife.
Ultimately all runners have a perfect weight and , like with all things running, finding that goal weight is difficult. This can be down to cravings (I mean who doesn’t really love donuts? !) or just the inability to put in the exercise needed to shift the kg’s. Then once you actually hit what you consider to be your goal weight there is normally some effort involved in keeping to it. I realise that me keeping to 69kg will be difficult long term but can sustain it for a period of time while I train for the World Masters marathon on November. After that I will have a few months running back to a normal 100k a week . It is important though to keep a good foundation so when you step up for your next goal (there is always a new goal) you need to be able to hit your ideal weight again.
Over time does this ideal weight change? I would assume yes. As we get older it will be more and more difficult to hit the weight you considered ideal the previous year. As I move into my fifties next year will I be able to maintain 69kg for race season ? Who knows, but one things for sure , I’ll be making a big effort to get close, no point in slowing down is there ?
So to sum up if you can drop weight your running will improve, it’s like adding a turbo-charger but there will be some pain and effort involved. Long term though you get use to the constant hunger pains. Only joking, you learn to substitute good food for bad and also you get to run more. C’mon, it’s all good…..