My Gripes on Training Plans

Today's blog I am going to dump on (from my prospective) the many training plans that are out there.  Floating on the Internet.  Free to grab (many of them) and some that you have to pay good money for. 

OK, before I start, I would like to get one thing clear.  A training plan (in a general sense) is a good thing.  Like the old saying goes, he or she who fails to plan, plans to fail.  So my beef is not against having a training plan, my beef are these so called experts who sell or handout a free "Half or Full Marathon Training Plan" on the Internet that are geared to some excited new runner that may not know a lot.  The "training plans" are supposed to help you safely train for a special event, but more than likely they contain so many short cuts that are so unsafe in my opinion just so you can get excited about some race that you may or may not be ready for. 

Why would anyone who is trying to sell a plan or a book tell you "No, you are not ready for that Half Marathon" in 18 weeks.  Off course they say, yes you can, buy my book or download my training plan to see how.

OK, to admit, I have not seen more than a couple when I first went training plan hunting and maybe I am being too critical.  I don't know.  I also observe some others that follow a pre-establish training plan and am quietly boggled as to why their plan is telling them to do certain things.  Before I get into my gripes, let me share my personal experience.

It was Monday October 13th, 2013.  Columbus day to be exact.  It was a day off from work and our daughter was going to be in school.  My wife and I made a date to go workout together in our apartment complex gym.  We have been a bunch of couch potatoes the past year and we decided to make a date to get back into shape together.  I had about 50 pounds to lose and she had... well she had some pounds to lose as well.  We were going to start together and encourage each other.  So we went into the gym in our apartment complex (they just opened it up a week earlier after months long renovations).  After messing with the free weights and machines we jumped on the treadmill.  I got in about 3 miles.  I don't remember how many she got in.  But this was the start.  I would actually continue this before going to work in the morning about 3 times a week.  I reactivated my account on myfitnesspal to track what I was eating.  I then for the first time, went into the forums on myfitnesspal and started making friends with strangers that were runners.  I signed up for the Beginners Challenge - 50 miles in November. This was a fun way to encourage me to run my miles for the month of November and met some interesting people. 

I actually ran 72.64 miles that month (all on a treadmill).  I wanted to do more than 50 miles that December and thought the idea of a virtual challenge was fun.  So I started my own thread for December.  I actually ran 112.1 miles that month and some of that was actually outside.

I then bit the bullet and signed up for my first 10K.  The UAH Spring Road Race, set for March 2, 2014.  Soon after that I signed up for my first half marathon.  The Bridge Street Towne Center HM set for April 13th, 2014.  After placing 217 over all with a 1:58:07 finish, I got really daring.  I decided to sign up for the Rocket City Marathon for December 13th, 2014.  Up until now, I just kind of winged it.  I took some advise of some people that were more experienced runners from myfitnesspal, but I really didn't know exactly what I was doing.  I already started reading some articles in Runner's World and learned some things here and there, but preparing for a full marathon was serious stuff.  I needed a "training plan".  Runner's World had some training plans but you had to pay for them.  So I did a google search and found this guy Hal Higdon who was supposed to be some expert running coach that had training plans on his website that you could down load for free.  So I took a look at the Beginner's Marathon Training Plan.  It promised me to get ready in 18 weeks.  So I was counting on my fingers, and that would have me starting this plan in the second week of August.  It was the very end of April.  Week 1 started somewhere around 13 or 14 mile week with I think like 6 miles for the long run.  Uhh...  I am a little bit further along then that.  So what did his Intermediate plan have.  16 mile week with an 8 mile long run.  You kidding me?

I just got done with a half marathon.  I have been doing 14 mile long runs for the past month.  And maybe double that for the week.  And I have to wait 3 months to start this plan?  What am I supposed to do in the mean time?  Slow down?  I am just getting warmed up. 

To make a long story short, this is when I first got started about learning how to train.  My wife got me the Runner's World Big Book of Half Marathon and Marathon Training.

I read and studied it religiously, I read everything I could in the myfitnesspal forums, I asked everyone I knew that was more experienced than me.  I even joined a couple of local group runs in my town (when I first joined the Panera Pounders).  I was now a serious runner.  The more I learned, the more that I came to understand that these plans had some serious flaws in them that confused me.  These plans were designed by experts, but these experts contradicted good sound running advise that I read elsewhere.  Which one should I follow?  The plan or the concepts?  The concepts won out as I soon learned how to develop my own plan and have been doing so since then.

And here is a list of things I have beef about the few training plans that I have reviewed. 

1.  They are designed for a statistical average.  Do you represent this statistical average?  Now Hal Higdon is a heck of a running coach and I believe he knows what he is doing.  But does he know me?  Does he know most of the people that download his plan?  Nope.  He wrote these plans to meet the minimum requirements so you can just barely make it across the finish line without seriously injuring yourself if you meet some kind of statistical average level of fitness.  It gives someone who has absolutely no idea what they are doing, who is only running this marathon just to say they did it (may never ever do another one ever again) some kind of structure in their training for the next 18 weeks while following some important concepts.  You may be way ahead of the curve, or you may be way behind the curve. One just doesn't know where they fall.  But it's better than nothing, right?

2. They really are written as guides, but most people that follow them take them as absolute doctrine.  People get stressed out if they cannot make their 14 mile long run in week 12.  What am I supposed to do now?  Will I not be able to run this race in November because my sister's bridal shower is on the same day as my planned long run for this week?  Will it screw me up that bad?  Worse yet, I just found out that I cannot do my last long run before taper.  Do I repeat the week and cut my taper short or risk running this marathon on only done a 17 mile long run when my plan called for me to go up to 20?  This brings up my next gripe.

3. You are only allowing yourself 18 weeks to train for this marathon?  It's like cramming all weekend for your college finals.  Remember those days?  You procrastinated all semester long, then realized you were not ready for that final next Tuesday night.  So you locked yourself in the library all weekend to study for this thing.  Well, this kind of reminds me what following one of these plans can be like. 

Here's a few tips.

·          Don't count back 18 weeks from your race and then decide this is when I will start my marathon training because...   well because the plan told me this is when I am supposed to start my training.  You can actually start the plan like...  NOW!  This week.  Even if the race is 30 weeks away. 

·         You don't have to start at week 1.  If your current level of training fitness resembles week 8, then start there.  Now you have plenty of more time to train for this race.  Now if you wanted to, you can repeat weeks, you can even skip parts of some weeks (in case you think your evil sister in law is out to ruin your training by inviting you to their baby shower 5 weeks before your race).

·         If you do decide to start at week 1, give yourself more than the 18 weeks than what the plans leaves you.  Just in case your ability to increase mileage is not as aggressive as what the plan may call for.  Some folks can increase mileage faster than the statistical average, and some may even take much longer.  The sooner you start the plan, the more weeks you give yourself in increasing mileage.  Again, if you need to repeat weeks or even insert more cutback weeks, you can, but only if you gave yourself more time upfront.  You definitely need to follow this tip if you are injury prone.

4. Many beginners and intermediate plans (well the ones I saw online) are only interested in you building up mileage and then taper just as you reached your peak mileage.  This is not how elites and more experienced runners train for marathons (or half marathons).  This would only be considered the base building stage.  Once they come close to their peak, they maintain it for their next stage and start adding in quality workouts while their weekly mileage remains high.  So if you followed #3 and gave yourself plenty of time to build your mileage, then most likely you will come very close to your peak with many weeks still left before your race.  Maintain this mileage and start adding in some tempo work or other what we call "quality workouts".  A good training plan is not, "let's see how fast we can get to our peak mileage and time it perfectly just before the race".  If you understand periodization, mileage building is only one meta phase in an overall training plan that will last all year long.  And in most good year long plans, that is called base building and occurs near the beginning, not the very end.

5. Hard workouts while building mileage.  This is a continuation of my previous gripe #4. You will see many plans out there that have you doing tempos or speed work while you are building mileage.  If you never ran a certain mileage before, then only run at an easy pace.  Don't worry about tempos or VO2max speed workouts, or hill repeats.  Make them all easy paced.  Just the mere fact you are building mileage is a major accomplishment.  Don't stress the body more and risk injury by adding workouts on top of that.  If you are an experienced runner and just base building?  Then run them all pretty much easy while building that base, then move onto the workouts after base building is done.  Again, this may take more than 18 weeks for beginners (but much less if you already ran the distance before).  So build your mileage near your peak, sustain it until you are acclimated with the mileage, then add in tougher workouts. 

6. My next and biggest gripe is the long runs.  Many plans concentrate on how fast you can build up that long run.  In most of the weeks, your long run represents about 50% of your total weekly mileage.  Most of the expert advise tell you that your long run should only be between 25-33% of your total weekly mileage.  This one always baffles me.  Why are so many plans breaking this rule?  The famous running coach Jack Daniels adds another restriction, a long run should not exceed 2-1/2 hours.  So if your plan calls for you to run a 20 miler, and it took you 3 and a half hours to run that 20 miler, then you are risking injury big time.  A good plan will have you increase the mileage during the week as well as your long run.  Again, your long run shouldn't make up more than 25-35% of your total weekly mileage.  If it does, then cut your long run short and start increasing the other runs more or add more runs in during the week.  You can get away with 4 maybe 3 runs a week.  But 3 runs a week will mean that there is no long run; that all of your runs will essentially be "long runs".  Also, once you come close to 150 minutes, cut your long run right there.  There are a few coaches that suggest a maximum of 3 hours for a long run.  I personally tend to run at least a couple of my long runs around 3 hours when I am getting close to my peak marathon training.  But I don't make a habit out of it. 

EDITED:  See my blog on Long Runs based upon comments from this blog.

7. Mileage Build-up  To me, this defines your training plan.  This is what in my opinion distinguishes one training plan from another.  (That and the way you insert quality workouts.)  There are so many theories on how to increase mileage.  Here are a few of them:

·         10% Rule:  This rule states that you only increase your weekly mileage next week by no more than 10% of what you did this week.  This is a very common rule that is also highly debated.  The main debate is that there is no science behind it.  That 10% is just some round even number that looks nice. 

Also if you did 17 miles this week, do you add 1.7 miles and make it 18.7 miles next week? What about the week after? 1.87 miles making it 20.57?  Those decimals are going to get ugly real quick.  

·         Add a mile a week (or every other week):  This one is a safe rule for those that are very injury prone.  Is this too aggressive or not aggressive enough?

·         Dr. Jack Daniels: For how many days (or workouts) a week you run, that is the number of miles you can increase by; but hold that for 4 weeks before increasing again.  So if you ran 7 times a week (for example once in the morning on Monday, once Monday evening, once on Tuesday, once Wednesday morning and once Thursday evening, and once on Saturday, and once on Sunday) then you can increase your weekly mileage by 7.  So in this case, if you ran 30 miles for the past 4 weeks, then run 37 miles for the next 4 weeks.  Then run 44 miles the week after.  (NOTE: Jack puts a cap of 10 mile increase.)

·         The above are just some of the basic ways you can increase the amount of mileage.  Different coaches have different philosophies and different reasons on how to increase mileage.  The way to add mileage becomes more of an art as well as a science.  And there are different ways you can apply it.  Apply it to just one of your workouts per week? or you could add a little to each run during the week.  But don't just add it to your long run only.  However you apply your mileage increase, make sure the increase is balanced across the entire week.  Remember, your long run should only represent 25-35% of your entire weekly mileage.

8. Cutback Weeks:  Just as you progress in your training plan to increase mileage, you also need weeks where you cutback your mileage for a week.  These cutback weeks (or down weeks) are required to allow your body to adapt to the training from the previous weeks before you can move on.  It allows your body to recover and strengthen, preparing you for next week's challenge.  A certain plan may have you increasing mileage for 3 weeks in a row, cut back mileage for a week, then move on an increase again.  Some plans have you increase, hold that mileage for a number of weeks, cut back 1 week, then increase again.  Some have described this as a stair step progression.  How often you insert a cutback week depends on many factors.  Some insert one in every 3 or 4 weeks.  How much you cut back is also dependent.  Some decrease 15-20% and some may decrease by as much as 50%.  Usually you cut your longer runs shorter or replace a day's workout with an extra rest day (or some kind of mix between the 2).  usually you can feel when you need a cut back week.  Your body get's very sore and recovery for your next workout seems to be not enough.  If your training has been progressing or held high for a number of weeks in a row?  Maybe you need to cutback some miles this week.   Many training plans preplace cutback or down weeks already. My gripe I guess would probably be placing the cutback week too often or not often enough.  Just as it is with mileage increase in #7 inserting cutback weeks becomes very personal.  Learn to let your body (and sometimes personal life outside of running) dictate when to take these.  But take them.  If your body doesn't need one, then maybe you're not stressing it enough? 

9. Junk Miles:  This is an interesting term.  The concept is that you shouldn't run miles just for the sake of running them.  You should have a purpose behind each run.  When every day you run you seem to run the same pace and maybe distance, the body may view this as monotonous, and becomes very efficient at the workout.  If this occurs, then the run may be viewed as a waste of time since you are no longer challenging the body to provoke a training stimulus.  To make this argument, you would have already developed a base and reached your peak for the number of weekly miles you like to sustain.  There are some plans that are written with the idea to lower the number of weekly miles you will peak at by only running a certain number of days, but on those days you are running very hard specific workouts.  Under these plan's philosophies, adding in more workouts (usually at much slower easy pace) are nothing but junk miles and do not contribute to your physiological development).    Personally, I do not have a problem with these extra slower days.  There are days where my legs are tired, but instead of calling it a rest day, I will run a limited number of miles on a flat surface at a much slower pace than I normally would.  I call these days my "recovery days".  I actually find that I am more recovered for my next harder workout if I ran this "recovery run" then if I took a complete day off.  Now are days off necessary?  Yes, at times they are.  And I consider them as part of my cut back weeks.  I personally allow myself only 1 day of complete rest per normal week to maintain the number of miles I run.  You can read more about junk miles and recovery runs else where.

10. Types of Runs: So we already stated that running the same distance the same pace every day can be monotonous.  You do have to change it up.  Change the route, change the distance, and maybe change up the pace.  As I stated earlier, I personally recommend that every run should be at a conversational pace as you are building the mileage.  Once you establish the maximum number of miles a week you think you need to run and sustain, then you can consider different types of runs.  This could mean fartleks, tempo or threshold runs, some speed work intervals, or hill work or many other types of workouts.  The only other run type not mentioned is the long run, and that should be a part of your week even as you are building up mileage.  When I plan a week's worth of workouts I consider that most of my weekly mileage will be no more than easy conversational pace with some workouts thrown in.  Matt Fitzgerald wrote a book called 80/20 Running which speaks about this.  According to his very popular theory, only 20% of your weekly mileage should be anything faster than easy paced.  This is to allow your body to recover fully to efficiently execute the next hard workout and still maintain aerobic fitness.  I personally may have 1 or 2 hard days then followed by an easy recovery day before my next hard workout.  Again, this is necessary when I run 6 days a week.  Most experts believe that you should only have 3 quality days a week (meaning a harder workout) with the long run being one of those quality days.  Attached to this advice is that you add in easy recovery or complete rest days in between these harder days.  Again, my gripe is forcing a newbie runner into running a harder pace when they are not ready for it. 

11. Doubles:  In order to get the number of miles a week that you need, sometimes you need to run once in the morning and again at night some days.  Once you get past 55-60 miles a week, it gets real hard adding mileage without getting into too many miles in a single run.  Many plans will have you run a quality workout or long run in the morning followed by an easier recovery run that evening.  Running twice in a single day isn't really necessary until you get into the higher mileage range (usually past 55-60) or your non-running schedule (life happens) forces you to modify your plans. My gripe here is breaking your long run up.  You can break up most days into 2 runs, but I highly recommend that you don't do this with your long run.  If you need to, move your long run to a different day or time in the week as oppose to breaking it up into 2 separate runs.  There is a purpose behind the long run that you won't benefit from if you break it up into 2 different runs. 

12.  Cross Training: So what else can you do other than running to make yourself a better runner?  To me, the more you run, the better runner you will become.  This is the same principle if you were learning to swing a baseball bat or golf club to juggling.  The more you practice something, the better you will become at it.  Your mind and muscle fibers will learn to run more efficiently when tired when you practice running when tired.  When you are working on a certain part of your running biomechanics, you become better at it when you do it more often.  The particular muscle cells associated with running will improve cardiovascular wise (blood capillary beds and mitochondrial development) only by running or similar movements.  Now, is there a place to do other things?  Yes.  Some like to bike or swim to maintain aerobic fitness if they get bored with running all the time. Or may do so while injured or on a rest day.  Performing drills are a great way to isolate and practice certain improvements to biomechanics.  Strength training most likely will become necessary to improve the strength of underdeveloped muscles to improve performance and prevent injury.  Yoga and stretching exercises are great to improve flexibility and range of motion and become a valuable part of your recovery.  Just as foam rolling and other myofascial release techniques are also necessary to your recovery.  Some plans include cross training already.

13.  Listen to Your Body: it is very important in becoming more in tune to your body.  Know when you can push it further, and know when to dial it back.  You need to know what's the difference between a soreness that you can work through and an injury that will require you to stop altogether.   A training plan is great to follow, but if your body is telling you that you are doing way too much, you need to divert from your plan and let your body be the master (not the plan).  This goes back to #2 above.  The training plan should be more of a guide, not doctrine.  If your plan included one-on-one coaching, and if you have a good coach, they would constantly be asking for feedback.  How did you feel on this run? Did you feel like you could have done more? How recovered did you feel before this next workout? What was your heart rate during this particular workout at this particular pace? How does your resting heart rate compare from the last 3 weeks?  Have you noticed your sleep being effected at all since you have been training?  These are all things that will effect how you progress in your plan.  To me, you have to know how to modify your plan in order to efficiently follow it when necessary.

14. Life:  Training is a commitment.  You may need to learn to sacrifice things in order to train properly to reach your goals.  But sometimes, life outside of running may become more important.  If you were up late in the emergency room with your 3 year old son, should you go on your long run the next day on 3 hours of sleep?  I would advise you not to.  Sleep and good nutrition and good mental rest are all important.  Like a wise man once said, man shall not live on bread alone.  Nor should they live life in running shoes alone either.  Sometimes it is important to go to that baby shower that your sister in law was nice enough to invite you to, even if it is 5 weeks out from that important race.  So what if your plan said to run 17 miles instead?  Find another way to work it into your schedule, or just do it the following week instead.  Just call it your cut back week.