Basic Training Concepts

Most of my blog posts thus far has covered advanced concepts for running.  What I decided to post today is some very basic concepts to training in general that will pull together all these other more advanced concepts.

Adaption to Training

So let's start with what is training?

The basic idea is that you are currently in some basic level of fitness (or lack of fitness).  You have some goal to reach,  For example, you want to lose weight, or you want to be able to run a mile without walking, or running out of breath. Maybe you want to run a 5K or a half marathon some day.  Your current fitness level is unsatisfactory and you want to train so that your future fitness level will enable you to reach your goal.

If you want to run a mile without walking or breathing heavy, you know you have to do a bit of running on a consistent basis so that in say, 12 weeks, your fitness level improves so that you are able to run that mile without walking or breathing heavy.  So how do I get from point A (right now) to point B (in twelve weeks).  And there are great training plans that will help you do that.  For a very basic runner starting out, things like Jeff Galloway's run/walk/run method or a C25K plan will help you get there.  But can you break that plan down and explain in basic terms how that plan was created so that I can apply that to say training for a half marathon?  That is what this blog post will attempt to help you with.

So training is about two very simple things.  Create a stimulus in the area you want to improve upon in some sort of way so that you can recover and your body reaches a slightly new level of fitness.  Repeat over and over again in a span of say 12 weeks, so that by the end, your body has improved to the new level of fitness that you are happier with.

When you run for the first time, you are forcing your body to do something it may never have done before or haven't done in a very long time.  Very quickly your body feels worse.  You are huffing and puffing, you feel weak and maybe sore, and your mind feels very defeated, and you feel very awkward while doing it.  In other words, you endured something very short that is very uncomfortable to you.  This is very natural in the beginning of a training program. Nothing is wrong with you.

A lot of people go out in the beginning thinking that their first run should feel great and I should reach that runner's high. And if I don't, then I am either doing something wrong or maybe I wasn't meant to be a runner.

But you created a stimulus in your body.  Give your body a chance to recover with the proper rest and nutrition, then you are able to perform that activity again.  You only feel uncomfortable for a very short period.  Repeat the process enough times and you will be more proficient at that activity.  We call this adaption to the stimulus and the end result hopefully is improved fitness over time.

The thing you have to realize when creating a stimulus...  Whether you are running, swimming, lifting weights, playing a game of basketball...  performing any physical activity will temporarily make you weaker at the moment (this is an acute response to training).  You don't become a better runner from running.  You become a better runner from after you recovered from running.  You actually don't get stronger from lifting weights.  You get stronger after you recovered from lifting weights.  Keep lifting weights without the proper recovery (rest and nutrition) and you begin to get chronically weaker to the point of over training and you will find yourself injured from doing the very thing you thought was supposed to make you better.  It's all a stair step process of 1 small step backwards and 2 small steps forward.  Running is a step backwards, resting and getting good nutrition in you is the 2 steps forward.  The end result is a chronic response to training.

Doing nothing and your body will slowly make repeated steps backwards and make you weaker or less fit over time.  We call this atrophy.  The goal is hypertrophy, which is the goal to fitness training.

The 4 Training Focus Areas

When you are training to be a better runner, you are training 4 very basic focus areas at the same time.

1. Physical
2. Cardiovascular
3. Mental and Neurological
4. Chemical or Hormonal

Physical: When we talk about the physical focus area, we are talking about making the muscles, and your bones, and your tendons & ligaments all stronger.  This is your structural foundation.  You run or even walk for a long time, and your muscles will feel very sore as a result of creating microscopic tears in the muscles.  Again, this is an acute reaction to the physical stimulus of running or walking.  When you run, your feet come in contact to the ground causing ground force reactions which do acute damage to your bones. I think you get the picture.

Cardiovascular: We call running an aerobic activity. This means that we depend upon oxygen to mix with a fuel to create energy that will allow our muscles to contract over and over again.  The ability to breath this oxygen through our lungs so that the oxygen absorbs into our blood stream so that our heart pumps the blood to the muscles cells that require this oxygen is all about cardiovascular fitness. Aerobic activity also causes various waste products such as carbon dioxide that needs to go from the muscle cell, back out through our blood and then breathed out.  Another reaction to aerobic activity is the increased amounts of lactate and hydrogen ions in our muscles and blood that can cause unwanted acute fatigue.  Cardiovascular improvements can create adaptions in lactate clearance.

Mental: While mind over matter plays an important role to training, this focus area is actually much more in depth. We are also talking about the various signals that go to and from the brain to all areas in the body.  In order to contract your leg muscle to lift it off the ground, it starts with a signal in your brain, through your nervous system and then to your muscle fibers telling it to contract.  You can make adaptations over time to make this pathway more efficient.  Your various body organs also send signals to your brain so that your body can adapt to changes in the environment.  For example, as your exercise, you are creating body heat.  Various sensors in your body sends signals to the brain to alert the brain that your body is beginning to overheat.  Your brain reacts by sending signals to the sweat glands to release warm water from the body to the surface of the skin in order to cool the body down.

Chemical: In addition, your body relies on chemical reactions in the body.  Chemicals like hormones which have a very specific purpose such as glucagon which tells your body to release stored fat or carbohydrates into the blood stream because exercise activity is creating a higher demand for energy.  All of this also requires adaptions over time.

Increasing Stimulus

Next I wanted to touch briefly on are the 3 ways to create a bigger stimulus.  Lets take a generic run walk training method to improve your running fitness.  You run for 10 seconds, get out breath, walk for a minute to catch your breath, then start running again for another 10 seconds.  Let's say you repeat these steps over and over again for 30 minutes.  You end the workout exhausted.  But 2 days later you do it again.  After the 30 minutes, again you feel exhausted.  Do it again 2 days later and after 30 minutes you feel exhausted but not as bad.  That's week one.  Repeat this week again and you begin to feel better about what you are doing because you seem to feel some improvements.  You notice that after 10 seconds of running, you don't feel so out of breath.  And after doing that for 30 minutes, you still feel tired, but not as exhausted as your first week.  You have begun the adaption process to the training.  After 2 weeks you feel really good.  If you keep this up over and over for many weeks, you eventually find out another important principal to training.  You reach a diminished return on your investment to training.  In other words, your body has reached a level of new fitness so that there is no longer any room for improvement to that particular stimulus.  Running for 10 seconds no longer makes you feel out of breath,  You no longer get exhausted from the 30 minute workout.  You have adapted but you also plateaued.  In order to continue to make improvements you need to increase the stimulus.

The 4 characteristics to training that Dr. Jack Daniels speaks about in the video above to increase the stimulus (or stress) is by 1) increasing intensity (run faster for those 10 seconds), 2) increase the duration (run 20 seconds at the same pace), or 3) decrease the rest (run 10 seconds at that pace but only walk for 45 seconds instead of the minute).  You can also increase the duration by performing this workout for 40 minutes instead of the 30 minutes.  You can also increase the 4) frequency by adding another day to the week (do this 4x a week instead of 3x a week).  You can increase the overall stimulus in your training by focusing on 1, 2, 3, or all 4 of these characteristics at the same time.

Creating a bigger stimulus becomes more important when you can run a mile straight without stopping.  From here, we begin to ask, how many miles a week should I run?  I currently run 10 miles a week but how do I get to 15 miles a week, or 20 miles a week?  Or how do I long term get to 45 miles a week?  This is a very important principal for adding mileage and there is a safe way to do it and an unsafe way to do it that can lead to injury.  There are many different methods that can be prescribed and some may create big benefits for you, but to others can lead to over training.

Another question comes to mind is, well I am now able to run 3 miles non stop.  But I want to be able to run those 3 miles faster.  Do I just keep training to run those 3 miles but run them faster?  Or do I run farther because I know running farther can also make me faster at those 3 miles?  It depends.

Identifying Weaknesses

This brings us up to one more aspect to training.  When you train, you first need a goal.  Say finish a 5K race in 35 minutes.  Right now I can only race it in 40 minutes with some walking involved.  Well a couple strategy changes can make you think, well if I slowed my pace down in the beginning of the race by a little bit, then maybe I don't have to walk at that last half mile.  The end result would be a faster race time just by strategy.

Another way you can look at it is my endurance needs to improve so that I can run the entire 5K at the same pace.  Or maybe I need to strength train (lift weights in my leg muscles) because the reason I needed to walk was because my muscles started to feel a little weak up that last hill.  Or maybe I stopped to walk because my leg tightened up, so maybe I need to stretch more during training.  What we are doing here is analyzing your weaknesses.  So after you make a goal, you need to list some potential weaknesses that prevent you from reaching your goal.  Then you train in such a way to improve on those weaknesses without sacrificing the gains you made in other areas.  This requires you to become smart on how your body works at a deeper physiological level so that you know how to improve upon those specific weaknesses.

Accumulation of Workouts

So as Dr. Jack Daniels already mentioned in one of the videos above, consistency is the key.  If you get a good amount of sleep all the time, having one night bad of sleep should not effect you much.  On the other hand, having one great workout and not doing much the rest of the week won't get you far.  It's about consistency.

Adding to that is your accumulated training.  Take for example, some people will focus too much on their long run, but not enough on the remaining runs in the week. For example, you may run 10 miles on Saturday. Is this good or bad?  It depends, what else did you do in the week?  Well I ran a mile on Monday, and 2 miles on Wednesday and that was it.  So you ran a total of 13 miles this week.  And this may represent a typical week in your training. The 10 mile long run represents about 77 percent of your total miles for the week.  This goes against the standard 25-35% rule.   According to this rule, if you wanted to run 10 miles on Saturday, then your weekly miles should be 30-40 miles the entire week.

Another way of looking at this, do you do enough activity for the entire week that will make you a strong enough runner to create the correct stimulus for that 10 mile long run?  You can't just wake up one morning and say, I want to run 10 miles if you never did that before.  You build up to that with a balanced approach.

By consistently working up your mileage in the week, will make support you to eventually run the 10 miles.  Otherwise, you will cause to much of a stimulus that requires more rest.  So if you run 10 miles on Saturday, but you also plan to run 4 miles the following Monday, you will want to make sure the 10 miler on Saturday does not make you so tired so you end up doing only 2 or 3 miles on Monday (or none at all).  In training, you don't do anything in your 1 workout that will have a negative effect for your next workout. 

This does not work with just duration (the 10 miles).  It also works with intensity.  Most of the running you do in training should be an Easy conversational pace.  If you run with too much intensity, this will effect your next workout.  In a 40 mile training week, you may run that 10 mile long run on Saturday safely.  But say you run it with too much intensity (too fast beyond the easy pace). This could have the same effect of running too many miles, in the way that come Monday, you are too pooped out from running the 10 miles on Saturday too fast that you decided to skip the Monday workout.  Or instead of doing a tempo run on Monday, you had to change it to an easy run.  This is what we mean by allowing one workout to cause a negative effect on future workouts.

Training is all about an accumulation of all your workouts working together. You don't get big fitness improvements for that big PR because you had 1 great hard workout (and sacrificing your next 3). At the same time, you won't hurt your training just because you had 1 single bad workout. It's all about what you did over a period of time.

Technique and Equipment

Finally we will talk briefly on technique and equipment.  Many say the best way to run is to run with your natural form.  But I tend to disagree with this.  There are sometimes things we can do to improve our technique to make us a more efficient runner.  Maybe we swing our arms way out to the side or across our body.  Maybe we are over striding and need to focus more on cadence and our landing.  Maybe we are not engaging our glute muscles correctly and is causing us to compensate with our muscles and effecting our technique and causing injury.

Then there is equipment.  Having the proper shoes and socks for training. Having comfortable and supportive clothing. Do we carry water with us during training and if so, what kinds of gear will enable me to do this without impacting my running. Do I need to wear a hat or sunglasses.  Sunscreen on sunny days?  All of these things are important to consider in training and on race day.  One rule I will mention here.  Nothing new on race day.  Your shirt, your shoes, your gear, even your refuel, all need to be tested during training so come race day you have no unexpected surprises.  For example, it's unadvised to wear the t-shirt given the day before race day in your goody bag during the actual race.  You have no idea if that shirt is ill fitted and will cause chaffing to your body.

That is all for now.  Maybe more to come later if I think of anything.

Wave Tempo & 80/20 Running

Hi there.  It's been a while, so I wanted to post something. It's about 6 weeks until the 2017 Rocket City Marathon (hoping to BQ with a 5-minute buffer), and 2 weeks until the Huntsville Half.  I am going to mostly talk about my long run today.  But before I get into that, let me share about the last few weeks going into today's long run.

Even since it started to cool down for the fall, I started playing with some "speed work" which mostly was running at Goal Half Marathon Pace (7:15 min/mi) and Goal Marathon Pace (7:38).  I was doing some killer workouts including adding GMP pace about halfway into my long runs.  Then I started to accumulate fatigue.  The beginning of the week, I could hit GHMP and GMP splits in my workouts, but later in the week I was stale.  I couldn't even complete the number of miles I set out to do in my long run.  So I did a major cut-back week and kept everything easy paced.  Then I seriously started to concentrate on limiting my speed mileage.  This all comes from Matt Fitzgerald's book 80/20 Running.  There's a chapter talking about watching out how you do your easy runs.  Most of us subconsciously creep into our tempo pace.  So I concentrated this past week to make sure that I didn't go any faster than ventilatory threshold, unless I was purposely going to run at GHMP or GMP.  Once I  caught myself creeping up into a pace that effected my breathing, I slowed down.  80% of my weekly miles was in this pace range.  The remaining 20% was either GHMP or GMP.  It worked because I felt great and included my long run earlier this morning which was a 22 miler.  Most miles in a training run this year, and 75.2 miles for the week which is a PR in weekly mileage.

This past Tuesday was a tempo run where 6 miles straight was actually a pace right in between GHMP and GMP (closer to GHMP).  Then today's run I implemented wave tempos where for 6 miles early on in my long run I alternated between GHMP and GMP.  I added 1 more GHMP and 1 more GMP miles towards the end for a fast finish.  So if you are counting, that is 14 miles out of 75.2 miles faster than easy pace.  That's 81.4/18.6 running this week.  Pretty close to 80/20.

Today's Tempo Wave workout was brought to my attention by Kristine of the She's A Gift blog.
This can be viewed on strava here.

Mile Split Pace
1 8:57
2 9:12
3 8:54
4 9:22
5 7:14
6 7:37
7 7:11
8 7:37
9 7:10
10 7:30
11 9:17
12 9:05
13 9:12
14 9:23
15 9:17
16 9:14
17 9:37
18 7:14
19 7:36
20 9:27
21 8:53
22 8:23

Junk Miles verses The Recovery Run

Junk Miles - Is it the runner's proverbial unicorn?

Junk miles, you may have heard all about it, but what exactly is it?  Is this a foundational truth or some mythological creature made up?  Usually it is associated with the runner who has some number of miles they need to run in the week.  And then that runner tries to plan out the week for each of their runs.  A certain day they may have a tempo planned.  Another day they have hill repeats planned out.  Then they have a long run planned at the end of the week.  This only makes up a small portion of the miles they need to get in during the week.  So the rest of the days are filled in with a bunch of easy runs.  The idea is that if you are only running those extra miles just so that you make it to some magical number you had in your head, then those extra miles are junk.  They don't contribute to some physiological development.  You are just running them to say you ran them with no real purpose.  Well that is the idea behind “junk miles”.

I'm a big fan of building big mileage.  The key thing is to build up your mileage slowly.  And building more mileage is a great training stress on your body.  So while you are building mileage (especially if you never ran that many before), I would encourage you to run them at an easy pace.  You are making big changes to your heart and your aerobic metabolism.

You are also making big changes in your running muscles, your bones, joints, and all of the connective tissue.  They will become stronger as you gradually add more miles.  Now how long do you keep adding more miles? How much is enough? When is it too much?

Well, the rate you increase miles each week depends on how fast your body adapts to the increased miles.  Add too many miles too fast, and your body will be over trained which will lead to injury.  So you have to increase miles in a way that allows your body to incur just enough training stress, and provide the time for recovery so that your body can adapt and make the changes I mention above so that you become a stronger runner.
So how long do I keep this process up?  Well there are so many facets to running that all need to be put together to make a good decision.  Lots of slow miles will lead you to become a stronger runner both aerobically and physically.  But eventually you will need to address something very important.  Running all of your miles at some mediocre medium.  The point you become very stagnant in your running.

It helps first to understand periodization.  That is, to break down a single year worth of training down into smaller phases known as macrocycles, and then you break those macrocycles down into smaller mesocycles.  All of those metacycles and mesocycles lead up to some key goal race.  As you reach a new metacycle or mesocycle, your training will need to be modified.  Your focus changes each time you progress into a new metacycle and mesocycle.

See the following references:

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/the-three-phases-of-a-running-programcom

http://www.runningplanet.com/periodization-for-distance-runners.html

http://www.active.com/running/articles/how-to-use-periodization-to-achieve-your-running-goals

So in the early metacycle(s) base building and mileage building become important.  But as you move into a new phase, you may decide to maintain mileage and focus on other things.  You may exchange some of those easy miles you were doing during mileage building and replace them with some fartlek runs, or some tempo runs.  Sprinkle in some anaerobic workouts.  But increasing mileage stops while you work on other things.  Eventually you will start back over after your key race and the base building phase begins again.  During that time, you will go back to all easy runs while you increase your weekly mileage again.

Next comes the fad, run less run faster.

This is when people begin to rethink large mileage and become more focused on key workouts.  Usually 3 quality workouts which usually includes the long run.  You do anything else (so they say) and those extra miles become “junk miles” which takes away from the quality workouts.  It's the key workouts that will make specific physiological gains.  The extra miles (as the theory goes) really don't contribute to a physiological change and just makes you more tired so you can't perform as good on quality day.  In other words, you need to recover from your key workouts, so that when you return to your key workout, you are stronger.  The same people will tell you that the additional aerobic training can come from other cross-training workouts.  So if you are not running, you are swimming, or riding a bike, so that you can give your running muscles a break.  This is what we call "active recovery".  It's this concept that I now like to concentrate on.


But for now, there are those on the side of larger training volume to get better:

http://running.competitor.com/2013/10/training/are-you-running-enough-miles_35813

http://running.competitor.com/2012/12/news/mo-farah-increasing-training-mileage_63458

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/8627789/London-2012-Olympics-Mo-Farah-told-he-will-be-even-stronger-and-faster-by-next-years-Games.html


And then there are those that think running less volume more key workouts are better:

http://strategicathlete.com/better-run-faster-fewer-miles/

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/marathoning-the-hansons-way

And then there's the method I actually endorse and attempt to follow personally, which is keep the philosophy of your key workouts in the appropriate training phases, but maintain the mileage you built from previous phases.

Instead of cross-training for your active recovery, you do "recovery runs".

To understand this, you really have to know how to run a recovery run. This will make the difference between what people call junk miles to what I call recovery runs.  So why is the recovery run better in my opinion than cross training or complete rest?

First off, I will advocate to use cross-training to supplement your training as a way to strengthen those supporting muscles that may be already weak.  The idea is that you are strengthening them to prevent injury that is normally associated with the higher volume running.  It's not a way to replace those miles.  So performing core and leg resistance training would all be good.  Maybe swimming would be good if you are nursing a leg injury.  But I wouldn’t personally endorse them to actually replace a training run.

When I set a goal, I have in my mind that I will need to run a certain number of miles during the extent of my full training in order to prepare myself to complete that goal.  The only way to improve those specific running muscles is to actually run more.  Swimming will lead to improvements in my swimming muscles.  My swimming muscles and the muscle memory developed during swimming won't help me much in running.  Now, will swimming make my heart a little stronger?  Yes it could, but so could easier paced running and I get the added benefit of targeting the specific muscles that are used in running.

But you may ask, don't I have to give my running muscles a break to give them a chance to recover?  Otherwise, won't I over train them which will lead to injury?  Not if you already slowly built your base, and you understand how recovery runs work.

Realize first, if you never ran a lot before, you are not going to run 5, 6, or 7 days a week.  You build up to that over time.  The idea is not to get heavy volume in overnight, as Rome was not built in a single day.  In the beginning, those days off from running will be more beneficial to you.  But as you progress and you need to increase your training in order to continue incurring a training stimulus, then you need to attack it from different ways.  You can continue to increase your training stimulus by either increasing the volume, increasing the intensity of the effort, or decreasing the rest period.  I advocate a strategy that makes use of all 3 methods.

Before you can understand what recovery runs are, you need to understand what "active recovery" means.

So during your workout, you incur a training stress.  That training stress causes a minor breakdown or damage to your body.  This damage stimulates your body to rebuild that part of your body during the recovery period in a way that the body part actually becomes stronger than before.  We call this "adaption to training".  That way, we can go back and repeat the training stress to incur more damage which will stimulate more adaption.  During recovery, you give your body a chance to repair itself as you provide it rest and proper nutrition.  There comes a time when you repeat the same training stress, but your body has adapted so much that further adaption no longer occurs after recovery.  The recovery is not as effective because there isn't as strong of a stimulus for adaption.  So you need to increase the training stress.

But are there things you can do during recovery that will aid in the adaption process?  Other than just doing nothing.  That is where active recovery comes in.

Realize that the damage we are talking about during training stress is minor.  Major damage would be as a result of overtraining.  But for a training stress, the damage is just minor enough that we will be able to repeat the training stress only after a short recovery.  The minor damage may be felt as Delayed Onset Muscle Syndrome (DOMS).

After your big tempo run, your running muscles will incur small microscopic tears in the muscle.  Your body will gather more water around the area to protect the damage muscles during recovery. This will lead to swelling and inflammation.  But the swelling can also lead to slower blood reaching the damaged area.  Because blood is restricted to the area, fluids, oxygen, and key nutrients cannot reach the cell in a timely manner.  Blood leaving the damage area with waste products may also be restricted especially as they have to defeat gravity to make it back to the heart.  Compression may help in this area.

But what if you could increase the intensity of your blood pressure oh just slightly so that more nutrients can travel through the blood to the damaged area and force waste products through the blood out of the damaged area?  That is the concept behind active recovery.  But there are also some other interesting science in how the body works.

Training stress not only causes minor muscle damage.  It also depletes glycogen in your muscle (the stored carbohydrate used for energy).  Your muscles need more sugar to manufacture more glycogen to replace what was lost.  Be careful however that too much sugar will promote fat production.  Sugar (as well as proteins and fats) reaches our muscle and will enter the muscle through different metabolic pathways.  The pathway used will depend on the body's needs at the time as well as the amount of macronutrient being offered.


In order for a muscle cell to accept a single sugar molecule, a transporter inside the muscle cell has to be activated to receive that sugar and guide it into the muscle.  The body will release certain enzymes in the body to guide the sugar molecule over one particular pathway as opposed to a different pathway.  Insulin acts as a receptor to the sugar to guide it through the blood to the muscle so the transporter can receive the sugar as it crosses over the cell membrane.  Insulin acts like the key to open the cell membrane door and the transporter acts like the key hole.  When the brain senses that a high amount of sugar is present in the body (usually after eating a high carbohydrate meal), the brain will signal the pancreas to release more insulin into the blood stream.  Higher levels of insulin will trigger the cells to receive more sugar so that sugar levels in the blood is reduced.  Combined with other enzymes that will be released, the pathway could lead the sugar into the muscle cell for either energy or glycogen production, or it would go down the pathway into an adipose cell where fat will be manufactured.  When sugar is forced into a cell as a result of increased levels of hormones, we call this uptake.  We want to increase sugar uptake as well as protein uptake into the muscle cell during recovery.

The particular transportation mechanism which uses insulin as a trigger for glucose reception is known as the Insulin Stimulated Pathway.  GLUT4 is a vesicular tube that guides the glucose sugar inside the muscle cell after it crosses the cell membrane.  The GLUT4 vesicular tube will become activated once the insulin receptor is triggered and glucose comes in contact with the cell membrane. Once the glucose sugar is transported across the cell membrane into the skeletal muscle, the GLUT-4 can transport the glucose molecule into the Glycolysis Pathway (in order to convert it into ATP for immediate energy) or it can transport the glucose molecule into Glycogenesis (medium term storage that converts glucose into glycogen) or into Lipogenesis (long term storage that converts glucose into fat).

But there is a different type of transportation mechanism that allows sugar to enter into a cell.  This other transportation mechanism that does not involve insulin, but rather exercise is known as Contraction Mediated Pathway.  During exercise, a different GLUT4 vesicular tube can be activated without the need for the insulin receptor to be triggered.  This allows sugar uptake to be increased into the muscle cell without the need to have increased levels of insulin.  During intense exercise, an enzyme called adenylate kinase (ADK) inside the skeletal muscle cell will be released. The ADK will have a key role in a very complex process to trigger an AMP activated protein kinase called AMPK in order to recruit the other GLUT4 vesicular tube to the surface of the muscle cell to allow glucose in.  Therefore, exercise can increase glucose uptake into skeleton muscles. And long term exercise training stimulates insulin sensitivity.

Understanding the 2 transport mechanisms that I just described and how you can use both in conjunction to stimulate an increased level of recovery is key to active recovery.  The AMPK activated transport mechanism will in essence turn on the flood gate to allow lots of glucose into the muscle cell for immediate energy production during exercise.  The downside to this process is that protein synthesis (the process we actually want to occur during recovery to allow adaption to happen) is stinted.  Protein synthesis is energized by the Insulin Stimulated Pathway.  The key thing to note is that insulin will shut down AMPK so that it no longer will stint protein synthesis.  So the concept is to use a brief low intense session of running to allow the Contraction Mediated Pathway to open the flood gate for glucose to enter those particular muscle cells followed immediately by a small meal of quick absorbing carbohydrates that will trigger increased amounts of insulin into the bloodstream to shut down AMPK so that sugar can be used as part of protein synthesis process.  In order for protein synthesis to occur, you will also need to consume quick absorbed amino acids (broken down protein) with that small meal of carbohydrates immediately following your recovery run.   Basically what I just said is that exercise will allow for a small window of opportunity where a small meal of quick digesting carbohydrates and protein followed immediately after the workout will greatly increase the uptake of protein and sugar to rebuild muscle tissues.  This small window of opportunity is the greatest within 30 minutes after the workout is completed and will continue up to 60 minutes after the workout.

Another benefit to a recovery run is training your muscles to become more efficient at running when tired.  When we run (or perform any type of muscle contraction) the brain has to decide which muscle fibers within the muscle group to use to perform that particular exercise.  There are 3 types of muscle fibers that could be used: the Type 1 slow twitch fibers, Type 2a fast oxidative fibers (also known as medium twitch fibers), and Type 2b fast glycolytic fibers (also known plainly as fast twitch muscle fibers).  If you decide to just burn rubber and go into a sprint, it’s the Type 2b fast twitch muscle fibers that will be recruited.  If you are going to set out for a long slow job, then your Type 1 slow twitch muscle fibers will get recruited.  Muscle fibers can wear down and become tired as exercise continues.  Your type 1 slow twitch muscle fibers have the longest endurance while the Type 2b fast twitch muscle fibers have the shortest endurance.  During a very long run, muscle recruitment will undergo a recruitment ladder.  If you start your run in a slow jog, your Type 1 muscle fibers will first be recruited.  As you continue your run, over time, those fibers will get tired and your brain will now ask your Type 2a medium twitch fibers to take the place of the slow twitched ones.  Eventually those fibers will get tired and your brain will now ask the Type 2b fast twitch muscle fibers to continue the effort.  In a recovery run, you begin your slow jog in a state where your muscles are assumed to already be tired.  This will quicken the process to progress through the recruitment ladder without having to run very far or very fast.  This gives your entire system more time to practice recruitment of all 3 muscle types thereby simulating running very long distances without actually running those long distances.  

The next benefit to active recovery is training your neuromuscular development.  This is another benefit related to becoming more efficient at running while tired.  When you run, your brain will send neurological signals from your brain, through the nervous system, and to the muscles fiber cells to command them to contract.  At the same time, your body is sending diagnostic signals back to the brain through the same neurological system but in reverse.  These diagnostic signals could signal the brain that blood sugar is running low, or that core body temperature is running too high, or that certain muscle fibers are getting too tired.  As the body weakens from a long exhausted run or race, these signals can become compromised or the brain may not interpret them correctly.  The brain and body can be trained to become better at signaling under very strenuous situations.  The recovery run is one great way to help train the body and brain at becoming more efficient under very strenuous situations without having to run the actual distance you may run in a very long race. The key thing to observe during a recovery run is to always practice good form during your recovery run.  If your body is too tired that your form is actually compromised, then it is no longer beneficial to perform a recovery run, and instead consider a full rest.


Recovery runs can also be therapeutic in that it gives you a time out mentally.  You can relax, and enjoy the run without worrying about a workout pace.  Running in of itself can be a great stress relief where the body will release those feel good hormones.  This can even happen on an easy effort recovery run. Again keep good form, but just go out and enjoy yourself.  Let your body dictate the pace and don’t worry about it being a big mileage day.  

So in conclusion. Recovery runs are very beneficial for advanced runners.  They help increase the heart rate to deliver blood and nutrients to sore inflamed muscle tissue where swelling may slow the delivery of blood to the tissue.  They help reduced the tightness and soreness you may be normally feel during recovery as waste leaves the muscle due to the increased heart rate.  The recovery run has been shown through research that glucose and protein uptake will temporarily be increased for 30-60 minutes immediately after the run to aid in recovery.  And the recovery run will allow your body to train for longer distances by becoming a more efficient runner while tired.

The key things to remember during your recovery run are:

• Keep the distance relatively short and intensity relatively light.
• Let your body dictate the pace
• Always continue to practice good running form
• If you cannot maintain good form, rest completely instead
• Have a small meal of quick digesting carbohydrates, proteins, and water within 30 minutes after completing your recovery run
• Recovery runs are more useful to more advanced runners
• Beginner runners will benefit greatly from complete rest
• When adaption is no longer perceived with complete rest, consider active recovery instead
• Recovery runs give you more practice at running while tired without having to cover the entire race distance in a training run
• Recovery runs can help you feel more refreshed in between key workouts

The Long Run

So it's been a little bit since I posted my last blog about training plans.  Overall, I received good feedback except where I talked about the long run. 

Before I get into the complaints, let's list some of the main points that I made in that last blog concerning the long run.

• Your long run should only make up between 25-35% of your entire weeks worth of miles.  So if you ran a total of 20 miles this week, the maximum number of miles you should run in a single run should be between 5-7 miles. 
• If you run only 3 days a week, then every run is a "long run".
• Don't just increase your long run week after week.  You should increase the miles in all your other runs during the week. 
• Do not cut your long run into 2 shorter runs in the day.

Then there is the additional restriction that Dr. Jack Daniels has for the long run to be limited to 2.5 hours.

So according to Jack Daniels, unless you can run a 20 mile training long run at a 7:30 pace (8 mph), then you shouldn't be running a 20 mile long run.  Because it would take you longer than 2 and a half hours to complete that long run and increase your risk to injury. 

Now even in my blog I admitted that some of my long runs near peak marathon training were 3 hours and maybe 3:15:00'ish.  "But I don't make a habit out of it."

So when do you break these "rules" and when don't you?

Here's some feedback from my training plan blog:

• "... My issue is that if I only get to a total distance of 23-24 km for my long run because that represents 3 hrs of running, then that is nowhere near the time or distance I will require to run the marathon, and how on Earth will I be able to run for another 2 hours on race day!"

• "The 20 mile long run is here to stay. The 2.5 hour limit is not realistic for the non-elite runner. While Jack makes some good points, I think his solution is unrealistically restrictive for most of us."

• "Maybe instead of saying, 'An elite runner will only run 2.5 hours on a long run, so an average runner should only run 2.5 hours,' we should say, 'An elite runner will run X% of the time it takes him to complete a marathon on a long run, so an average runner should run X% of the time it will take to run the marathon.'  At that point, we could be right back to the 20 mile long run, assuming only that the average runner's ratio of long run pace to marathon pace is similar to the same ratio for an elite runner."

• " I am doing my first marathon in July, and I have one of those 18 week plans @Stoshew71 critiqued! I have extended the plan out to 27 weeks to give myself a bit more time to build mileage, but there is no way I will have time to build the mileage to support a 32km long run if I try to use the 25-30% of weekly mileage rule.  And I will also be violating the 2 1/2 hr to 3 hr rule almost every week until my marathon, because I am running slowly (7 1/2 to 8 mins/km), and hence covering the distances slowly. My issue is that if I only get to a total distance of 23-24 km for my long run because that represents 3 hrs of running, then that is nowhere near the time or distance I will require to run the marathon, and how on Earth will I be able to run for another 2 hours on race day!"

• "In the past, when I was running only 3 times per week, I used to have weeks like 5km + 7km during the week, with a 10km long run on the weekends, i.e. making up more than 45% of the weekly distance. But with three runs per week, the only way to have the long run at 33% would be to run the same distance all the time - that just didn't make any sense to me. It just doesn't work until you run longer distances and more often.

• "There are reasonable arguments for the '25/33%' rule. But on the other hand, I was chatting to a guy at the running store (another customer) a while ago, who was vehemently against adding more runs for the sole purpose of 'getting the percentage down'. His argument was that if I went from three midweek runs to, let's say, five 10km runs, that wouldn't prepare me better for a 20km run on the weekend. Sure, the long run would only be 30% of the week that way, but it would still be twice as long as my other runs, and I'd have only one non-running day and therefore less time to recover. His advice was instead to try to have one 'medium long' run in the middle of the week, which should be 75% of the long run. I found his arguments quite convincing, which is how I ended up with weeks like '8/13/4 + 17'"

• "I think where most people would have a problem is doing those 4-5 hour training runs to 'get the miles in' without the base during the week; if the midweek runs are just 3 to 4 miles and then someone tries to do 16-20 on the weekend, that's where you really set yourself up for a big fall. I experienced this in my first training cycle; my midweek runs were 3-4 miles, with ony 6-7 miler, then I was doing 15, 16, 18 miles on a Sunday... no wonder I spent half my training weeks toward the end babying injuries!"

• "Overall, I at least sort of understand why Jack Daniels cuts off at 2.5 hours. But elites can run 26 miles in less than that -- often significantly for elite men. To cut off an average runner's training at 2.5 hours seems a bit premature when they may be running for 2 or 3 hours longer on race day. I still stand by the 3-3.5 hour rule; I don't think someone can run a marathon very well with only a 16 mile training run under their belt -- or even less mileage depending on speed. Can they finish? Sure. But will it be a good experience? I would be skeptical. Plus, for many average runners, 2.5 hours worth of running is not far enough to really address hydration and fuel issues and come up with a strategy, especially for those runners for whom a marathon WOULD take 4.5-6 hours. Example: A friend of mine did her first 15 miler last weekend, which clocked in just shy of 2:20. That's still a good pace (~9:10), but she barely had to tap into hydration and fuel (she only took 2 gels). And the thought of running 10 more is still very daunting. A half hour or 45 minutes more (up to 19-20 miles) would not only boost confidence but prepare her better and allow her to create a race strategy, and if played right, she could still recover well even if her mileage is peaking at 45 mpw."

• "My take on the subject is, there's a huge illusion of accuracy. Much of what we think we know is a compilation of what worked out well for elites. We don't really know how to extend that to average runners. I think there's a lot more play in what will work than most training systems allow, and I think that what the runner's goals are is under-emphasized. In particular, I think training plans have too much speed work for people whose only goal is to finish. If speed isn't important, why introduce an additional injury risk from running hard in training?

• "I also recall reading about a guy who does a marathon every week, and has for years. Now he's old, and about the only running he does is on race day. He's made it work, for himself"

• "Regarding the long run and a limit of 2.5 hours due to injury prevention...I've read about doing a simulated 20 mile run by running long (but shorter than 20 miles) two days back to back but what about using cross training? Say biking for an hour or more followed by 2.5 hours of running? Would there be benefit to that"

So before I get into the valuable comments above, let me introduce some concepts about the long run itself.


The main purpose of the long run is to train your body to rely more on stored fat for energy than on carbohydrates. When you exercise, your body uses both the stored carbohydrates (glycogen in muscle cells and liver) as well as stored fat (triglyceride in the adipose cell).  But the body initially prefers carbohydrates since the process to use glucose to manufacture ATP is much simpler than using fat.  If you are a sedentary person, over time atrophy sets in and your body's ability to use stored fat for energy decreases.  The same holds true for your overall cardiovascular capabilities.  To add to matters, the same sedentary person is constantly eating carbohydrates over the course of the day, so the body is constantly relying more on carbs for fuel and is constantly storing the excess as fat. So fat is being created at a much more faster rate then it is being burned.  Thus leads to weight gain and other problems.

The long run is more than just the longest run you run in the week.  To me, in order to qualify as a 'long run', you must be running within your aerobic level for at least 90 minutes.  Why your aerobic level and why 90 minutes you ask?  First off, if you run beyond your aerobic level (easy pace or conversational pace) then you are forcing your body to burn glucose.  When you run anaerobically, that means your muscles do not have enough oxygen to use fat for fuel.  Only glucose can be used to produce ATP when not enough oxygen is present in the muscle cells.  So it is very important to run your long run at a nice easy pace to promote fat burning.  The second reason, as already mentioned, the body much prefers glucose over fat for energy conversion because it is a much simplier process.  But your body has only a limited amount of stored carbohydrates.  When the glycogen stores begins to exhaust, the body automatically makes a conversion to release enzymes that will speed up the burning of fat for energy use. Usually this conversion requires 60-90 minutes of running.  Runs shorter than 60-90 minutes is usually burning carbs at a higher ratio than fat. Running for at least 90 minutes definitely increases the ratio of fat burning over glucose burning.  Keep in mind that ratios switch between carb to fat burning.  The body just doesn't stop burning carbs and begins burning fat.  But the longer you run (as long as you don't incur extreme oxygen debt and remain in the aerobic zone), the body will burn more fat than it will burn carbs. 

However, if you have been relatively sedentary and are not used to exercising for 90 minutes straight, because of atrophy, the body may have "forgotten" how to make enough enzymes that will sustain the level of energy required.  Your cardiovascular system may also have deteriorated enough to start incurring oxygen debt much sooner than necessary to make the conversion.  So there is a training period that needs to be overcome and in the mean time, you will feel very sluggish during the late stages of your long run.  But make the commitment to continue this week after week.  Your body will be stressed and will begin to improve your cardiovascular system and will begin to produce the required enzymes in higher quantities.  The more you stress this function over and over again by increasing the time you run a long run, the more efficient your body will be to use fat as a means to convert energy. 

This is very important when you run half marathons and vital for full marathons.  The body only has a certain amount of carbohydrates that you can store.  And refueling techniques are limited in what they can provide.  That means if you ran for more than 2 hours, you will begin to completely exhaust all your glycogen stores, and eating Gu or jelly beans or drinking Gatorade will not help as much as you like.  That is because your body can only process so little of what you eat in the time it needs to use it to help you run.  While exercising, your body can roughly digest and absorb at most 150 calories per hour while it is burning around 700 calories per hour and possibly more depending on intensity.  So the math does not add up.  You cannot replace what you spent by eating or drinking.  The secret to running 3-5 hour marathons is by increasing your body's ability to use fat for energy more than it does on carbohydrates.  That is the main purpose of the long run.  To stimulate the body to use fat for energy.  There are also tricks to enhance the long run.  Like running in a fasted state.  That means you have not eaten anything long before you run so that your blood glucose levels are no longer elevated (and possibly have already exhausted liver glycogen stores).  For example, I will wake up early in the morning and have no breakfast (minus a mug of coffee) before my long run. So what you need to run immediately comes from stored fuel and not from what you recently ate.  The other thing is to limit or not refuel while you run.  Drinking water and electrolytes during the long run will not break the fast, so it will not hamper this strategy.  There is a level of diminishing returns to running in a fasted state so it is wise not to always practice this strategy.  You also can use the long run to practice taking in fuel while you run as well as experimenting with different types of fuel to make sure they agree with your body.  So some long runs can be done fasted, while other long runs are done with say preworkout breakfast and on the run refueling.

But there are quite a few other benefits to the long run as well.  Yes, you build strength the longer you run. But the longer you run, the more time you need to recover. You can do something similar by running more miles during the entire course of the week or even run again later on in the day. How much of a rest do you need when you run a certain distance? That is something you have to figure out on your own since this effects everyone differently.

Here is my theory why to cut it off early (whether it is 2.5 hours, 3 hours, or 3.5 hours...). So as you run, in the beginning you will be burning more carbs than fats. But eventually your body will rely more on fat than carbs (especially if you are running at an easy pace). How fast you make that transition and to what ratios? That is the main purpose of long run training. To improve this function. As you keep running and running, even though your body begins to rely more and more on fat, you will still burn a certain percentage of carbs, and the more intense you run, the more of a percentage it will be in carbs. - btw more intense does not necessarily mean faster.  Fighting to maintain the same pace could also mean more intense. Eventually, you will exhaust your carb stores (or comes close to it) and the body and mind begins to fight back. At this point, it is no longer a physiological training exercise, but more of a mental thing. Your slow twitch muscles would have weakened a long time ago causing you to engage your medium twitch and then your fast twitch muscles. But eventually those get exhausted too. The faster twitch muscles exhaust at a much faster rate than the slow twitch muscle fibers. So your pace will drop unless you run with more intensity. As you continue to run, you begin to cause more and more trauma to your muscle cells which require more time to recover from. Truly, at this point it becomes solely a mind game and not a physiological thing. Now is there a benefit in this area that Daniels overlook? I believe so. You are pushing your mind to force your body to continue. But there is a cost to this as well as a benefit. That is what you have to decide when you go beyond whatever suggested limit.

So the point I am making is by running your long run longer than 2.5 hours, 3 hours, 3.5 hours...  you are no longer stimulating the body to improve.  You are actually forcing muscle damage.  The more damage you do to the muscle, the more time it requires to recover.

So in order for me to race a marathon, I will require about 2-3 weeks of tapering just to recover from my training so that my body is at it's highest state of health and fitness to do my best performance on race day.  After I am done with my race, my body will require about 2-3 weeks of reverse tapering to recover from the damage caused by the race.  So if it takes this long to prepare and recover from a race, why would I want to simulate that very same action within my training runs?  Do I really want to run such a brutal long run on a Saturday morning (after already training hard in the week) so that when Monday morning comes along, I cannot perform a good workout?  This is the main reason you limit what you do in your long run.  Your success on race day will not be as a result of one single 20 or 22 mile long run, but from all the weeks and weeks of good training all working together to improve your body holistically.

Now while I run 20 milers and even a couple 22 milers before a marathon race (against the advise of the 3 hour limit), I also know that my weekly mileage means more than hitting that 22 miler. When I ran my first 20 miler, I really started to feel it around mile 18. My pace really dropped. My last 2 miles were 2-3 minutes slower than the first 18. I questioned, if this is what happens when I hit 20, how the heck am I going to hit 26.2? I had folks reminding me that at the same time I ran this 20 miler, I also had a full week of runs. When I do it for real, I will have a long taper and carb load, and that will take me over the edge. And they were right. When you do your long training run, you have to realize that you are doing it already with tired legs (from your other runs during the week). So you don't need to go as far to be in marathon shape. And you can do it with less recovery time.

Now do I run 3 hour long runs? Look at my strava entries and you will see quite a few of them. Some even 3:15 and 3:30. So yes, even I break Daniels rule. But I try to not do it very often. I also believe that while there may not be any physiological benefit for going beyond 2.5 or 3 hours, there is definitely a mental benefit. There is a huge mental confidence builder for the first time marathon experience. I was pumped up when I completed my very first 20 miler training run ever which took me over 3 hours. So I agree there is a benefit, even if only mental.


So when do you break a rule and when don't you break a rule?  The answer relies in 2 things.  1) The more you understand the science to running and training and the purposes of why you do a certain things, the more you understand the purpose of these rules.  2) The more you practice or break these rules, the more you understand how your body reacts.  For example, if you run a 3 hour long run on Saturday but find out that your Monday morning run was cut short because you just didn't have it in you?  Then you know that running another 3 hour long run next Saturday is probably not a very smart move.  But if you find out that your 3 hour long run had no effect on your Monday morning run, then you will be more inclined to do more 3 hour long runs and maybe even attempt a 3:15:00 long run. 

So what about the old guy that runs marathons every week?  I know a friend that ran a couple of marathon races with this guy.  The old guy isn't really "racing them".  He's just running them at a slow enough pace so that he can run his next "race" the following week.  He is a 'back of the pack' runner.  He also just didn't wake up one morning and wonder, "what would happen if I ran a marathon every week for a full year after never run a marathon ever in my life?".  I am sure experience and stamina plays a big part in this.

Can you train for a marathon or half marathon on running just 3 or 4 times a week?  Depends on the runner.  It is not a very good strategy in my opinion, but doing so will present many challenges that you will need to face and answer.

Another question that was asked, if I run 2 'long runs' during the week, do both long runs added together have to be 25-35%?  The answer is no.  You take the longest single run of the week and make the comparison. 

How does cross training play into this?  I think cross training is valuable, but it doesn't replace running.  In my opinion, there is a certain amount of running that will be required in order for you to meet your goals.  Short changing your weekly mileage in favor of cross training will not do you any justice.

What about breaking your long run into 2 smaller runs?  I mentioned in my training plan blog that there is a purpose behind the long run.  I explained the purposes of the long run above.  To put it all into prospective...  If you have scheduled a long run that would take you 2 hours to perform, but decide to break it up into 2 1-hour shorter runs, then what good will that do you?  There is a good chance that during both of those shorter runs, you will be at a higher carb-burn ratio than a fat-burn ratio.  So you be short changing the main purpose of the long run.  Especially in between your 2 shorter runs, you had time to eat something and your body began to replenish those glycogen stores.  Each of those shorter runs will begin with a full glycogen store.  This is not the same thing.  Your muscle fibers will have also recovered.  So you don't get to practice as much the muscle fiber recruitment ladder.  And lastly, while you main do a good job of focusing on staying in the aerobic zone for both shorter runs, you end up missing out on enhancing oxygen debt through distance. For each shorter run, you will initially be starting at fully recovered oxygen levels due to EPOC in between runs. That means, the longer you run, even at a comfortable conversational pace, eventually your body will still incur some level of oxygen debt and lactate buildup.  All of this is very important part of your training. EPOC (excess post-workout oxygen consumption) is a way your body recovers from oxygen debt incurred during a workout.  Even if you took a short 20-30 minute break in the middle of your long run, you lose a major training stimulus that results when lactate is produced in the body.  Distance induced lactate is much different than pace induced lactate.  So the benefits of the long run are different than say 2 tempo runs.

Again, training plans are more as guides than doctrine.  That goes for all the rules as well.  They are guides.  They should be used to help you train smarter.  But only you know what your body can really do.  You need to tailor your workouts and training according to what works for your body and personality.  You also need to tailor your training plan to what works in your life.  A married person with kids and a full time job will have far less time to train than a professional runner that actually trains for a living.

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.