Training Mistakes

Ed -

My wife got me subscription to Runner's World for Christmas and I was SO looking forward to get my first issue.  I LOVE Runner's World but haven't had a subscription since high school.  However, they messed up their information and mailed the first two issues down to Wilmington, NC to where my wife ordered them.  Goofy.  However, it lead to a nice little bonus.

When the publisher got the address thing straight they decided to give me a free subscription to the Running Times which is a magazine primarily targeting elite runners.  The articles are still really well written and interesting, but all of them have a lot more specific "how to" type of information.  I highly recommend it to anyone who's been trying to train smarter and better.

This month there was an article by Pete Magill about The Dirty Dozen which is about the 12 most common mistakes people make when training.  I devoured it and found right away that I had actually learned a few things from 2009 when I trained for and ran my first ever marathon in just six months.  However, I also caught a couple of things that had me immediately hopping on the computer and pulling up my spreadsheet.  Sure enough I had a couple of things to adjust to my plan.

The first thing was Mistake Number 4: Recover Inadequately.

In my zeal for lots of workouts and increased mileage I had done a poor job of scheduling my rest appropriately.  I happened to feel that this week after several days of hard running in a row I decided to take a couple of days off because of the way my right hip felt.  At least I was paying attention to my body and I'm sure I did the right thing.

I went to the spreadsheet and clicked on each week and looked at what workouts I was doing and what I was doing the day after each one.  I had to make several changes to make sure there was either a rest day or a very easy day after each Speed Workout or Tempo/Steady State run.  I feel really good about how the weeks look now for the next month now and my mileage is still increasing the whole time as it should.

The other mistake I was making I began to fix this morning.

Mistake Number 2: Make All Runs 'Medium Runs.'  I thought I had this one handled, but after reading the whole explanation I realized I was missing a big piece that I would regret later.

Each different type of workout is designed to develop a particular aspect of your body and ability to run some distance fast.  And every workout has target paces based on current and goal race times.  Doing a workout wrong; either by changing the number of reps, the length or type of rest, or the pace pretty much sabotages what that workout was supposed to do which screws up your progression and development.  My screw up was that I was flat out missing an important workout each week even though I thought I was getting it in there.  The Steady State run.

See, I'm pretty much a short distance speed type guy.  I love being on the track.  I love going fast, fast and doing interval type running.  I don't particularly like racing a 10K or longer since it hurts.  I was getting plenty of speed and sprint type work done, I had my long run each week, easy runs and my Tempo or long intervals.  But there was the mistake.  My long intervals and Tempo runs weren't long enough to do what they're supposed to do: make it easier to run longer at a faster pace.  Being able to do a fast 5K is going to make it easier for me to hold my 95% effort for a full mile.

The Steady State run is an entire run lasting somewhere between 20 to 40 minutes at about 85% of race pace.  This is where the McMillan Calculator comes in handy since I was a History Major and couldn't do this if somebody paid me to.  I figured I could run about a 20:30 (6:30 pace) 5K right now (based on my last flu ridden race and a healthy one last fall) and the calculator says I should do a Steady State run somewhere between 6:55 pace and 7:13 pace.  But I haven't been doing any runs like that at all, so when I stepped out last week and pushed that 2 mile Tempo I realized I was in no condition to hit the recommended paces and call it only an 85% effort.  I was almost horking for Pete's sake.

So I went back to the spreadsheet and changed all of my Tempo runs to either a Steady State run or a longer Tempo.  Nothing shorter than a mile.  I also set distance targets that were at the correct pace, but at the short end of the duration since I'm just beginning that training.  Today I ran five miles, but made sure the first three were at the correct pace and was able to hold 7:09 pace for the first three, then I had to back off because one long steep uphill wrapping up at mile 2.5 had me dry heaving on the hoof for a bit.  I didn't all together collapse and did a 7:33 pace the last two so I had a 7:18 average for the run.  Not horrible, but not 85% either.

That's okay.  Next week my Tempo will be two 2-mile efforts with a mile rest in between, and the following week will be another five miles where I try to hold sub 7:10 for the first four miles.

By making these two adjustments: correctly doing a long run workout and building in appropriate recovery days, I'm filling the holes from previous year's training efforts.

I feel very confident in what I'll accomplish this year!

So find yourself a Running Times and get reading, but if you're looking for another great resource for running check out the American Running Association website.  Our friend, Darren, brought it to our attention and I cruised around the site today and it is flat out full of cool resources and articles that will help anyone run better longer.