on plan ...

Running is going well, I'm on my plan.  The weather has been great.

No real injuries.  I had to wash my Cascadia's after a muddy run two weeks ago, and ran in some old 'road' shoes while they dried out.  Switching back to the Cascadias, I did a long run and was thinking they had a bit more room in the toe box then I remembered.  I realized after the run that I had forgot to put the insoles back in after washing them!  Doh!  The balls of my feet are still a little tender.

Here is a good running video to take a look at - it gives some insight into Alberto Salazar, an old runner I admire.  He's also the only american man to have won Comrades (in 1994) ...

Runner's World video (Alberto Salazar)

training cycle - update

This training cycle is starting well.  I'm about five weeks into it, and feeling good. Looking at the training plan I wrote about earlier, I'm pretty much on-plan.  My mileage has averaged a little over 50 miles/week - though SportTracks shows a sliding seven-day total that shows some peaks over 60 (and corresponding dips).  I've run some local road races on weekends, and I've used those events to get some higher quality running in.  I need to be careful not to push too hard because I really can't afford an injury now.

Here is some solid advice from Scott Jurek on "The Long Run: Building the Base".  I'm looking forward to including more higher intensity work in the coming weeks - running faster is key to improving running efficiency and economy (and running faster still).

And though this video link isn't especially relevant to base building, I want to share a link to an interesting analysis of a very strong 10K runner's form - Chris Solinsky Stride Analysis - from the Somax Sports website.  You should take the critique with a grain of salt (I heard Ryan Hall was asked what perfect form looked like ... he answered saying we'll only see perfect form in heaven), but it helps to remind me to think about form basics every time I go running.

a little foolish

They say "a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client" ... I'm wondering if the same sentiment could be applied to runners and coaching (as in "a runner who coaches himself has a fool for a client").

I may be a fool ... but I'm going running.

new shoes, new training cycle

My new shoes are the Brooks Cascadia 7 - I've had them out on the road for a couple of days now, and they are very comfortable.  I like them a lot.

new Brooks Cascadia 7 shoes

We've had great sunny days, really great winter running weather. My mileage has been low, but all of a sudden I'm anxious to get back to some real road work. Some time off from running really can be a good thing - but I have a lot of work to do to meet my goal for the year of running the Comrades ...

So, how am I training? I want to build on what I've done on the past, but pay more attention to running efficiency and speed. Here is a top-level view of my plan and why I think it's reasonable.

I can look back at years worth of running logs, and see that running 45 miles a week is a relatively high workload for me. 45 miles at an easy pace (just over 10 minute miles) is 450 minutes (7.5 hours) of running. Using Daniels' point system, doing these easy runs only would put me at 75 points a week.

The change I am making this training cycle is to introduce more 'quality' into my running. Spending some more time at marathon and threshold pace during the week, and adding some 10K races on weekends will put me over 100 points for the week. I have weekly runs of 15+ miles, and will run one marathon, but nothing longer than that before Comrades.

Reasonableness check: For one thing, based on my own experience, I can't train much harder than this, and I don't want to get injured, so this is what I should do. With my (limited) natural ability, I've previously beat the cutoff in a number of ultraruns - I'm expecting that the added focus on running efficiency and speed is going to help give me my best shot at finishing Comrades.

Mike's pacing by heartrate

• Easy (~70% HR max, 115 bpm)
• Marathon pace (80% HR max, 130 bpm)
• Threshold (88% HR max, 142 bpm)
• 10K (> 90% HR max, 145 bpm)

Daniels' Running Formula (part 2)

My copy of "Daniels' Running Formula" is dog-eared and marked up with text I've highlighted.  I can open the book to a random page and almost immediately find Coach Daniels telling me something that emphasizes or clarifies running lessons I've learned along the way.  Paging through the book now, here are some of my key 'take aways' from Coach Daniels' book.  The following material is quoted or paraphrased from Coach Daniels' book, from pages indicated.

- No one has all the answers, and one plan will not suit all runners (page x)

- There are four kinds of distance runners 1) high ability and motivation 2) high ability but not motivated 3) lacking ability but highly motivated 4) lacking ability and motivation (pg xv).

- Training Principles (pg 8)  Some of them are ...
-- The body reacts to stress of training by adapting to perform better
-- Specificity: You get better at the activity that provided the training stress.  Over-training has a negative effect on ability to perform the activity that provided the stress
-- Diminishing Return (and accelerating setbacks).  As training increases in duration and intensity, the benefit gained increases more slowly, while the chance of over-training/injury increases

- Your current best performances can be used to determine the training intensity necessary to improve (pg 31)

- The basic goals of training are:  (pg32)
-- improve ability to transport blood/oxygen
-- increase ability of muscles to use oxygen
-- shift lactate threshold to higher running speed
-- increase VO2 max
-- improve speed
-- improve running economy

You can see where this is going ... a training plan is a mix of training activities of the right duration and intensity, selected to make progress against the goals.  He describes a system of assigning points based on training activity time and intensity.  This is interesting because it 'handicaps' ability to the extent that runners with very different abilities can compare their training efforts, and he observes that novice runners might consider a weekly total of 50 points, advanced high-schoolers 100 points,and collegians 150 points.  Elite runners might be working 200 points or more a week. (pg 41)

- A season long training cycle might have four phases (pg 68)
-- FI.  Foundation and injury prevention - building the base
-- EQ.  Early Quality - running mechanics, running economy and speed (primarily reps)
-- TQ.  Transition Quality, the toughest phase, focusing on long intervals
-- FQ.  Final Quality, threshold running, some reps and intervals, and racing.

Over the long term (many training cycles) Coach Daniels believes that it's better to develop speed (skill) before endurance (aerobic conditioning) (pg 80).  Note that on page 81, he points out that older runners running for fitness might want to flip this around ...

- To avoid over-training and injury, slower runners might have to run less total mileage than faster runners.  (pg 92)

- Re: Individual limits and weekly mileage (pg 95) There is a wide range of answers to the question of how many miles/week a distance runner should be running ...

- Stride rate.  Almost all elite distance runners tend to stride at about the same rate: 180 or more steps per minute. (pg 93)  The main change that occurs as runners go faster is in stride length.

- Breathing Rhythms.  Most elite distance runners breathe with a 2-2 rhythm (pg 116)

- The ideal intensity is the least stressful intensity that accomplishes what you want (pg 123)

- Losing weight / changes in body composition (pg 150).  It's hard to tell how much improved performance is due to leaner frame rather than the fact that quality training can be carried out more effectively with a slimmer body.  Some cautions here ... losing body mass for the sake of weighing less can be counterproductive.

- Marathon Training (chapter 20)
-- If you get beyond about 50 miles per week, you should probably consider running twice a day most days of the week
-- I think the guidelines given for runners training to complete a marathon (pg 268) may apply just as well to beginning ultra-runners.

Daniels' Running Formula (part 1)

I've been reading "Daniels' Running Formula" (the second edition), by Jack T. Daniels, Ph.D. This book has been out for years and really doesn't need a critical review at this point - you should just accept it as a classic guide to effective training for runners.  I would like to share some thoughts and observations I made when I rediscovered this book over the recent holidays.

Coach Daniels has gotten plenty of accolades as a coach.  As an athlete himself (a pentathlete at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games) and with a long history of coaching and helping a lot of runners perform their best, it's great that he managed to capture that experience and training philosophy so well in this book.  I get special pleasure from the fact that that he coached at State University of NY Cortland for years - my wife's family lived in McGraw, NY just on the other side of the highway, and our visits to the area always included visits to Cortland.

As a sports physiologist, Coach Daniels uses VDOT as a real-world metric of an individuals ability to perform.  Over the years I've been tempted to visit a sports lab and discover my own VO2 max level, knowing it correlates with the best possible performance I can expect to achieve in my own running.  Coach Daniels' VDOT number incorporates VO2 max and also includes the runners pace (velocity) at VO2 max to come up with a more useful indication of a runner's ability.  VDOT takes the scientific purity of a laboratory VO2 max measurement, and adds all the other variables in - especially how efficient a runner is, and the terrain, weather, ability to manage physical resources during an event, emotional state-of-mind, willingness to suffer discomfort, and others.

You can determine your own current VDOT number based on recent best performance (no sports lab visit needed!) using tables in Coach Daniels' book, and then use your VDOT number to determine your most effective training pace and level of effort for optimum improvement.  The core of this book is about using VDOT - actually planning training efforts measured as time spent at some percentage of your VDOT - as the basis of developing training plans for distances up to the marathon.

The last few years my own training has been centered on recording mileage. This book has reminded me that I might be able to train a lot smarter than just continuing the quest for higher weekly mileage totals.  I'll continue in my next blog with some 'bullet' points sampling some of Coach Daniels' insights, and possibly my efforts to translate it all into an effective training plan.

Running watches I have known

I've tried a number of running watches over the years in pursuit of the perfect watch. My watches over the past 10 years or so, in the order I adopted them:

- Nike Triax C6
- Nike Triax CV10
- Suunto T6C
- Garmin FR60 (my current watch)

I still haven't found the perfect running watch - here is what I think of the ones I've run with so far.

I liked the style of my first Nike Triax - the angled design of the watch face was nice. I used it to capture splits and total run time, including using countdown timers for managing interval workouts. I could see my heart rate data in real-time.  For a running log, I entered summary data by hand into a spreadsheet.   It was a nice running watch, with all the timing capability I needed.

Moving on to the Nike Triax CV10 let me add a shoe pod to the heart rate monitor (HRM) to measure speed and distance. If you've seen some of my older blogs, you know I'm a fan of the statement "you can't manage what you don't measure." Running by 'feel' is OK, but at some point it is good to have actual data that shows what heart rate and running pace actually corresponds with perceived level of effort. After running a lot of miles with a HRM on, I've definitely changed my idea of how hard it should feel like I'm working on my long runs.

A running buddy then adopted a Suunto T3, and the concept of training effect (TE) was interesting. In my typical need-to-know-it-all fashion, I downloaded all the Suunto training materials and read and re-read everything. I eventually wound up buying a Suunto T6C for myself, with the Suunto HRM and shoe pod. I also adopted a running software package called Firstbeat Athlete to log my watch data and monitor my progress.

At this point in running watch evolution, it's clear to me that a big part of the total functionality of a watch now lies in the software you use with it and ability of that software to load and use data from the watch. This software is typically PC (or Mac) or web based. The Suunto T6C and Firstbeat software gave me new insight into the effect of workouts of different durations and intensities.

I moved away from the Suunto T6C/Firstbeat Athlete combination for a couple of reasons. Part of the appeal of capturing heart rate data at the R-R level was the promise that you could get feedback when you are over-training. I never really thought I benefited from this capability. The Suunto watches capture the data needed for heart rate variability analysis, but rely on external software (and a person) to do the analysis. And this software is typically owned and used only by professional trainers. The fee to have some data looked at on a one-off basis is prohibitive to do on a regular basis. Note that some Polar watches, and some iPhone apps will now do this sort of analysis.

Firstbeat Athlete is showing it's age a bit. It has some long standing issues with not always syncing a users profile (things like height and weight) with the data stored in the watch. And as a running log, it had a long standing bug with not adding up your weekly mileage correctly.  A recent update to Firstbeat Athlete actually added the ability to import data from a Garmin 610 using the wireless USB stick but not much else changed. I think the Firstbeat folks are first class exercise physiologists, but I'm not sure what their plan is for future PC and web based software.

Finally, I become frustrated with the finicky-ness of the Suunto T6C computer data connection, a small clip that uses a set of dimpled electrical contacts on the back of the watch to connect the watch to a USB port. The future of data connections is of course wireless.  Both Suunto and Garmin seem to be using very similar technology for wireless data connections on their newest watches.

The new Suunto Quest seems like it might have been a good follow-on to my T6C, but my search for my next watch and software combination led me to the Garmin FR60 and SportTracks 3 software (from Zone 5). I've basically traded training effect for TRIMP (a numerical method of summarizing duration and intensity), and gained a very reliable and convenient way of transferring watch data to my PC. A new data-point the Garmin FR60 provides is running cadence, which I've been watching pretty closely lately.  I've previously blogged about SportTracks 3 and some of the plug-ins I use

Thoughts on GPS - I do study maps (and take maps with me) on new trails the first time out. I might benefit from a capability to enter a planned run into the watch, but frankly it wouldn't help - I do a lot of backtracking out there. Besides, most of the time I'm on a trail where I know where I'm going, and where all the wrong turns would take me. Finally, the power requirements (read: short battery life, and need for constant charging), and the physical size of the watches almost rule out using a GPS watch as an everyday watch. The Garmin 610 looks pretty good though if you're willing to do the trade-off.

Finally, I tend to wear my running watch as my everyday watch to work and when travelling. I always use the alternate time zone and depend on alarms working when I'm on the road. I found each of these watches are suitable for all but 'dress up' occasions (they all make a statement that I'm a runner, but I'm almost always willing to talk about that).