Stuck in a rut? Here’s how to break through
We’ve all been there. After some period of training--whether months or years--you seem to keep producing the same results in your big efforts. Maybe you run 3 marathons in succession in 3:33, 3:35, and 3:32.
Those are strong finish times, but what you really want is a sub-3:30 marathon. How to get there? Alex Hutchinson dissected a recent paper on the limits of strength training to look for answers. You might not be interested in all the microcellular elements, but Hutchinson’s personal conclusion offers good insight.
“In practice, I’m pretty sure that most training plateaus, whether in muscle size, marathon time, or other fitness goals, don’t actually reflect some immutable biological law. We slip into comfortable routines, repeating the same workouts even though our bodies have already adapted to them. We settle for incremental goals instead of dreaming of quantum leaps.” More at Outside Online.
Big dreams are important, and also breaking out of a rut. The NY Times noted that “workout plateaus are an inevitable part of any fitness journey.” One expert suggested: “It’s a chance to listen to your body, figure out what it needs to improve, and reconnect to what you love about running.” More at NY Times.
This often requires moving away from your target for a time. Switch from road marathons to the mile, or to trail running, for 6 to 12 months. Then jump back on that sub-3:30 goal. You might be surprised by how quickly your fitness returns, and even exceeds what it was previously.
Why you should consider run-walk training
You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger supporter of run-walk training than me. In fact, I consider it synonymous with “interval training.”
On long run days, I do “repeats” of 4 to 9 minutes before taking a walk break. On “up tempo” days, I do the last 2 miles of a typical 6-mile run with a 2:1 ratio that includes 60 seconds easy running, 60 seconds at 1-mile to 5K pace, and 60 seconds walking for recovery.
My point: Run-walk training is infinitely flexible, and fun, and can be productive in many different ways. Even if you don’t want to do it when you’re running your best, you should keep it in mind. Because you’ll eventually hit a time when it comes in handy.
The below article makes a strong case for run walk training. I especially agree with the runner who summarizes things like this: “Benefits include delayed fatigue, conservation of resources, quicker recovery, mentally breaking down the race into digestible bites, [and] less stress on ‘weak’ links.”
Another often overlooked factor: You can consume fluids and other soft or hard calories more easily during a planned, relaxed walk break. More at Inside Hook.
Time magazine picks several running products as “Best Inventions 2023”
The fabled weekly magazine gave that accolade to Coros’s new heart-rate armband with optical sensors. Similar sensors are used at the wrist of many watches, but with unreliable results due to the “lack of deep tissue at the wrist.”
The arm’s bicep muscle provides plenty of tissue and blood flow, so no problem. Users who disliked the tight chest straps of other HR monitors find the armband simple and comfortable. More at Time Best New Inventions.
Another 7 products were named best new inventions in the “Fitness” category. They included: a lightweight Nike running jacket that knows when to repel rain and when to open its pores so your sweat can evaporate, and a drinking bottle (that has been viewed more than 270 million times on TikTok) that lets you guzzle fluids or use a straw.
And, of course, those brand-spanking-new $500 Adidas marathon shoes that Tigst Assefa used to run a 2:11:53 world record (by more than 2 minutes) in the recent Berlin Marathon. More at Time Best New Inventions Fitness.
Healthy feet, faster times: Why you need to rotate your shoes
Many runners, when they find a favorite, most-comfortable pair of running shoes, stick with those shoes for years. Some even buy a half-dozen pairs of a particular model once they have identified it as their chosen shoe.
This could be a mistake.
Running injuries are often caused by “overuse.” Translation: You repeat the same motion (your running stride) over and over until a given muscle grows fatigued, and breaks down. Such overuse is magnified when you always run in the same pair of shoes, with the same construction, same midsole, and same fit.
Using different shoes, on the other hand, reduces overuse. Your leg muscles must make slight adaptations for each run in different footwear. For example, you could do your shorter, easy-day runs in a pair of minimalist shoes rather than the thicker shoes you use when logging more distance. You could also alternate between shoes with a significant heel-toe “drop,” and others with zero-drop.
Some runners choose to run in shoes made by different companies--say New Balance and Brooks--figuring that even this simple tactic should produce variations in the forces their legs encounter while running. And indeed it should.
A 2015 study investigated this “mix ‘em up” strategy to see if it would prove effective. It did, finding that the “parallel use of more than one pair of running shoes was a protective factor.” In fact, mixing up shoes resulted in a 39% drop in running injuries.”
Research has also found that certain shoes, often with low heel drops, can reduce knee injuries. Or, if you’ve got Achilles or calf problems, you could try thicker shoes with more dramatic heel to toe drops.
The following article summarizes much of this information, as it argues the case for rotating your running shoes. Somewhat strangely, it quotes an apparent injury expert who is never fully identified. More at Training Peaks.
Wait!!!??? There’s a time for decreased carb intake?
Camille Herron is already one of the planet’s best ultra (as in, seriously ultra) distance runners. She seems to get better as the distance increases. Last spring, for example, she set a world record for the 48-hour run when she logged 270 miles. That also surpassed the American men’s record for the distance, making her the first female runner to establish the overall American record at any distance.
So you wouldn’t expect her to mess with such proven success. That would be a little like Eliud Kipchoge deciding to switch to minimalist running shoes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?
However, Herron is both science oriented and open minded. She’s willing to learn and change. A few months back she visited well known Canadian sports nutrition expert Trent Stellingwerff to run in his lab and see what she could learn about her inner workings. (Stellingwerff’s wife, Hilary, twice represented Canada in the Olympic 1500 meters.)
The results of that visit indicated that Herron is naturally a high-fat burner, which could account for her ultra-running success. When she consumes too many carbs, that apparently lowers her fat-burning. So Stellingwerff suggested she ease off a bit on her mid-race carb consumption, which Herron had been trying to push ever-higher, as is the general advice these days for marathon-and-beyond runners.
The tactic seemed to work at the early October 153-mile Spartathlon event in Greece, where Herron broke the women’s course record by more than 2 hours. “We learned my body is naturally wired for fat oxidation, so I ended up backing off my carbohydrate intake, and it paid off later in the race,” she said.
Of course, the same tactic wouldn’t necessarily work for someone who’s not a genetic high-fat burner. So always test various nutritional strategies in training before trying them in races.
Herron, Stellingwerff, and others are working on a major Lululemon project called “Further” that will end with a 6-day women-only race next March. They hope to learn more about women and ultra endurance. Details are scarce at this point, and Stellingwerff’s research hasn’t been published. But it will be, and I’ll fill you in quickly at that time. More at Outside Online.
How PEACE and LOVE can reduce muscle pains
Most running injuries are soft-tissue muscle injuries that heal quickly with proper care and recovery. That’s the good news about running injuries. The bad news? Runners get lots of these pesky aches and pains.
In the old days, we were advised to treat such insults with RICE--you know, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. But that was then, and this is now. Now, physical therapists and physicians have devised new acronyms and treatments. Sometimes you suspect these folks have been spending too much time playing Wordle..
Still, it’s hard not to appreciate this healing system: PEACE and LOVE. Follow the link to learn what it means. (And maybe shorten the length of your next sore-muscle injury). More at Twitter/Scott Carlin.
The ultimate marathon warm up? Very little at all
There are those who believe that a modest amount of pre-race warm up, including an acceleration or two, is always a good thing. It loosens you up for the jarring start of your race, prepares the muscles for the stress to come, gets your heart pumping, and so on.
Then, there are those like me who believe this is generally a good approach . . . except when the race in question is a marathon. In that case, the best warmup up is the least warmup. Maybe you walk around a little, and do some light skipping exercises. But then you look for a chair, floor, or the most restful place you can find.
After all, the marathon is a looong distance. And you should start a little slower than goal pace to avoid burning off precious glycogen in the first mile or two. To accomplish this, you should not be overly primed on the start line.
This systematic review and meta-analysis agrees . Conclusion: “We found no support to recommend PAPE strategies to improve endurance exercise performance.” (PAPE is basically a warm up with several sprints.) More at Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise.
High aerobic fitness can reduce flu deaths by 50%
We in the northern hemisphere are edging into flu season, so it’s a good time for a study on exercise and flu. Here a big report looked for possible links between aerobic exercise and/or strength training, and risks of mortality from influenza and pneumonia
It included more than 577,000 subjects who were followed for over 9 years. Result: Those meeting guidelines (150 minutes/week of moderate cardio, plus 2 strength workouts/week) “had a 48% lower adjusted risk of influenza and pneumonia mortality.”
When looking at aerobic exercise alone, the risk of death was lowest (minus 50%) for those logging 301 to 600 minutes/week. That’s equivalent to 30 to 60 miles/week of running if you’re running your miles at about 10:00 minute pace. Those exercising over 600 minutes per week still had a 41% lower mortality rate. The lowest exercise group (10 to 149 minutes/week) enjoyed a 21% lower risk.
With strength training, 2 sessions a week produced good results, but 7 or more workouts/week increased mortality risk by 41 percent. Conclusion: “Aerobic physical activity, even at quantities below the recommended level, may be associated with lower influenza and pneumonia mortality while muscle-strengthening activity demonstrated a J-shaped relationship.” More at British J of Sports Medicine with free full text.
SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss
>>> Drafting is dramatic: Kelvin Kiptum could have run a 1:57 marathon if he had a pacer.
GREAT QUOTES make great training partners
"Women who knew only that the first race of its kind ever held in this country was nearing a finish waved their handker-chiefs and fairly screamed with excitement. There was a pandemonium of joy."
--The New York Times describing the first U.S. marathon race, Stamford CT to New York City, on September 19, 1896--7 months before the first Boston Marathon
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby