March 16, 2023 xx
Why B+ workouts are better than A+ workouts
As an athlete, Mark Coogan ran a 2:13:05 marathon best and qualified to run in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Marathon. In recent years, he has been head coach of the successful New Balance team of elite track and road racers. And now he has also authored a training book, Personal Best Running, with crack running editor, Scott Douglas.
Several excerpts from the book have made the rounds at popular running websites, and I particularly like this one. It’s titled “Why B+ workouts are better than A+ workouts”--a great headline. The subhead reads “Why training harder usually doesn’t lead to racing faster.”
The article goes on to explain what Coogan means. He tells the story in first-person anecdotes from his own training and racing career. In college, he and his teammates trained super hard almost every day. But they “consistently underperformed in races. Then, dissatisfied with our results, we would try to run our next workout even harder.”
That’s what we all do after bad races. In fact, I don’t know any runner who hasn’t made this classic mistake. You run a disappointing race, and you want to fix things as quickly as possible. Obvious solution: You didn’t train hard enough for that bad race, so now you’ve got to double down in training.
Obvious, yes, and almost always wrong. Coogan’s next coach gave him many more B+ workouts, and these turned around his faltering career.
Coogan does a nice job explaining the rationale behind B+ workouts. First, they don’t drain your willpower bank account, which is limited for all of us. This doesn’t get discussed very much in training circles, but deserves more attention.
Of course, there’s also reason number two: “The second big reason I favor regular B+ workouts is that A+ workouts take a greater physical toll. It’s a lot easier to pull a muscle or tweak a tendon or get really sore from all-out workouts.”
I haven’t read the full book yet. But the thorough discussion of B+ workouts makes me want to, and also convinces me that the book itself is probably an A if not an A+. More at Runner’s World.
How to train so you get the max from the minimum
Robert Qualls turned 70 ten months ago, and quickly began winning a bunch of American and even World titles in his age group. This kind of high-level success is always interesting to investigate, and now we have a nice article about Qualls, his training, and his running philosophy.
I like that he’s a fan of famed coach Jack Daniels, and follows one of Daniels’ key training principles: “Impose the least stress that produces the maximum benefit.” This is a good path for any runner, and possibly even more important with age.
Qualls is also maniacally devoted to even-pace racing. He’s a scientist (ecology PhD), he’s seen the studies that strongly support even-pace in distance races, so why wouldn’t he follow the best available evidence? Answer: He would.
“I differ from lots of other people because I have some kind of inner clock that tells me to run at exactly the same pace the whole race,” Qualls says. “And part of that comes from training on the track. So I can run around the track and I can hit my mark within one second.”
He wins many of his races in the last quarter of the distance, not because he has a superior kick, but because he slows down less than his competitors. Along the way, he takes time to appreciate his surroundings as any good ecologist would, and also to stay mellow and centered in the midst of super hard efforts.
He knows he’s not the best in the world, which means others might beat him on any given day. Relax, dig deep, don’t worry. That’s a great attitude and a great way to get the most from yourself. More at Geezer Jock.
A simple (but brutal) Kenyan fartlek workout
When we talk about running environments, the discussion often turns to Kenya. What are they doing over there to produce so many great runners? Americans Nell Rojas and Natasha Rogers recently decided to live and train there for a time to find out. Rojas was the first American finisher at the last two Boston Marathons, and is training for a three peat. Rogers is an elite 10,000 meter runner.
Both were struck by the natural beauty of the Rift Valley, and by the throngs of talented runners--as many as 200, most very fit and strong--who will show up together for group workouts on the roads and track. Yup, that even includes Eliud Kipchoge on occasion. Notes Rojas: “On a walk back from a run, you will bump into 2:17 female and 2:06 male marathoners who are happy to talk with you.”
Rogers has had to increase her calorie intake to match all the energy she’s burning. “I have never eaten so healthy in my entire life,” she reports. “Every meal is well-balanced.”
The training couldn’t be simpler. It’s often easy, especially at the beginning of runs, and sometimes very hard. The Thursday fartlek session is famous but basic, with the athletes running for about 50 minutes with hard/easy segments of 1 minute/1 minute, or 2/2, or 3/3. You don’t need a degree from MIT to follow that one, but you’d better be ready to feel the burn.
One day Rojas decided to pace herself off a particular Kenyan woman. “She turned out to be a 2:23 marathoner, and dropped me after 6 repetitions.” More at Women’s Running and Inside Hook.
Yes, you can run away from depression
It’s always interesting to ponder changed attitudes and reasons for running. And they have changed. As beginning runners, most of us wanted to see how fast we could go, and also to improve our heart health. After all, Ken Cooper was a cardiologist and a big influence back in the early days--the 1960s and 1970s. Running was all about our physical selves.
Now, many would say they run for the peace of mind, the centered feeling, the anti anxiety and anti depression state that comes with running. And the research in this area is absolutely … well, mind boggling. Running is now often about our mental selves. Here’s a quick roundup of the latest.
This paper actually explored running specifically. It asked a basic, direct question: What’s more effective, antidepressant medications or running? Conclusion: Running wins. While the two “had comparable effects on mental health,” running improved physical health, while the medications worsened physical health. So running gives you a two-fer. More at Journal of Affective Disorders.
Meanwhile a group of Aussie researchers performed a systematic review of studies that explored “the effects of physical activity on symptoms of depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adult populations.” There’s been a lot of work in the field, and they uncovered research involving more than 128,000 subjects.
Conclusion: “Physical activity is highly beneficial for improving symptoms of depression, anxiety and distress across a wide range of adult populations.” Therefore, “Physical activity should be a mainstay approach in the management of depression, anxiety and psychological distress.” More at Brit J of Sports Medicine.
How eating too little affects performance
Given the current and frequently-published concerns about Low Energy Availability and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports, I’ve been waiting to see if someone would buck the tide a bit and acknowledge that weight-loss in runners can have positive results. Now someone has, though with plenty of key disclaimers.
A team of world-leading sports nutrition experts have published a paper titled “Direct and indirect impact of low energy availability on sports performance.” The paper has three main parts, describing the impact of low energy availability over the “short-term” (days to weeks), “medium-term" (weeks to months) and “long-term” (months to years).
The experts admit that “most” of the short-term and medium-term research “report neutral or positive effects on sports performance variables.” In other words: No harm done, and some benefits.
On the other hand, longterm “severe LEA has the potential to be a serious problem leading to impaired performance.” This happens because LEA is linked to: “reduced glucose concentrations, skeletal muscle glycogen, and protein synthesis, reduced circulating reproductive and anabolic, disruption of markers of iron and bone metabolism, increased risk of mood disturbance and injuries.”
These issues don’t relate just to performance, but can also impact lifelong health. There’s no denying the potential harm. As a result: “We are of the opinion that the importance of leanness should be de-emphasized within the sports environments, especially in young and developing athletes.” More at Scandanavian J of Medicine & Science in Sports. (free full text).
Someone might be doing something right with young female runners in Japan. Here a group of beginners (av age 15) lost 5 pounds in their first 5 months of training. They also reduced their body fat from 19.7% to 12.7%. These two are often linked to an undesirable loss of muscle. However, the Japanese girls ``gained a significant amount of fat-free mass.” More at Exercise, Sport & Movement.
Marathon runners don’t develop arthritis (and they love the marathon)
A nice study based on Chicago Marathon runners has shown that the marathoners have no greater knee and hip arthritis than non runners. And any arthritis they might have seems not related to their running. Rather it is linked to traditional arthritis causes like increased age and body weight, and family genetics. The data has not been published yet, but was presented at a meeting of orthopedic specialists, and picked up in several news reports.
More than 3,800 marathon runners participated in the research, with 7.3% reporting arthritis. A much larger percent, 36.4% said they had occasional musculoskeletal pain. Nonetheless, 94% said they intended to continue entering marathons.
That’s an astonishing number--94%. I’m sure an even higher percent of us expect to continue brushing our teeth … but …. Look at it again: 94%! When we consider the entire “big picture” summary of everything involved in and resulting from marathon training/racing--including all-important mental effects--it seems most marathoners are eager for their next entry blank. Must be pretty powerful medicine. More at NBC News and Medpage Today.
Also, “an updated systematic review of the literature” found “that running is not associated with worsening patient-reported outcomes or radiological signs of knee OA, and may be protective against generalized knee pain.” More at Orthopedic J of Sports Medicine (free full text).
Let’s be honest: Running doesn’t get a 100 percent free pass when it comes to knee and hip arthritis, despite an increasing number of reports to that effect. For example, this review begins by stating that “There is conflicting evidence regarding whether regular running is associated with knee osteoarthritis prevalence. In particular, some research has indicated that higher mileage running is more likely to produce arthritis.”
Okay, let’s check it out then. The authors performed a “systematic review and meta analysis” of all research on running and arthritis. Result: “There was no difference in knee osteoarthritis prevalence between runners and controls,” and risk of arthritis did not increase when looking at groups of runners who averaged 5 to 20 miles a week, 20 to 30, and 30+. More at Physical Therapy in Sport.
Finally, let’s end with an important cautionary note. It’s possible that super competitive runners who push hard when their joints are aching could have a higher risk of arthritis.
We see this in the results of a study of more than 3000 retired Olympians--the folks who go for the gold no matter what. They appear to have 1.5 to 4 times the incidence of arthritis following knee/hip injury than controls who had a knee/hip injury. So when your joints tell you they need more rest and recovery, remember: You’re probably not going to win a gold medal, so let your body heal itself. More at British J of Sports Medicine.
Does too-much running harm your heart?
While the debate over running and arthritis seems to be smoothing out, the question of excessive exercise/running and heart health hasn’t reached that point yet. This week we saw the biggest and best-yet report on how exercise levels of 6 to 8 hours a week affect coronary artery plaques--those nasty blockages that can lead to heart attacks. The result was unexpected, and thus confusing.
Previous studies had shown that high volume exercisers, especially runners, have higher than expected amount of plaque buildup in the heart. This is classic atherosclerosis, and no one wants to have it. But the earlier studies also indicated that the exercisers had a type of plaque--highly calcified vs soft and mushy--that didn’t often lead to heart attacks.
That’s what the researchers expected to see in their new investigation, which looked at large groups of lifelong exercisers vs adults who became active after age 30 or 40 vs healthy controls who did little exercise. It was their stated hypothesis: The lifelong exercisers would have more of the “stable” calcium-filled plaques, which would prevent serious heart complications.
Only that’s not what they found. They found the opposite. The lifelong exercisers “had more coronary plaques, including non-calcified and mixed plaques” than the fit, healthy controls. Those who began exercise at midlife scored between the lifelong and non exercise groups. Most of the subjects were cyclists, not runners, while runners are known to have higher coronary calcium scores.
This sounds worrisome, and it’s going to take a lot more research to figure out what’s going on. For now, the crucial thing to understand is that the study didn’t measure any “hard endpoints.” It didn’t count heart attacks, and it didn’t follow mortality trends between groups. Also, “Vulnerable plaques, which carry the highest risk for events, were rare and not associated with an athletic lifestyle.”
Conclusion: “Lifetime endurance sport participation is not associated with a more favorable coronary plaque composition” in a comparison with healthy, fit controls. The researchers hope to continue with a multiyear follow up study to provide some answers to the questions they have raised.
I happen to be one of those lifetime runners with a high coronary artery plaque “burden,” as they say. I learned this a decade ago, and have never had any overt symptoms. I know, of course, that tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. Still, I can’t see any reason to stop a running routine that has made me so happy and healthy for so long.
More at European Heart Journal (free full text). Also, here are several very detailed blogs on the subject at Brady Holmer Substack.
Volunteering at races can boost your mental health
For at least the last 50 years, we’ve seen ample positive reports in the scientific literature about running and fitness contribute to a healthier, happier life. Meanwhile, race directors and others are always urging us to “give back” by volunteering at a certain number of events per year. However, few if any have studied the health benefits of such volunteering.
Until now. Here, researchers delve into this question through interviews with more than 1600 Parkrun participants who self-identified with a mental-health condition. Result: Those participants who also volunteered at some races said it “made them feel more part of a community” by 56% vs 29% for those who never volunteered. Volunteering also “facilitated them meeting new people” by 60% vs 24%.
Conclusion: In dealing with mental-health issues, “It is not simply the physical engagement in recreation that may play a role in one’s recovery, but also the volunteer aspect.” More at Psychology, Health & Medicine.
SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss
GREAT QUOTES make great training partners
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ ”
--Muhammad Ali