Your Best Long-Run Distance & Pace
We’re smack-dab in the middle of the fall marathon-training season now, so of course runners everywhere are asking those eternal questions: How long should I run on my long runs? And how fast?
There’s no universally intelligent answer to that question except for “It depends.” (Sorry.) It depends on many key factors relating to your current training, your fitness, your prior marathon experience, your goals, and so on.
This article delves into these questions, and adds an important reminder: Hey, it’s not only about long runs. Other factors are also important, particularly your total weekly mileage and number of runs per week.
But back to long runs. There’s general agreement among top marathon coaches like Jack Daniels that you should run no more than 2.5 to 3 hours on a long run. Beyond that, the fatigue mounts, and your form and muscle strength disintegrate. Result: The potential risk of injury is greater than your potential endurance improvement.
What about the pace question? Many runners go long at a relaxed, comfortable pace, and save faster running for tempo and speedwork days. However, marathon-pace training seems to be getting more popular all the time.
To do that correctly, you have to make sure you are training and not racing your long runs. Here’s a practical approach: Do one several modest sections of your long run at marathon pace while keeping the other miles slower. More at Marathon Handbook.
The Genius Of Percy Cerutty’s “Stotan” Training
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Australian running coach Percy Cerutty developed a “stotan” training philosophy (stoic + spartan) to develop some of the world’s best distance runners. The list included the remarkable Herb Elliott, who never lost a 1500-meter/mile race in his senior career. Elliott set a massive 1500-meter world record in the 1960 Rome Olympics, winning the race by the largest margin ever at that distance.
In this article, the author reviews a bit of Cerutty’s personal history, but focuses mainly on his training beliefs. Cerutty was known for his flamboyant personality, but his training sounds remarkably modern in many ways.
He emphasized the mind’s central role. “We can become what we believe we can become,” he told his runners. He proposed a mix of long hard runs, and exhaustive fartlek sprints, usually in a natural setting. He became famous for the sand-dune hill repeats his athletes performed at his oceanside training camp in Portsea, Australia.
My high school coach, John J. Kelley, visited Portsea and Cerutty after the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. I later ran crazy barefoot fartlek sessions with Kelley at sunset on a local golf course. I viscerally remember the soft, crunchy feel underfoot, and the coolness of the dewy grass when I collapsed into it after our last hard effort.
Cerutty disdained track training. “Percy saw training around a track as drudgery and potentially soul destroying.” This was likewise a strong Kelley ethic. We ran through parklands, on rough trails, and through thick brambles, returning sometimes with scratched and bleeding legs.
The author also notes that Cerutty believed in lifting heavy weights and following a simple, natural foods diet. “His view on diet, as it was on most things, was strict and uncompromising.”
That last word describes Cerutty best: uncompromising. To reach the top, you’ve got to commit yourself 100%. This is a great historical read with plenty of good training advice along the way. More at Tony Wilson’s blog.
When Buying Super Shoes, Don’t Rely On “Comfort”
Here’s a thorough, evidence-based paper if you want a great “narrative review” of super shoe history and performance capabilities. A narrative review is essentially one you can read without a PhD in running biomechanics.
That said, it starts with a stunning mistake. In talking about the differences between Abebe Bikila and Eliud Kipchoge, both two-time Olympic Marathon champs, it notes that Kipchoge wore Nike super shoes in his two wins. Whereas Bikila ran barefoot in his 1960 Rome Olympic victory, and in Puma shoes 4 years later in Tokyo 1964. (Click ahead to about 9:30 in this fantastic YouTube video.)
However, the narrative review says Bikila wore “Onitsuka Tiger Marup” shoes in Tokyo. When I pointed out the mistake to friend, paper co-author, and expert running biomechanist, Geoff Burns, he was mortified. But, let’s face it, we all make mistakes like this from time to time.
Otherwise, the paper does an excellent job explaining the “robustly demonstrated” running performance benefits of super shoes. The review discusses foams, plates, and the possibility for a “teeter totter” effect that enhances forward propulsion.
It also looks into “muscle damage mitigation.” Do super shoes “protect” the legs, allowing for longer, faster training, and more rapid recovery?
In discussing “Practical Applications” for runners, the authors discuss an important, little-noted effect. In recent years, virtually all shoe-buying guidelines have emphasized the importance of shoe comfort. Thus, “Buy the shoes that feel the best on your feet.”
This may not hold true for super shoes. Rather, “Comfort may not be a strong predictor of running economy enhancement. The authors have observed this phenomenon in their own testing, as well as through personal communications with other laboratories conducting AFT research, wherein a subject’s perceived ‘best’ shoe is not a strong predictor of the shoe that is actually the most economical.”
Summary: At this point, much is known about super shoes or Advanced Footwear Technologies. But individual selection and effectiveness remain elusive. “We do not yet know what features of the footwear are best suited to different individuals.” More at International J of Sport Physiology & Performance with free full text.
The Enduring Mystery Of Optimal Recovery
Scientists, coaches, and athletes have elevated recovery to the top rung of quality training requirements. Sure, we always knew recovery was important-- hence hard-easy days, cutback weeks, etc.
But now recovery is the horse ahead of the cart (training). Experts believe you should adjust today’s training according to your recovery from prior days. You shouldn’t train hard first, and figure out your recovery later.
The problem? We’re still not sure exactly how to determine your recovery-status today.
At Outside Online, Alex Hutchinson reviews an outstanding new paper (free full text) from top New Zealand researchers. They examined a number of popular recovery metrics, including heart rate variability (HRV), during 12 weeks of training by 43 endurance athletes.
Some were pro athletes, some recreational. All told, the researchers collected 3572 records. The 3 measures that most closely tracked each morning’s “perceived recovery” were Soreness, Sleep Index, and Resting Heart Rate.
We’ve been told that HRV, available from a number of “wearables,” can serve as a single measure that neatly combines the above 3 and much more. HRV is supposed to tell us when we’re ready to rumble with today’s workout, and when we’d be smarter to hold back.
The New Zealand findings didn’t support that. HRV was good at predicting the previous day’s HRV, and tomorrow’s, but not so much at guiding your training today. Also, recovery values differed substantially from one athlete to another. For some, HRV was a useful tool; for others, it wasn’t.
This amounts to another proof of the “experiment of one” concept. We are all different, and need to figure out our own best paths.
In another related paper, a graduate student working with top physiologist-coach Chris Lundstrom (coach of U.S. Paris Olympic marathoner Dakotah Lindwurm), measured changes in HRV and Heart Rate Recovery of college students in a Univ. of Minnesota marathon training class.
The data showed, via a 2-mile time-trial, that the students’ fitness increased after completing the class. However, “Changes in HRV and HRR variables did not strongly predict changes in running performance.” More at ProQuest.
BOOM! Another Major Paper Supports Carbon Monoxide Breathing
Carbon monoxide breathing is perhaps this year’s biggest endurance performance story. That’s particularly true when you combine new research with news reports of top Tour de France cyclists using the practice.
It’s being touted as a way to increase blood hemoglobin and EPO levels, and thus endurance potential.
Now a respected physiology journal has published a paper showing that breathing carbon monoxide twice a day while altitude training may produce greater improvement than simply training at high altitude.
The research protocol assigned 31 cyclists to 1 of 3 groups: 1) Live high, train high (LHTH), breathe carbon monoxide; 2) Live high, train high, no carbon monoxide; and 3) Live low, train low, no carbon monoxide.
The subjects were tested before and after 3 weeks in the experiment. The tests included blood values, muscle oxidative capacity, and “physiological indicators of cycling performance.”
Result: There were no statistical differences between the two LHTH groups in “submaximal and maximal performance measures.” Both groups had higher performance measures than the LLTL group.
In comparison with the non-carbon-monoxide breathing LHTH group, subjects breathing CO displayed greater 1-min max power, higher power output at lactate threshold, and higher vo2 max.
Conclusion: “These findings suggest that combining moderate altitude training with daily CO inhalation promotes hematological adaptations more effectively than moderate altitude alone, and enhances cycling performance metrics in cyclists more than sea-level training.” More at J of Applied Physiology.
Important caution: Unlike making your own sports drinks in the kitchen, this is not a DIY project. Excessive CO inhalation causes deaths each year in homes with faulty heating systems, or when people use a gas oven to produce room heating. Here’s what the Environmental Protection Agency says about carbon monoxide risks in the home.
That Olympic Marathon Cooling Band Fails Research Test
If you were looking closely at the Paris Olympic Marathons a month ago, you couldn’t help but notice some strange head wraps. In particular, Eliud Kipchoge and Sifan Hassan appeared to be wearing radiator-like headbands from Omius.
Sifan won the women’s marathon, but Kipchoge dropped out, so we don’t have much proof of concept between the two of them. Also, a new research paper gives the Omius device a “thumbs down.”
On its website, Omius claims: “Using thermally conductive and porous graphite, and a patented coating, the Omius technology increases the evaporative surface area of the skin by as much as 7x. This amplifies the body's natural cooling mechanism and dramatically increases comfort and performance in hot conditions and during strenuous exercise.”
The research trial put 10 “trained runners” through a rigorous protocol to see if the Omius headband boosted their performance. After a 70 minute easy run in a hot, humid lab, the runners completed a 5K time trial going as hard as they could.
They ran one time with the Omius headband, and another time with a sham headband. They didn’t know and couldn’t tell the difference between the two.
Result: “Time trial performance did not significantly differ” between the Omius band and the sham band.
Conclusion: “In conclusion, Omius improves forehead thermal comfort and reduces forehead temperature but not rectal temperature, heart rate and perceived exertion during, nor 5-km time trial performance after 70 minutes of easy running in the heat.” More at J of Thermal Biology.
The Miracle Of Exercise Vs Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is the most common female cancer around the globe. While modern treatments have reduced mortality rates, the incidence of breast cancer continues to climb by about .5% per year.
Moderate exercise is known to reduce the likelihood of developing breast cancer in the first place, and to lower the mortality rate in those who are diagnosed with breast cancer. A new paper explores how exercise produces these remarkable outcomes.
It examined inflammation among 71 new breast cancer patients who agreed to do some training during the time of their chemotherapy treatments vs 21 similar patients who refused to exercise. Chemotherapy is known to be a “double-edged sword” that fights cancer but induces chronic inflammation.
Result: Moderate physical activity lowered “cancer-related chronic inflammation” even though chemotherapy produced “inflammatory effects.” The patients did 3 moderate workouts a week, each lasting 60 minutes.
Conclusion: The exercise-induced drop in chronic inflammation “may improve patients’ outcome.” More at EMSO Cancer Horizons with free full text.
Don’t Underestimate The Severity Of Ankle Sprains
Every runner sprains an ankle at one time or another. These sprain don’t always occur while you’re running--it’s easy to sprain an ankle on the stairs at home or work, or while walking on an uneven sidewalk--but they present an obstacle to your continued training.
Too often the problem is compounded, because we tend to underestimate the severity and longer-term issues relating to ankle sprains.This is a mistake, according to a new systematic review and meta-analysis of ankle sprains in runners.
It notes that “a substantial proportion of people who undergo an ankle sprain experience injury recurrence and long-lasting symptoms that form chronic ankle instability, and may lead to ankle osteoarthritis.”
You can’t easily prevent accidental ankle sprains, but you can be more aware of when and how they occur. The new paper looked at the percent of runners who sprained an ankle during various kinds of running.
The percentages ranged from a low of 8.5% in distance runners to 27.07% in cross-country to 67.42 % in track. (I don’t fully understand this last figure, but suspect it relates to sprinters and hurdlers.)
Conclusion: “Running practice results in a significant proportion-rate of ankle sprains. Recreational runners exhibit a higher proportion than elites.” More at Physical Therapy in Sport.
Additional material: Here’s the Position Stand of the National Athletic Trainers Association on managing and preventing ankle sprains. (With free full text.)
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
>>> Body Roundness Beats BMI: Scientists have long been unhappy with BMI as a measure of body fitness and health. Now more are supporting Body Roundness as a superior tool. (Journal article.) Additional News story.
GREAT QUOTES Make Great Training Partners
“I have a lot of long-term goals, but it’s more about the day-to-day--having fun with running, and leaning into what excites me."
--Keira D’Amato, second fastest American female marathon runner (2:19:12), who turns 40 on October 21
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby