November 2, 2023

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

>>> Amazing bicycle gizmo: Here’s a new bicycle balancing device that can prevent falls, especially at slow speeds.

>>> Drafting is dramatic: Kelvin Kiptum could have run a 1:57 marathon if he had a pacer.

>>> Running away from breast cancer: Fitness associated with lower risk of breast cancer, particularly in the overweight 

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

October 19, 2023

How to run strong past 40 (like Des Linden)

When the overall marathon winner runs 2:00:35, and the first female 2:13, and a couple of American guys finish at 2:08 and under, you don’t get much credit for being a smooth, fast 40-year-old female. But Des Linden also set a record in the Chicago Marathon. She ran 2:27:35 to slice 12 seconds off the previous American masters best of 2:27:47 set by Deena Kastor at Chicago in 2015. 

“Kastor is an icon, so it was fun to feel like I was chasing someone who I admire,” Linden said afterwards. In a podcast, she admitted that she didn’t think she could beat Kastor’s half-marathon best for American masters, 1:09:39.

Of course, masters runners are getting faster at every age and distance, especially the women, it seems. Witness Chicago’s world record performances by Jenny Hitchings (60, 2:49:43) and Jeannie Rice (75, 3:34:32).

How do they do it? The mental aspect is obviously key, including the occasional need for more laughter. Also, there’s no time like the present to adapt your training to your current needs. Linden didn’t appreciate the back tightness she felt late in the marathon. Or even the fact that she was talking about back tightness, just like every other aging individual.

But she’s got a plan for it. “I’m going to have to implement a weightlifting strategy,” she said. In fact, “It’s on the way.” More at Outside Online.

Is running during pregnancy “selfish,” “psychopathic” and “disgusting?”

Stephanie Bruce has been a top American distance runner for more than 15 years, and ran a 2:30:34 marathon last November on New York City’s difficult course. That makes her a pretty tough mujer. 

Shortly thereafter, the 39-year-old mother of two announced that she was pregnant. And that, with her doctor’s approval, she was going to continue running as long as she felt good. Bruce was subsequently surprised by some of the reactions she heard while running pregnant. She heard words like: “selfish,” “psychopathic,” and “disgusting.”

A NY Times video briefly summarizes Bruce’s journey. It closes by noting that her third child, Sophia, was born on September 17, 2023, at a healthy 8 lbs, 5 ounces. 

There’s plenty of evidence that modest exercise, including running, during pregnancy is healthy for mother and child. Yes, there are precautions, but they are easy to follow with common sense, listening to your body, and regular physician care. There’s no reason why female exercise rates should drop from 45- to 55% pre-pregnancy to below 30% during pregnancy (British J of Sports Medicine, 2023).

Indeed, the most recent paper on the topic indicates that women who exercise during pregnancy give birth to infants “with increased cardiac function” one month after being born. (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise). The mother runs, and her on-board baby gains better heart health. Nice.

A 2020 “Committee Opinion” from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advised: “In the absence of obstetric or medical complications or contraindications, physical activity in pregnancy is safe and desirable, and pregnant women should be encouraged to continue or to initiate safe physical activities.” More at 

ACOG.org with free full text.

Miracles and wonder: Running a marathon in 2:00:35 or 2:11:53

How do you do it? That’s the big question of the last month. And, truth is, nobody knows the answer.

Of course, super shoes continue to attract the most attention, with experts like Geoff Burns and Ross Tucker noting the huge range of subject responsiveness to the shoes. If you’re lucky, or if a shoe company produces shoes “tuned” to your individual running, you might get an 11% boost rather than the 4% hyped by Nike’s first-generation super shoes. 

That would go a long way toward explaining Kelvin Kitum’s world record 2:00:35 at Chicago in a new, secret version of Nike shoes. And Tigst Assefa’s world record 2:11:53 at Berlin in new, highly publicized $500 Adidas shoes.

Also, when I dug into World Athletics’ shoe regulations, I was surprised not to find a rule concerning “available at retail.” The first iteration of super shoe regulations included such phrasing and a required 4-month timeframe. This was supposed to make sure no runner was getting shoes that were unfairly unavailable to other runners. (Which is exactly what happened with the new Nike shoes at the 2016 Olympic Games.)

Instead, there’s only a requirement that World Athletics be informed about new “Development Shoes” (prototypes) that athletes can test for a year before companies are required to begin larger-scale manufacturing. Nike only informed WA of its new Development Shoes a month before Chicago. Development Shoes are totally legal in all competitions except the World Championships and Olympics. 

After Kiptum ran Chicago, he told one reporter that he has never felt pain in any of his marathons. This immediately caused some to speculate that he had a neurological condition that set him apart. Possible, but unlikely. I’d bet more on the nuances of language and culture between Kenyan runners and Western journalists.

Kiptum’s coach reported that he had done at least 3 training weeks of 180 miles. Does this make you faster? Not usually. But it’s a good way to increase fatigue.  

In explaining Assefa’s 2:11:53, many referenced her background as a 1:59 800-meter runner, and concluded that the marathon is now a speed event. No doubt. But that doesn’t mean the fastest 800 runner will also run the fastest marathon.There’s still a substantial physiologic difference between the two events. Plus, Chicago winner Sifan Hassan has run 1:56 for 800 meters, and has a much deeper resume than Assefa. All of which netted her a marathon time (2:13:44) two minutes slower than Assefa.

How about Kiptum’s speed? In the past we could refer to greats like Haile Gebrselassie, Paul Tergat, and Eliud Kipchoge by checking their 5000-meter and 10,000-meter track bests. With Kiptum, no dice. He apparently sprang from the womb as a fully fledged marathon runner. 

Well, not quite. But World Athletics lists no PRs for him at any distance under 10,000 meters. He ran a 28:27 for 10,000 meters in 2021. That’s roughly equivalent to a 2:13:30 marathon, so it gives no hint at Kiptum’s ability over 26.2 miles. 

For me, recent marathon times seem either a big mystery or a simple example of super-enhanced shoe technology. 

Alex Hutchinson believes it could be nothing more than the onward march of history. When he graphed the drop in world-record marathons since 1980, the result was a fairly steady line. 

Hutchinson knows all about super-shoes as well as recent doping cases in East Africa.  Still, he writes, “I do think we should keep the scale of these changes in perspective.”More at Outside Online.

(This week, little known but super fast Kenyan marathon runner Titus Ekiru (2:02:57, tied for the sixth fastest performer all time) received a 10-year doping ban for conspiring twice with an unnamed Kenyan physician to use banned substances.)

Master your marathon training: Stay strong and fit ’til race day

The NY Times seems to think that everyone’s training for the November 5 New York City Marathon. That’s not true, of course, especially not for readership of a global newspaper. Still, there will be more than 50,000 runners on the Verrazano Narrows bridge start lines come Nov. 5, and that’s a crowd.

For them, the Times has solid advice on how to “finish marathon training strong.” I like the title and approach, as I always tell marathon trainers that the most important part of their preparation is “whatever leaves you feeling strong and healthy on marathon morning.” It’s also key to remember that if you manage to finish 80% of your planned training, you’ll be 95% ready on race day. 

Nobody hits 100%, and some of those “misses” actually amount to benefits--like more rest/recovery--as long as you don’t let them get you down mentally. The Times advocates a final “dress rehearsal” long run 3 weeks from race day, and then a progressive taper. Smart.

Also, running nutrition expert Nancy Clark advises carb loading without stuffing your face unnecessarily. And Deena Kastor says you should expect that the going will eventually get tough. That’s the time when you want your toughness to get going. Or, in Kastor’s words: “Your character matters. When things get tough, be prepared to not give in.” More at New York Times. 

Strava secrets: How to qualify for the Boston Marathon

Outside Online has some kind of “partnership” with Strava, meaning that money is changing hands. Strava commits to a certain amount of /sponsorship dollars, but also allows OO to peak inside the training metrics it has gathered from marathon runners.  These are all based on “averages” obtained from looking at thousands of runners. There are no individual privacy violations, and we don’t get to see exactly how new marathon world-record-setters like Kelvin Kiptum and Tigst Assefa organized their training.

Still, we get some great (and rare) data, because it’s not widely available without digging through online training logs like Strava and others. In this column, for example, we see how Boston Marathon qualifiers trained for several big 2022 marathons: Berlin, Chicago, Marine Corps, New York City, Cal International (Sacramento), and Valencia. 

You won’t be shocked to learn that some marathon courses are faster than others, with Marine Corps and New York City on the slower end of the scale. Or that runners who train more and faster record the best finish times. Or that proper pacing--even pace or negative splits--is crucial. However, some will be surprised that the distance of your longest long run might not be as important as your average weekly mileage.

If there’s a big new “reveal” here, it’s in the relationship of “easy run pace” to goal marathon pace. Those who ran their easy days 30% slower than marathon goal pace were 42% more likely to hit their goal than those with easy days only 10% slower than goal pace.

Translation: If you’re aiming to run a 2:37 marathon (roughly 6:00/mile), you should run easy days closer to 7:50 pace (a 30% differential) than to 6:40 pace (10%). If you’re aiming for a 4:20 marathon (10:00/mile), your easy days should be closer to 13:00/mile than 11:00/mile). [To be honest, I find this slower-zone math a bit fishy, as I don’t know many 4:20 marathoners who train at 13:00 pace. I’d like to see more precise data.]

But I do subscribe to the basic tenet here: Your easy days should be easy, so that the occasional harder days can be harder. Or, as Outside puts it: “To go fast, you have to learn to run slow.” More at Outside Online. 

Telomeres tell all: Running boosts lifespan by 12 years

When we read about telomeres or telomerase, the first or second sentence often refers to the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine, which was awarded to 3 early telomere researchers. The clear implication: Telomeres, the structures at the end of chromosomes, are super important.

From there, things get a little foggier. Longer telomeres and more abundant telomerase are generally linked to good cellular health, and we tend to lose both with increased age. But predicting health or longevity from telomere length is no simple task. One recent study found that “estimating disease risks from phenotypically measured telomere length at any given time point is challenging and imprecise.”

Against this, we have emerging data that regular, lifelong exercise increases telomere length. The latest study in this field estimated that 75 minutes a jogging/running per week vs not j/r resulted in “a biological age difference of approximately 12 years in favor of the runners.” I’ll take it!

The authors randomly selected over 4400 subjects from a well known U.S. federal survey tool called NHANES, for National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They then compared those who ran less than 10 minutes/week with those who ran more than 75 minutes/week--the amount recommended (or 150 minutes walking) by U.S. activity guidelines.

Conclusion: The more active runners had longer telomeres that conferred “roughly a 12-year cellular aging advantage associated with jogging/running.” (Note: The paper didn’t measure actual mortality, just “cellular aging.”) The authors state nonetheless that “reduced telomere length has been shown to correlate with increased mortality and the risk of various chronic diseases.” More at International J of Environmental Research & Public Health with free full text.

Can you pass the test: How do you perform on your darkest days?

Bad things happen to good people. I don’t know why. I just know that nasty stuff happens. 

And the greatest test of who we are isn’t the way we perform on our best days. It’s how we perform when we have to struggle back.  

Dave McGillivray, the now-69-year-old, long time race director at the Boston Marathon, recently hit the 5-year mark in his return from triple bypass heart surgery. From the beginning, he has been open about his disease, the need for surgery, and his comeback. This attitude helped inform others about their heart health. It also inspired all of us to be as determined and disciplined as Dave in returning from our own individual challenges, whatever they might be. 

“I’ve run 11 marathons since surgery, and I’m still not perfect,” he says. No, perfect isn’t the goal. Showing up is the goal, and then finishing. Next April, McGillivray hopes to finish his 52nd consecutive Boston. More at Twitter/X DMSE.

Body composition testing rarely essential for those under 18

The term RED-S  (“Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports”) was first introduced by an International Olympic Committee Consensus group in 2014, and was updated in 2018. Since then there have been roughly 180 original research papers published in the field. The papers are based on 24,000 participants, about 80% female. In other words, it’s time for another update, one that’s termed “more robust.”

“Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports” refers to a situation where athletes are overtraining, underfueling, or often both. If prolonged, it leads to performance and health problems. Now it’s also got a new acronym: RED-S has become REDs “for improved comprehension and dissemination.”

This updated 2023 Consensus paper from an International Olympic Committee group summarizes the best available information. You can read it all at the free full-text link below. A few things caught my eye.

Perhaps the biggest is a discussion of body-composition testing. This is the topic you’re most likely to encounter in news articles about problems among certain teams, particularly high-school and college cross-country teams. The consensus: “Body composition assessment is recommended only for medical purposes” for athletes under age 18 except for “exceptional circumstances.” Even those require “careful consideration among the athletes’ health and performance team, and require guardian consent.”

The Consensus also deals with: low-carb problems, low energy availability, overtraining syndrome, mental health issues, male athletes, and para athletes. It includes an important section on prevention and treatment.

I appreciated a nod to “Adaptable Low Energy Availability,” which in some cases “might be associated with acute health or performance benefits.” Such Adaptable LEA must be “monitored and mindful.” That’s because what’s good today can turn south too quickly if continued.

More at British J of Sports Medicine with free full text. Also, the same expert Consensus group released a new statement on “best practice recommendations” with regard to body-composition questions only, also at BJSM and also with free full text. These are important documents for coaches, sports medicine physicians, and parents of youth runners.

SHORT STUFF you don’t want to miss

>>> The injury-recovery diet: Maintain calories, consume more protein

>>> Less is more: 12 weeks of running in minimalist shoes “could exert a beneficial effect on your Achilles tendon.”

>>> Down with foot pain: 11 causes of foot pain, and how to alleviate them

GREAT QUOTES make great training partners

“In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that."

--Fred Lebow, founder, New York City Marathon

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby