But since I have not yet finished the book, I cannot yet give a full review. That will have to come later. Rather, this post is about two prime points from the book, and two examples from my running in the past week that I believe illustrate those points well.
At the risk of changing the subject, I have always had a bit of a non-traditionalist take on training. I do not have the necessary obsession to compulsively plan out, and then track, my training. Instead, I tend to wing it. I rarely know exactly what type of workout, how fast or how long, I am going to run before I start running. Even once I start, I don't always know how things will turn out. Generally, I take it as it comes: if I feel like going fast, I go fast. If I feel like going long, I go long. The only runs I force are my easy runs, otherwise I will go too hard.
Of course, there is some planning in this as well. I know I have to take rest days now and then. I also know that in order to run truly long I have to schedule my long run on the weekend. More precisely I have to run on Sunday due to other scheduling issues. But for the most part, I take my training as it comes. The results of this, I have come to realize, are a passion for Fartleks and a propensity towards trail running.
Back to the book, Fitzgerald recommends two metrics to rate your runs. The first is confidence: after each run, record whether that run increased or decreased your confidence in your overal fitness and ability to race whatever your goal is. Your brain knows how fit you are, because it directly controls the firing of your muscles, and receives feedback from them. Therefore, if your brain is telling you the workout is helping, it likely is.
The second measure is enjoyment. Every runner knows that running is more fun when you are more fit. And if you enjoy running more, you're more likely to keep at it and get more fit. Therefore, rate your runs on an enjoyment scale. Fitzgerald recommends a simple three point scale. You can then easily track trends in how enjoyable certain types of runs tend to be, and tune your workouts accordingly. And if runs are consistently less than enjoyable, that's a good sign that you may be over-training and should cut back a bit.
As examples , I think two of my runs from the past few days are telling.
Last Friday I was a bit worried when I started out on my usual Friday tempo run to the top of Flagstaff mountain here in Boulder. I knew that, despite the shorter (distance) run on Sunday, I had run more volume that week than I was used to. I had upped my mileage by about 10% from the week before, and my legs could feel it. Despite this, I decided to head up Flagstaff from work and see if I could get in a good ascent any way.
To my surprise, I hit the lower slopes and I felt great. I kicked it into high gear and charged the 3 mile, 1500 foot ascent to the top. I will grant you that my legs were shaking, and I was gasping for air by the time I hit the summit road and tagged the post, but the entire run was more fun than I'd had running in a while. It was also a huge boost to me mentally after feeling a bit flat the day before running up Sanitas Valley. I am quite sure that I crushed my previous best time on Flagstaff, despite not having a watch on this run.
Sunday was a different matter entirely. I rolled out of bed, said goodbye to my girlfriend who had to head to work, and prepared to head out on a long run.
And I kept preparing.
It took me a good hour and a half after my GF left to get out the door and started on my run for the day. Even when I did, I never felt good. I had planned to head out from my door, to the summit of Flagstaff, over to Green Mountain, and back down again to hit a good 16+ miles for the day. Instead, my legs felt dead, and I considered bailing out before I even started up Flagstaff. I considered bailing again at the cutoff on Panorama, and yet again at Crown Rock.
I pushed through the ascent of Flagstaff, however, but decided not to head up Green. Suffice to say that it was not a particularly enjoyable run. That said, I did gain a bit of confidence out of it since, even though I felt like I was running with legs consisting of bags of wet noodles, I powered through Flagstaff at the very least, and made it back to my house without ever going below a running cadence.
I think both these runs did quite a bit for me, training wise. Friday both gave me a good workout and a good benchmark for further progress. Sunday let me know that, even on a bad day, I can head out and run 10+ miles and 1500+ feet of vertical and, if not set any amazing times, at least power through it. Friday was enjoyable and increased my confidence, and Sunday at the least increased my confidence, and I think both types of runs are great for my overal fitness and training.
I took my body's message to mean that I need to lower the volume this week and let my legs recover before continuing on my training regime. I also plan to mix in a bit of cross training in the form of a Cross Country Ski race on Wednesday. That said, last week was the most mileage I'd run in the 6 months since I had raced in Leadville, and that too is a big boost to my confidence.
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