Optimal Training

Should Ritz run 40 mpw? (and Amby's real message)

A boldly controversial blog post by Amby Burfoot at Runner's World has riled up a few readers and even spawned a satirical response from Justin Young at The Cassidy Feed.  Basically, Amby argues that Ritz's major issue is staying healthy, and prescribes for him a diet of 40 mpw running in his training.  That's what most readers got out of it, not least in part because Amby really does suggest this in all seriousness.  As he says (to Alberto):

So here's my proposal: Be courageous, and make Dathan a guinea pig in the Great Training Experiment. Put him on a 40-mile-a-week training program.

We can only assume that Dathan has a say in this.  He then states that there's little evidence against it, lists some athletes who were successful without running high mileage (specifically Bannister and Henry Marsh, but leaving out Matt Giusto, who was the best example I could think of), and outlines what a workout week would look like. Then come the paragraphs that most readers apparently skipped or didn't really think about (emphasis mine):

Of course, Dathan should do a lot of other stuff. All that Nike can afford, in fact. He should sleep 10 hours a day in a altitude chamber, do tons of cross-training on non-impact machines, work out occasionally on low-gravity and under-water treadmills, and find the best physical therapist-trainer out there to be his personal strength/flexibility coach.

The only thing he shouldn't do is run more than 40 miles a week, or whatever low ceiling he and Alberto agree on.

Perhaps by actually suggesting workouts, Amby made people focus too much on the 40 mpw and not enough on the main point of the post: Ritz has enormous resources to utilize and might be better served by decreasing the pounding he puts on his legs in favor of a higher percentage of cross-training workouts.  Yes he suggests 40 mpw, but no, he's not beholden to that number.  He chose it no doubt because it is extremely low, borderline realistic, and most importantly, can shock a reader into paying attention.  Unfortunately, it seems he shocked people out of paying attention.

A lot of people criticize Runner's World for catering to hobby joggers.  I have a lot of friends who refer to it as Jogger's World.  There's some truth to that.  But there's also some truth to the notion that mileage doesn't need to be run for mileage sake.  You're not going to be great if you aren't working out as hard as the best in the world.  That is a given.  But could that work be done on an Alter-G at 75% body weight instead of 100%?  Could it be done in a swimming pool or on an elliptical?  Are these not fair questions?

Personally, I wouldn't recommend this approach to Dathan for two reasons:

1) it's too soon after his switch to Alberto.  We don't know if he can stay healthy under Alberto's program, because he hasn't had enough time to prove that he can (or can't). 

2) I don't know if he can handle it mentally.  I think Amby's probably right that of all people, Dathan is the guy who could handle it...physically.  But could Dathan toe the line knowing that he'd worked as hard as everyone else (even assuming he had)?  Could he go into every cross training workout completely healthy, yet believing he'll get as good a workout as if he were running?  I have no idea, but it's such a paradigm shift that he very well may lose his edge mentally.

Someday, someone will come along and take up Amby on this challenge.  Hopefully they'll do amazing things and make us rethink our views about how to obtain success in distance running.  In the meantime, I'd settle for Amby's other request, completely overshadowed by that crazy 40 mpw suggestion: Alberto, would you mind sharing with us how you improved Rupp's, Begley's and Ritz's kicks so much?  There are a lot of US runners and coaches who could benefit from that knowledge.

The difference a healthy diet makes

In retrospect, my diet was the one thing I never truly attempted to improve while I was running competitively.  I lived off of hamburgers, pizza, and way too much soda.  About the closest I ever came to modifying my diet for my training was eating pasta dinners before meets. 

I never experienced any major setbacks as a result of my diet, but I have no way of knowing how many minor hurdles I was putting in my way by eating the way I did.  I think I was probably just lucky.  I certainly never had an experience like Anthony Famiglietti, who talked about the diet-induced problems he experienced in this must-read article with Joe Battaglia at Universal Sports.

I wouldn't wish his experiences on any runner, even if he wouldn't trade them now.  I'd much prefer young athletes learn from his experiences to realize that certain behaviors, if practiced with consistent quality, will ensure optimal training.  And yes, maintaining a healthy, balanced diet is indeed one of the behaviors that requires consistent quality!

Lara Tamsett as a model for young runners' training

I just came across this article about Lara Tamsett, the 20-year old Australian National Champion at 10,000m, who only trains once a day.  It is filled with sage training advice for young runners.  A couple snippets:

"I try to do one good session a day and then rest. It's enough until I start plateauing, then I might step it up. The key to progress is staying injury-free.

"I'm careful not to get sucked into other people's training because the reps can become competitive.

It's incredibly hard to show restraint when things are going well in your training.  The riskiest time is when you feel so good that you decide to do more.  She continues:

"I think one of my greatest strengths is that I under-train."

This is my favorite line in the article, because it begs the question: is she really under-training?  By whose standards?  Who's to say that most athletes at her age and stage of development aren't over-training? 

It may be true that, as Steve Monaghetti states in the article, "There has never been a distance runner who has reached the highest level without training twice a day."  But that doesn't make it the case that there's never been a distance runner who reached the highest level without training twice a day in their teens.

I believe a lot of athletes--especially those who are most competitive, passionate, and successful at a young age--rush into training too much in the quest for short-term awards and accolades.  This can lead to over-training, burnout, eating disorders, and ultimately, injury and illness. 

Lara Tamsett is right that the key to progress is staying injury-free.  It requires discipline, restraint, a long-term view, and a little bit of luck.  It might also require a change in what we define as "under-training".

Sammy Wanjiru on his training

Brett Larner at Japan Running News has posted a translation of an interview with Sammy Wanjiru from the 2008 Fukuoka International Marathon program.  In it, Sammy discusses everything from his Olympic victory to his approach to summer training.

His insights about the mental aspect of training are profound, and counter-intuitive to the way a lot of coaches and athletes still attempt to train, especially in Japan.  This is striking since Sammy spends half his year in Japan and developed within the Japanese system.

In answer to one question about his build-up to Beijing, he goes through some example workouts, and then finishes with this insight (italics mine):

Other than that, I run about 15 km at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning before I have breakfast. I'd say it's like jogging, or a buildup to something like a pace run. I start around 4 minutes per km, drop it down to 3:30 in the middle, then end up down at about 3 minutes 5 seconds. I always want to finish thinking, "Aaaaah, that felt great. I had a good run." I never do any strength training. You can get enough strength from running on cross-country-type courses. Sundays are off, and if it rains I also take the day off from training. If you train too hard in the summer it's bad for your body.

There are a few things that are interesting here.  The first is that Sammy bases his morning run off of how he wants to feel at the end of it, not a strict pacing regimen.  Second, he takes a day off every week (something many top runners are reluctant to do).  Third, and most amazing to me, is that he takes the day off of training if it is raining.  By this, I take him to mean he avoids interval training and the like, and substitutes a road run.  Otherwise, he'd never get any runs in living in Japan!

The interviewer also found his answers to be a bit surprising, specifically because his training didn't sound very "Japanese".  Japanese runners are known for doing much more than what Wanjiru described.  Here's Sammy's response (again, italics mine):

That's right, [Japanese runners do train much more than me]. They train way too much. For example, if they have a time trial scheduled and it's raining they do it anyway. If I were them I'd take the day off and wait to do the workout on a nice day. Doing it that way you can run a better time and leave with a better feeling about the workout. Japanese people are too serious about everything and don't like change. If training doesn't go 100% according to schedule or they don't run the times they are targeting they get all out of whack. When they go to do altitude training they try to do exactly the same training menu as when they're on low ground, too. It's bad for your health. At altitude you should run with a slower pace or just less. You should also train less in the summer and do it somewhere as cool as possible.

I lived in Japan for a few years and ran on an ekiden team with many young Japanese men from my city.  They were by no means elite runners, but the approach to training was the same.  Rain or shine, icy roads or gale-force winds, and once even in a blizzard, we met and warmed up and did our workouts.  And then we went for ramen and lamented how poorly the workouts went. 

I can't deny there's a sense of invincibility that comes from completing an interval workout in a blizzard, but I also can't pretend that it was good training.  And the times the coach chose for us were always written in stone, despite the fact that many of my teammates knew going in (whether they admitted it to themselves or not) that they couldn't complete the workout.  And more than once I begrudgingly overextended myself since I didn't see any polite way of modifying my workout.  While there, I often felt a certain frustration at how "Japanese" all the trianing was.

Really, though, when I think back on it, many of my teammates throughout high school and college were the same.  Even me, at times.  We run every day just because.  We never let the weather--or any outside circumstances--affect our training program.  We choose a time and then hold that time to be the sacred measurement of our success or failure in a race or workout.

I'm sure my Japanese teammates are still training the same way today, because they don't know (or accept) any other way.  It's just what you do.  But I think we all could benefit from thinking a little more like Sammy Wanjiru does.

No excuses for not training on Christmas!

From this story about Haile Gebrselassie:

"We had to stay in the Sheraton next to Heathrow but when we arrived it was about 11 o'clock in the evening and the middle of the winter. It was impossible to train outside.

"I started to think about how I could train and then I noticed that my hotel corridor was very long. I put on my shoes and started to run up and down it, and then some of my friends joined me.

"By that time it was close to midnight and people started to come out of their rooms to look at us. Do you know what happened? They all thought it was an emergency and started following us. One old woman was shouting and running down the corridor in her pyjamas."

The memory brings forth a loud guffaw before Gebrselassie's eyes narrow and he gets to the moral of his story.

"The reason I'm telling you this is that I didn't want to miss a day's training. I always tell young athletes the same thing, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do, what must your top priority be? Running'.

"In my life I do a lot of things but I never forget my training. Athletics is in my blood. The top priority must always be training, training. This is a discipline. You have to do it."

Remember, while you're opening up presents and sipping on eggnog, somebody out there is training.  With that thought, Merry Christmas!

Ledwith on prioritizing performances

Prioritizing performances is a topic worthy of a bigger post, but I didn't want to let it go without at least sharing the link to an interview with Iona's Andrew Ledwith, who finished 3rd at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.  He discusses a number of topics, but the point that came through most clearly for me was the way in which he--and his team--exercised incredible discipline throughout the season in terms of prioritizing their performances.

When he discusses his 9th place performance at the Pre-Nationals:

I went out hard and was in second most of the way. And then a group caught me at five or 6K and I just sat in behind them and finished up behind them. They were really lashing it out for the last kilometer. But there’s a time and a day for that sort of thing, and that wasn’t the day.

And when he described the overall preparation and race performances leading up to the NCAA Championships:

One or two or our lads didn’t have dream runs, but that’s the way it goes; every team is going to have that. We feel like we’ve got the right system going here, just the right mentality for that (NCAA) race. We make that race number one and every other race doesn’t even come close to it. We go out to other races and have plans all right but never to annihilate competition or anything. It’s just to go out and experiment around sometimes - go hard here, go hard there, but never really opening up the whole way. Not draining ourselves completely. I think that’s just years of experiences at the nationals - five or six or eight years, whatever - the seniors always passing it down to the younger lads about how to save yourself and save yourself. It’s still hard to get the message across because sometimes people will go too hard, but I think we did a good job again this year. You see other teams that have great potential but they just leave it in the wrong races. That’s part of running, though. (italics mine)

It's easy to get caught up in the moment in races, and to treat every race as a must-win situation.  Similarly, it takes a lot of inner fortitude and self-assurance to hold back and not feel the need to beat people in mid-season races.  But if you trust your training, every race leading up to a championship should be less of a test and more of an experiment.

As Ledwith explains, the team would "go hard here, go hard there" in mid-season races.  I feel this is something runners don't do enough of.  If your team is on the fringe of qualifying and every point counts, perhaps the system doesn't allow you to implement such an approach.  But that's not the case for most runners, particularly those in high school.

There is a time and a place to go 100%.  Similarly, there is a time and a place to try new things, take some risks, and emphasize learning over finishing place.  As you prepare for your upcoming track seasons, I hope you'll take the opportunity to plan some experimentation into your early season races.

Too bad he's not coaching

I'm convinced Bob Kennedy would be a fantastic coach.  Every time he gives an interview he says exactly the right things, especially when he's talking about the mental side of running.  In this interview here, he gives a pretty good summary of an optimal training mindset in just four questions.

My only question after reading it was, just who is Marcus O'Sullivan referring to?

The 5 Phases of Cross Country

It’s Championships time in cross country.  We’ve already seen some amazing performances, from University of Washington sweeping the women’s Pac-10 championships to individual performances like Oklahoma State freshman German Fernandez winning the Big-12 title.  I’m certain there’s more to come, especially when you add in all the high school racing that is just getting started.

I think of the Championships phase as just one of five within a cross country season.  But it’s unique in that it’s the one phase we remember, and often the one phase by which success or failure is ultimately judged (at least by most bloggers and bystanders).  But if you’re to have a successful Championships, you need to approach all five phases effectively.  And they all differ in objective.  As we’ve finally entered Championships season, I thought I’d take a look back at how we got here.

1. Summer

Objective: Fitness & Confidence

Technically, cross country started in August.  But really, it started in June.  It’s just that runners spent the first two months of the season training on their own.  A summer spent distracted or without discipline has a direct correlation to under-performing throughout the rest of the season.  A runner is as strong as his off-season. 

This applies to the mental side of running, too.  When you’re fit, you know it.  But you don’t have to put in a perfect summer to benefit mentally.  One of the key activities happens before you leave for the summer: setting a realistic plan.  Setting a plan you can’t carry out will just lead to self-doubt, frustration, and a negative evaluation of the work you did put in.  Coming out of the summer on a positive is important! 

2. The Gathering

Objective: Fitness & Cohesion

The phase I call “The Gathering” is that time of year when the team regroups after their summer adventures and starts training together again.  While most phases don’t include killing teammates to assume their powers Highlander-style, it can happen in this phase, if you do The Workout.

Even if your team doesn’t do a training camp in the mountains, you usually get at least a few weeks of high mileage training together before school starts.  This is a time of hard workouts, but it’s also a time of card games, Madden football (or Super Tecmo Bowl if you’re old school), and a lot of speculation about how good your team can be if everything goes well.  In many ways, this is the most enjoyable part of the season.

In its own weird way, cross country is a team sport.  And whatever team you’re going to have is going to be made during this phase of your season.

3.  Transition

Objective: Balance & Discipline

After the team has come together, practiced together, camped together and maybe even raced a bit together, the period of Transition sets in.  I call this phase “Transition” because the routine that everyone’s developed changes with the start of classes (and homework), moving into new dorm rooms or apartments, and the influx of new people into everyone’s lives.  It is the first serious battle with distraction that most runners face.

Some athletes do a great job at minimizing these challenges, while others invite future problems by completely ignoring pesky things like classes at the beginning of the semester.  Freshmen often struggle here, precisely because so much of what they are doing is new.  One thing is certain about this phase, however.  The athletes who manage their routine and balance their effort across all their responsibilities tend to maintain the best.

4.  The Plateau

Objective: Discipline & Execution

The Plateau is the period in the season where performances and motivation tend to level off.  Athletes feel like they are working just as hard as ever, but the workouts aren’t as sharp, the legs aren’t as responsive, and race times seem to stay flat (this is more obvious for high school runners, who race more than collegiates).  I have another friend who calls this “The Grind”.

I wrote extensively about the Plateau here.  The key thing from an athlete’s perspective is understanding that the Plateau happens to everyone.  If you expect it, you can focus on maintaining discipline and executing each workout to the best of your ability on that day.  Just because it feels like a grind doesn’t mean it’s not effective.

5.  Championships

Objective: Execution & Confidence

Ah, the Championship season.  You’ve trained all summer, grown as a team, managed your schedule, and made it through the Plateau.  Now it’s time to ease off the throttle and start feeling good again.  You drop your mileage, gear up for your final races of the year, and do workouts that focus on sharpness rather than fitness.

This is when runners have the combination of both fitness and freshness to do great things.  When the pressure of the situation causes an athlete to push himself to another level, to exceed beyond expectations, and sometimes, to create a performance that will be remembered long after they are gone. 

Breaking it down

When you break down the elements of success in running, they come down to a few key things: confidence, cohesion, balance, self-discipline, and execution, not to mention being in really good shape!  The relative success of your cross country season will be dependent to some extent on how these variables are emphasized in each phase.

So here are some tips and trends (you know, for next year):

• The Gathering and Championships phases are naturally highly effective phases.  With runners coming together and preparing for championship races, athletes tend to be very high on all variables.
• The Transition and Plateau phases are typically ineffective phases.  Numerous distractions, tired legs, and the inevitable decline in motivation are all to be expected.  All too often, however, the result is also a decrease in other variables, like preparation, self-discipline and execution.  If you want to reach a higher level, managing these two phases is vitally important.
• Finally, the Summer phase is the big wild card.  If it’s productive, runners will set the stage for big improvements throughout the season.  If it isn’t, the season is almost guaranteed to be a struggle. More than any other stage, improvements relative to your competition are made here.

But again, that’s for next year.  For now, you have to go out there and do with what you've done, so to speak.  As for me, I’m going to enjoy this year’s Championships, and another exciting end to a long and effort-filled season.

Do you still stretch like a 3rd grader?

I find all the new research being done on stretching to be incredibly interesting.  More often than not, what we think (and therefore what we do) is totally unfounded and in many cases, even detrimental to performance.  And that probably doesn't only apply to stretching.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that other things we do as athletes actually hinder our performance.

Here's a piece on stretching from the New York Times.  If you're an athlete, you might want to take the time to analyze your stretching routine.  And if you're coaching 3rd graders, please please please teach them how to stretch dynamically.  Heck, they'll probably even enjoy it more!

Simple tips from Lauren Fleshman

I'm a little late to this post with 5 tips for your running from Lauren Fleshman.  I have always been a big fan of Lauren, and a lot of the reason is that she has a practical approach to her running that I relate to.  Her 5 tips aren't going to take you from good to great, but they might take you from "where do I begin?" to "doing the basics correctly".

One other thing that I didn't know (but that doesn't surprise me) is that she doesn't like to wear an ipod when she runs.  I'm exactly the same.  I actually like the sound of my footsteps and breathing.  I like that I can think deeply on runs, which is something I don't tend to do when I'm listening to music.  And most importantly, I like hearing that dog that's coming for my ankles before it actually gets there!