Wrapping up Thoughts on Healthy Running and Racing Context

Today's post connects back to my previous two entries about the healthy context I believe is necessary for us to feel successful in racing. It is absolutely necessary to follow planned and organized training schedules for runners to reach their goals. If I did not believe that I would not be in this profession and certainly not publishing my thoughts to a web address with "Coach" in the URL.

Yet the need to remain connected to the fundamental reason we chose to engage in running must never be lost. The freedom in movement, the simplicity in task, the escape from our daily grind in an allegorical act of taking control. In pursuit of worthwhile goals and results in sport there is an inescapable demand for monotonous rigor carried out over time to harden the athlete. Hours of batting practice or the golf driving range are, in those aspects, not that different than runs on my favorite four miles and change.

However, there is danger present when the reasons my favorite route is preferred over others becomes the tree lost in the proverbial woods. At that point it is only a matter of time before motivation fails, goals become inconsequential and I might surmise that no training plans will rescue the athlete.

Every run is not fun. Monotony will steal joy. Athletes will have to drag themselves reluctantly toward the next workout. Coaches will need creativity and confidence to inspire athletes on the days dulled by the "trial of miles". But over the last few months I have become more convinced than ever that sometimes we must leave room for the freedom of simplicity in our training.

The great part about my favorite route is that it became so over time spent running there over almost two decades. I know the distances by heart within less than a tenth of a mile. I know the hills and flats and holes in the pavement. Because of the past work relationship I have with my beloved "Hennepin Loop" there is trust that I just need to cover the route in one of its various iterations. The other variables are not always required reading every time out on the path.

As a coach taking the watch off for an RPE based workout is great for athletes training for cross country where times are often irrelevant to team scores. But sometimes it also opens the window for us to look back and remember why we chose to run in the first place. Every time my fitness has been good enough to achieve fast times at my ability level there have been complicated, well planned, physically and mentally taxing workouts on the schedule. But there were also days where I could trust my natural self-selected recovery or easy pace over a route that was close enough to the distance I needed to cover. 

In those days I can tell if the training is too much. In those days I can see the forest tree by tree. Enough of those days allow me to pin on a bib number with enough mental, physical and emotional energy available to confidently unleash my best effort and embrace the spirit of competition that drew me to running in the first place. 

Healthy Running and Racing Context, Part 2

All regular runners, competitive, recreational or fitness, have a go to running route. The four miles and change that compose my favorite circuit were actually the key ingredient in the training that produced the fastest times of my competitive college running career.

I could and have run this loop along the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis in the dark of morning or night. I've run the lollipop style route both forward and backward. I've run it as a segment of a longer run all the way up to 12 miles. It's flat stretches, bridges, light polls and hill segments have served for hours of repeats hitting every imaginable goal for physiological stress and adaptation possible. 

You'll find it known simply as the Hennepin Loop in my logs and journals and by the dozens of athletes that I coach who also attend the same university I did as a college athlete. Hennepin Loop + Nic Island means 5.2 miles. Hennepin Loop + Boom equals 6.5 miles. Hennepin/Stone Arch Fartlek means an RPE based fartlek run measured by light poles on two long bridges over Old Man River.

It seems to me many of us have these home turf areas that are the foundation to our successful running endeavors. But how does this tie into my previous post about creating a healthy context for serious athlete training and connect back to my perceived success at a local 10-mile racing event?

Back in February in the midst of an intense period of sleep depravity, work pressure and general winter doldrums common in Minnesota I needed to get out for a run. It also needed to be as seamless as possible. Shorts. Shirt. Socks. Shoes. Run.

Simple. No watch or GPS. No phone or fitness apps. No uploads, downloads, instagrams or tweets (Of course I'm ruining it by blogging about it now). Just a familiar, favorite route where the mind turns off, the CNS takes over and some unknown time later you are back home again. 

I will never know exactly which physiological systems were taxed or the extent to which they were pushed. The minutes per mile down to hundredths of a mile will remain an unknown in my log. Yet the time spent on my feet that day were just as much a training day as any prescribed workout with umpteen variables dialed in and programed into my Garmin 220.

There is more to say on this but I'm going to keep this post short and extend my thoughts on to another entry later this week. Thanks for staying with me on this topic and I hope to have you back when I wrap up things up next time.

Racing Honestly, Creating Healthy Context on Race Day

I'll be honest, my running is no longer training. Not in the purest sense. Certainly not in the sense that relates to what I prescribe as training for the athletes I coach. Assuredly not training compared to past preparations for goal races after my college competitive career wrapped up over a decade ago. And while I'm busy being an open book, I skipped my morning run today because the exhaustion of being a coach, dad and sports information director got the best of me.

During the last few months running has shifted to something I need in a different form than the previous two decades of strapping on my racing gear and pinning on a bib number. For the most part my "training" goal is three days per week, 30-90 minutes a session with some hills and tempo stuff sprinkled in because I believe those things actually serve not just to improve fitness but to also, if applied and completed correctly, keep runners injury free and on the roads. So how does that relate to a blogger who coaches college and post-collegiate runners who are aspiring to race the fastest times of their careers?

As mentioned in my last post, there have been a ton of thoughts tumbling through my mind over the last few months. One is how to best serve the college athlete at the small college level who is serious about being fast on race day but also lives a life much different than pros, higher division scholarship athletes or even what they experienced a few years prior as high school competitors. The age old debate still rages on topics like training volume, the pacing/value of interval training, long run paces, strength work in the gym, stretching/flexibility and on and on. More has been written and published than ever before regarding the benefits of or the proper way to train for distance events.

Yet for all the study of the human body as an aerobic/anaerobic machine, the responses are as diverse as the physiological factors that decide how fast a 19 year old female runs a 6000 meter cross country event. Then suddenly there are moments of unexpected clarity that come from a time of pared down, bare minimum running that translate into  answers for questions that were not yet even asked.

It was a willful decision to trim down my short-term running aspirations. I was less willing to concede scheduling out big mileage, building up to tough workouts and crushing the road race circuit this summer and fall. Yet I shaved nearly five minutes off a result in a local 10-mile race last month compared to a year to date performance. Though, still at least 10 minutes off a career best at that distance, it was strangely satisfying to labor through that event at a pace that was once my slowest long run effort.

I was likely running "harder" last year building up for that event. The difference this time around came in how excited I was simply to be out there in the crowd with no illusions of grandeur, straining at a leash hoping to break free from a self-imposed limit of possible outcomes. It was joyful and satisfying, fascinating and compelling to keep plugging away as the miles became past tense. Do not kid yourself, I had goals and a desired pace but I also realized the value of that day's competition was simply to enjoy the workout and gain the fullest dose of life experience available to me that day.

Because running was placed in it's proper perspective that day it became empowering to test limits on that specific day. My assignment as a coach is how to translate that personal experience into preparing my athletes to do the same on the days they compete, freeing them to unleash the best they have in the right context on each race day. They are obviously far more prepared for their events and have far more invested than I was last month but that should only create more confidence in a possible, positive outcome. 

So how do I create confidence in preparation, freedom to enjoy the opportunity of each race and still produce competitive results and strong minded racers? More thoughts remain for another post and hopefully I'll have logged another run to assist in the process. Thanks for reading, hope to have you back again soon.