It’s not ‘just running’

I have a number of leftover biker trash friends from my cycling years, and Ric Stern is among the best of them. In no particular order, he’s a terrific cycling coach (with an excellent group of assistant coaches to boot), a doting father, an irrepressibly cheerful personality – in short, the salt of the earth. His frequent refrain of ‘no worries’ has become my own.

Knowing my history (as a cyclist) of multiple car attacks that converted me to running, every now and then he asks, “Still just running?” It feels like he’s tweaking me a bit, perhaps subtly pointing out the lesser time commitment of running as compared with cycling: whereas an elite runner can typically get by on as little as 8-12 hours of training per week, an elite cyclist needs more like 20, the pros nearly 30. Yeah, runners are slackers. :-)

Now, I see running as a somewhat more complicated activity, where injuries can appear out of nowhere; indeed, their prevention, management, and rehabilitation would seem more important than the precise structure of training itself. After all, even a sub-optimal training program, consistently followed, will produce more improvement than no training at all.

The challenge of avoiding and working around (as well as through) setbacks actually makes running more interesting, even though it has necessitated a multi-pronged approach that adds complexity to workouts:

1. Gone are the days when I paid no heed of running surface, starting each run out the back door; I now avoid pavement like the plague, putting in at least 98% of all miles on softer dirt trails, with most of the other 2% on a local track with a nice, even, rubberized asphalt surface (I abandoned grass surfaces last year, since they didn’t seem to do any better than the trail in reducing impact forces, but have a more irregular surface). This adds ~30 minutes of back-and-forth travel to each run.

2. In early 2007, I visited Dr. Tom Zak, a chiropractor in Westlake trained in Active Release Technique (ART), seeking relief from recurring groin pain. His manipulations provided some immediate relief, but of more lasting importance have been stretches he prescribed, based on a simple visual inspection of my running technique. I do them religiously before every run, and the problem has not returned. Another 10 minutes or so added to each run.

3. With targeted weight training a few times a week, I’ve strengthened the muscle groups that stabilize the hip and knee joints.

4. As described in the preceding post, aquarunning is both an effective means of rehabilitation once an injury does occur, and of maintaining fitness throughout the rehab period. It is also very effective as supplemental training, even when no injury is present.

5. Finally, while I’ve always been careful to apply increases in training load in an incremental, progressive manner, the hip flexor injury provided a reminder of the importance of this training principle.

Factors 1-3 contributed to a complete lack of injury throughout the entire 2008 season, while 4 & 5 helped me cope with what arose this year.

Aquarunning to the rescue!

After nearly complete rest (just a few short pool runs) from 6/28 – 7/22, then aquarunning with greater frequency and duration during the last week, today’s land run was without pain. Though the distance was just 3.5 miles, the pace was surprisingly close to what was typical just before the injury appeared, yet it felt comfortable.

Aquarunning seems to have worked wonders both in maintaining fitness and (in combination with whirlpool therapy) promoting healing; about the only drawback is that it has bleached my swim trunks.

Now it’s just a matter of rebuilding lost fitness, hopefully in time to at least come close to the goal-predictions stated previously. As an astute reader reminds me, it’s important to ease back into land running, gradually phasing out the pool runs while increasing road mileage, since the legs have not experienced any impact forces in six weeks.

Watch for a detailed discussion of aquarunning in a future post.

“To know your limits…

...it is sometimes necessary to exceed them.”

So runs an old and fundamentally true bromide, and it seems to have been borne out yet again.

After a week’s hiatus from 6/7-14, what began as a mild twinge/pain in the right medial/mid thigh on 6/18 blossomed into limiting pain in the hip flexor area by 6/21.

Walking was pain-free after four days rest and a 20 minute pool run on 6/25, but it was all I could do to get through a two-miler on 6/27, let alone walk normally afterward. This pattern has repeated itself several times over and it is apparent that extended rest is necessary.

The cause was probably a too-intensive hill workout (8 x ~25m vertical gain) on 6/16; the descents likely did the damage, despite the fact that I was careful to control my stride. I’d done 5 reps on 5/31, but there was too much of a gap in between even for a modest increase, let alone to 8; 3 or 4 would have been enough.

Update(s) to follow, as developments warrant – where have you read that before?

The new training pattern

The 4 days on/1 day off regime (previously discussed here) has worked beautifully, as I have been able to work up to and sustain a higher training load than ever before, yet with less fatigue. Alternating short and longer workouts while carefully adding no more than 10-15 minutes to each 5-day cycle – even when more was possible – I leveled off with a pattern of (in minutes) 45-67-45-67/day off, or an average of 5 hours 20 minutes a week. Had I attempted that much with a 6 on/1 off pattern, there would likely have been more fatigue, or else I would have had to settle for less volume.

Intensity for all runs has been right around ~90% of ‘functional threshold pace’ (FTP being defined as what can be sustained for a ~50 minute run), which corresponds to the ‘best aerobic pace’ that Lydiard used to advocate, leaving you ‘pleasantly tired’ and allowing enough (but not complete) recovery overnight for the next run, such that the training load can be sustained indefinitely with relative comfort, or at least without excess fatigue (i.e., enough to disrupt the training cycle and impose a period of extended rest).

“Train, don’t strain,” Lydiard used to say, or, put another way, “work, don’t suffer.” The intensity may be challenging at times, but manageable, while workouts may be somewhat difficult to complete, but not a struggle.

Even better news is the fact that the typical average pace has been faster than what I was doing on the same courses last October during a period of peak performance.

Thus, the PR-equaling time that happened today while out of town at the Chase for the Taste 5K in Des Plaines, Illinois, should not have been too great of a surprise. Mile splits were 6:42, 6:56, and 7:07, and they are probably valid, since this race is CARA- (Chicago Area Runners Association) and USATF-certified, so the course should be accurate. I don’t fault myself too much for the fast start and slow finish, since a fair part of the ‘out’ portion was downhill with a tailwind, and vice-versa coming back.

I say the PR “happened” because I have done none of the anaerobic capacity training (400m track intervals) necessary for peak form in a 5K; they seem bring another 40 seconds or so of improvement after as much aerobic fitness as possible has been built up, so a goal of 20:40 seems within reach, however, today’s performance was aided by the taper from several easy/off days due to travel in the days leading up to the race.

One-year fitness comparison

Just like it was in 2008, today’s Dara Hosta 5K in Olmsted Falls was my first race of the season, and as such allows comparison of current fitness to the same point one year ago.

This run starts and finishes at Harding Stadium, where I do my track workouts, and to aid with pacing, I marked off the first ¼ mile and ½ mile from the start (a GPS-enabled watch can help with this, but being something of a retro-grouch, I don’t have one yet). It’s been my experience that early feedback and adjustment of pace in relation to what you have planned can help greatly optimizing the overall energy output (assuming you have chosen reasonable pacing goals, of course!) By the second mile (and even the latter portion of the first, depending on the chosen pace), perceived exertion will have caught up with the pace, and can be reliably used to modulate effort in relation to the distance remaining to be run. On the other hand, if you go out too fast and wait until the first mile split to find out, it can have a significantly adverse effect on energy output, and on performance. As Jack Daniels has observed, “The biggest mistake you can make in a distance race is in the first minute.”

The plan worked well, as confirmed by mile splits of 7:03, 7:12, and 7:05 on the virtually dead-flat course; several runners were caught in the last mile, and at the finish I was just 3 seconds (one place) behind the winner of my age group . Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was he just in front of me, otherwise I might have been able to catch him – or not, but it would have been nice to know.

The course was unchanged and conditions were nearly identical to last year, all of which validate comparison to 2008’s time of 22:40, so it would seem there has been a 3.3% improvement in fitness, but given that there has also been a 6.9% reduction in body mass in the year since, it is possible I am a bit behind where I was a year ago. That’s not surprising, given the 6-week injury layoff in January/February.

I’m not one to fill up blogspace by recounting every last race detail, but one does stand out. With less than a mile to go, I passed Jack Urbanek, an old classmate who ran cross-country ‘back in the day.’ I’ve measured myself against him for a couple years, since his times were well ahead of mine, but seemed like they might come within reach someday. I figured if I could finish close to or ahead of him eventually, it would be an accomplishment, since he was a ‘real’ runner, good enough to run on the varsity. I actually mentioned this ambition to him, and before the Celebrate Westlake 5-miler a couple years back, he pointed to his knee brace and said ‘This is your day to beat me’ or something like that. Naturally, I didn’t, leading me to realize that Jack on one good leg was better than I am with two good ones.

In passing by, I gave him a thumbs-up and said something really original like ‘Hey Jack.’ He responded by surging hard and opening up a decent gap. Jack’s as laid-back as they come, but I thought he might have misunderstood the gesture or the words. In any case, I held steady and didn’t try to match the move (I never do in such instances), since I don’t have much to surge with, and had I tried to, I’d have blown up for sure. I always tell myself, ‘If they can keep or increase the gap, there’s nothing I can do about it, if not, I’ll see them again before the finish.’

So I just continued smoothly along, gradually ramping up the pace, and was able to go by decisively in the last half-mile. Jack has a tendency to vanish quickly after the race, so there was no chance to offer an explanation, if one was needed.

Training update – pain free!

After 4 weeks of no activity (“complete rest” sounds better) beginning with the last post, the left knee pain subsided almost completely, and I had my first ‘aquarun’ on 2/13. It was just 15 minutes long, and turned out to be one of only four such workouts over the next month.

The pain returned with the resumption of running on 2/15 but has been manageable; the symptoms have slowly subsided in response to a regimen of cryotherapy (via Cramer Flex-i-Cold packs) after each run, plus occasional heat prior, and weight training (leg extensions and curls). Today’s workout was the first since January without any pain at all.

In preparation for the local 5K run coming up on Sunday, weekly interval workouts of 5 x 1200 meters were begun on 4/15, to help raise the upper limit of aerobic fitness I’ve built so far. Today was the third such session, and the work interval average of 4:52 (3 minutes rest in between) compares quite well with the benchmark of 4:47 set in an identical workout last 11/5. Based on this performance, I estimate I should be able to do ~21:45.

Volume totals from 2/15 through today are 286.1 miles in 38.75 hours.

Already a setback

Barely a week into the season, and I am sidelined with in left knee pain bad enough that I don’t expect to be running anytime soon. It came on suddenly, and I suspect it may be due to a combination of the cold plus tights that don’t insulate quite enough, with some irregular, snowy running surfaces a contributing factor.

My plan is to rest until the pain goes away, and perhaps finally start something that’s been on my mind for a long time: deep-water pool running, plus some weight training.

As always, the fear is that this will develop into a permanent condition with long-term, limiting effects, even though numerous other injuries serious enough to require time off have all healed without lasting effect.

Update(s) to follow, as developments warrant.