aside

Another 48 km in the legs. A solid 4 weeks at this distance with a 22 km long run in it. I know I could do more. But this base will be fine. Hardly need to recover from the runs anymore.

Copiong with this distance is a good place to be. Unless something goes wrong I can go into Comrades training with a good base for where I have come from, be well recovered and build from there.

The time is right. I can enter a 42.s km marathon soon, recover from that, enjoy end of year easy running and then hit the 24 week Comrades program fresh and strong.

I made an effort to be better hydrated and a chomped an energy bar well before the 4 km hill that comes 15 km into my Saturday long run.

That powered me up. I have now got hill gears and could shift down a couple and cruise up the hill.

Last weekend I tried to tough it out and it was hard. Maybe good training. But hard.

aside

I’ve been thinking lots about running and drinking – the hydration kind not really the beer kind.

Hydration on a long run like Comrades  - which for most goes on for well over 7 hours is, as we all know, very important.

So my thoughts on that soon.

The effort of the these weeks is accumulating. Even recovery runs are hard and I have to recover from the recovery run.

But its okay. Fresh orange juice, muesli,  home-made health bread help. So does sleep.

Compared to last year its all looking good:  Weekly totals between 46 and 50 km are better than last year; running pace easily 30 sec per km faster and still sustainable. I’ll get a rest soon and a 42.2 km marathon before the end of the year.

Its good when running is sustainable and allows me to ramp up distance from time to time.

aside

Well not too serious.

More like focusing a little more

Last year (2010) this time: recovering from a seriously twisted ankle. Gingerly running maybe 7 km a day, 3 and if I could, 4 times a week. I had my focus and inspiration: in deference to getting older, I wanted just one more medal; one more finish within the cut-off time. I wasn’t sure I would get it but I had the hunger.

This year (2011) this time;-) I have a comfortable base of over 40 km per week and a good 5 day-a-week pattern. I’m not pushing anything much, just strengthening my base so that I can build up from early next year. My internal system are much more in tune after all the consistent running. That makes it easy to find a pace that I can sustain for a couple of hours without any oxygen debt – or quickly recovering on a downhill after the effort of a long up. My comrades quest doesn’t have a focus yet but I’m not worried about that. I know I can do it and if I stay uninjured and healthy things will be just fine and I might even get to the end an hour faster.

Plus warmer weather is coming, I’ll get sunrises on my run. That’s enough to get me out the door.

Plans: lengthen on of my midweek runs; run a 42.2km marathon in November.

 

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Essentials of a good training program

September 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Training for Comrades requires a program that includes a  good running schedule. Without one to guide and push a little, it’s all too easy to do too little running training and overdo the running being done.

Not all schedules are good in that they demand too much distance and too fast a pace for the race time being aimed at.

Nor do training schedules cover all the things you need to prepare properly for running Comrades.

Start with one of these:

http://www.halhigdon.com/ultramarathon/ultramarathon2000.htm

http://www.comrades.com/Training/Training-Methods.aspx

Books:

Norrie Williamson  “Everyone’s Guide to Distance Running”

Tim Noakes Lore of Running – I’m not sure of how much Comrades training is in the later editions but the 1st Edition has lots of value.

General: Anything by Bruce Fordyce

Right then. A good training program should cover or do the  following:

1.  Be spread over at least 20 but not more than 24 weeks

  • Shorter periods can get you a Comrades finish provided you are a regular runner anyway
  • Training for longer periods leads to reaching peak performance levels before the race

2.  Base the running you will do on your current level of running

  • You will know what your current weekly distance is. Just take the actual average you have done over the 6 weeks before December. December, beside a marathon or so, should be a rest month so it doesn’t count
  • The first week of training should not be more than 10% above that and further increases in weekly distance should be based how well you are coping with the increased training load.

3.  Set a weekly pattern of runs which includes

  • a strength run (a steady effort run over distances of at least 5 to 8 km. While short runs like this can appear inadequate they require minimum recovery and the gearing effect over a 20 week period is allow for recovery/ Combined with 3 or more km warm up and cool down runs can give a respectable daily total of 15-20 km quality training].
  • speed work (repeated sessions of running faster over short distance of 1 km or less with easy running in between)
  • hill work ( 5 or 6 repeated runs up and down (to get breath back) a slope of around 400  to 500 metres
  • recovery runs – not more than 8 km run at a pace that feels slow. The point is that runs of more than 8 km, exceptions excepted of course, add to muscle damage. The second point is to run gently and slowly until you feel like going faster and further because it feels so good and then stop. Walk back to your car and go home.
  • a longer slower run – 1/3 of the weekly distance or a minimum of 20 km

4.  Set a monthly (a 3, 4 or 5 weekly) pattern which

  • Includes a week for rest, recovery and adaptation
  • Increases the total distance run each cycle
  • The longest run during a week increases
  • Builds to a peak weekly distance no more than 3 but preferably 4 weeks before race day

5.  Have a taper period which

  • decreases the total distance run each week closer to Comrades race day
  • Increases the effort and intensity levels of the shorter runs

6.  Have a minimum of runs approaching and exceeding 42.2 km [in other words, marathons and ultras] unless these runs are in the  1/3rd of weekly distance range.

  • The fewer of these runs, the more the schedule understands the risk of overdoing long runs from which you won’t recover before Comrades race day.
  • The minimum is probably one standard marathon [42.2 km] and one longer run [over 50 km]
  • The issue is not the number of runs. The issue is purely of how many runs can you recover from while maintaining your training schedule. Tired, sore,dead,unresponsive, jammed up legs help nothing on race day and can so easily be avoided.

The Extras

To the extent that the next points are not included in your training program, you need to research and set up your own additional training schedule

7.  Set a daily pattern of supplementary (complementary) training – focussing at least on core muscles, arms and quads.

  • At least then sit-ups, press-ups and knee bends or lunges with or without extra weights
  • Supplementary exercise includes cross-training and stretching

8.  Provide a way of measuring your training and its impact on you and what to do to if you are doing too much or not enough

9.  Set out a drinking (hydration) schedule of what to drink before during and after runs.

  • Also to set out drinks to avoid because they dehydrate at a celluar level: e.g. alcohol and caffeine.

10. Give an indication of the kind and quantities of foods that you need to support your running and exercise program.

  • Remind you to cut junk and unhealthy food from your diet and increase the amount of fruit, vegetables, cereals and grains.

11. Set out ways for you to engage and strengthen your running mind

 

 

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Problems with Training Programs

September 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

Training programs published on the web, in books and magazines have at least one fundamental flaw. Most have more. The same applies to running “gurus” one might encounter from time to time. Some will help many will hinder your training.

But you still need one of these “programs”. It’s no contradiction to say that.

Understanding the flaws allows them to be modified and supplemented to make them work.

The fundamental flaws of training programs

Training “programs” have three fatal flaws.

First,  they require more weekly distance, more marathon and longer runs and faster paces than most runners need to achieve their goals.

  • They have to. It’s their insurance. If they recommend less and your fail you will blame the program. So they have to recommend a good deal more. That enables the program generators to say ” Its not my problem. You did the distance you needed.”
  • Runners with the right genes and running background who easily cope with the “more” will in any event easily achieve the target time if they do the right things on the day.
  • Sadly,  runners might not achieve what they could because they overdid their training which they survive rather than having it make them stronger. All that effort could have had a better result. Sadder still are those put off from trying for a higher goal or even put off from ever trying to take part in Comrades medal by the demands of these programs.
  • To be fair it is probably difficult to come up with a single training program that is suited to the whole range of runners – tall, short, skinny, round, heavy, light, old young, seasoned campaigners, novices and all the other variables.
  • To be fair too, the programs that they design are useful.
  • The good thing is you might well be able to finish the Comrades in your goal time doing a lot less of this “training” while doing more appropriate training.

Second, training programs are incomplete. They are mostly schedules of the running that you need to do. They don’t detail all, if any, of the other things you have to get right for a good Comrades.

  • You might find a bit about stretching, supplementary exercises or cross-training. But they don’t often provide a systematic body training program that covers all the extras you need to the level that will help you.
  • You are highly unlikely to find any indication of how to keep yourself optimally hydrated and fed during training or the run itself.
  • Another unlikely find is how to train your mind and get it involved in your run.
  • These “extras” are as important as running.

Third, training programs are not coaches or advisors. They are unresponsive, somewhat merciless taskmasters.

  • They generally have no mechanism to measure weather you making progress towards your goal; nor do they set out the variables that you can or should manipulate to improve your running.
  • You commit to the schedule and have no idea if you’re doing it right, no feedback, little understanding of the variables that you can or should manipulate.
  • They do not encourage, motivate or inspire you. Nor do they tell you how to encourage, motivate and inspire yourself.

Why do I say this?

Some programs do touch on the some of the points I have raised. I don’t know of one that does it all properly.  So when I used to look for training programs, I never found all I needed.

Then too, I have seen too many runners, some I know well, fail at Comrades. They have set goals in their reach but struggle with their training, get injured, ill and under-perform at Comrades. They are perpetually dissatisfied with their achievement no matter how much praise they receive. Part of that is doing too much training, part of it is not doing enough of the things other than running.

I have seen others get through, even achieve quite well while enjoying their Comrades who in terms of training programs shouldn’t be running Comrades or shouldn’t be achieving what they do. They are never over-trained, nor have they overdone their running.

I know  two runners who have done more than 20 Comrades with a good proportion of silver medals. Their training, particularly the 70 km training run, what they tell of  how they feel the night before the race and their race day strategy all say they could have had many more.

My own achievements at Comrades, putting my feet where my mouth is so to speak, also clearly show what I am saying. According to the prescribed minimum distances, I should never have entered let along completed my first Comrades aged 36 nor and 13th aged 57. I put the ages in so that one can see I am not a robust unstressed gung-ho 20 year-old.

Even now I am embarrassed to admit just how many kilometers I accumulated before running my first Comrades. But I did get the medal.

My average of under 9 hours for the first 12, the sub-9 for my 2nd Comrades, my lone silver medal, actually all my runs were done on substantially less than program prescriptions.

It could be argued that I am an exceptional athlete – there is a minor sense in which this is true i.e. we are all exceptional – but it would be hard to find evidence enough to sustain this view.

Could I have achieve more with more training? Sure. Could I have done or coped with more training and more 60km or 70 km runs while training. Not sure. Actually I am sure I couldn’t have.

What you need to do

The key to training for Comrades is first to understand that your best Comrades is determined by training that takes you as strong, healthy, inspired and as fresh as possible to the start line of Comrades, with a goal and a race plan based on the training you have done. It does not require you in any sense to arrive at the start line happy only in the sense that you have survived the training program – with legs left out on the training roads.

To do that use “training programs” to guide your training. What they do well is to set out the combinations of running, effort levels and increasing training load through the training period.

The second is to take charge of your training. Make and implement decisions that are good for you, your body, your situation, your run. To do that you need to keep researching what training is about and applying your findings and your logic to you running.

And you should be out on the road consistently, 5 days a week or more if you can. And you should be drinking plenty of water.

Read more by clicking here for the essentials of a good training program.

 

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Essentials of Comrades Training

September 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Essentials of Comrades Training

 

  1. Run. Get outdoors and run. Often. As many times a week as possible. Also stretch, do sit-ups, press-ups or more sophisticated versions of these exercises plus quad-strengthening exercises.
  2. Get a training program. Let it guide the pattern and combination of runs. Beware of the distances and paces that they say you must achieve.
  3. Learn what you need to eat and drink before, during, after and between runs to sustain your training and yourself on the runThe basics of training
  4. Increase, gradually sure, but increase the distances you run over the week 16 to 17 weeks before the taper before the race.
  5. Keep a record of your training: what you plan, what you achieve, and how your body and mind respond to the training.
  6. Make sure you recover from your runs and allow your body to adapt to the workload.
  7. Deal with any problems – injury, pain, illnesses even minor ones, as soon as you are aware of them.
  8. Build an understanding of what you will face on the race day – the distance, the hills, the weather, the start, the finish all of it – and what you will need to do to cope with it.
  9. Develop a race-day plan with a projected running pace. Practice it. Often.
  10. Get an understanding of why you want to run Comrades and explore that a little. Your motivation and inspiration are important components of getting through long runs.
  11. Nurture your relationships with family, friends and community; maintain your obligations at home, work. Sacrifice less important things.

 

 

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Running Logic 101

September 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

More extracts from Running Logic© a book not yet written on, well, the Logic of Running.

Running Logic 101

  1. You can’t do what you can’t do.
  2. You can’t do better than your best.
  3. If you’re dehydrated, you’re dehydrated
  4. If your sugar levels (your energy supplies) are low, they are low.
  5. If you are doing too much, you are doing too much
  6. If you are injured, you are injured
  7. If you are sick you are sick
  8. If you are not enjoying your training, you aren’t enjoying your training.
  9. Comrades race distance of near enough 90 km, is nearly 90 km.
  10. If you run a personal best marathon 4-5 weeks before the Comrades you will have a personal best marathon time.

Running Logic 102

1. You can’t do what you can’t do, so base your training on what you can do and build from there.

  • You can’t for example run the Comrades 90 km at 4 min/km if your 10 km personal best is 40 or more minutes – unless your 10 km PB was set during Comrades while running it at 4 min/km.
  • You can’t jump to and sustain 60 km/week if your current 6 week average is 40 km/per week – unless that was a rest break in consistently running 50 km/week or more.
  • You probably will try to do more than you can cope with. It’s how we are. Maybe you will cope for a few weeks. But sooner or later something will break; that will set you back more than what you gained.

2. You can’t do better than your best. You have limits. Also you have a good chance of doing worse than your best.

  • The closer you get to doing your best the more satisfied you will be.
  • One way of doing your best is to maximise your training, plan your race carefully and be a bit flexible on the day to make the most out what you have.
  • The more you rely on coaches, competitors or pacers to bring out your best, the less control you have over your run and the better chance you have of not doing your best.
  • Your very best is entirely dependent on what you put in and how you manage your run on your chosen day; and then build on that base to do better the next year.
  • If someone else’s best is better than your best, well, you have to accept that. If you both perform to you best level, the other will gt there first. You will always feel satisfied if you did your very best. [It’s Logic 400 that gets into getting the most of your run, balancing the achievement with all the others parts of the run.]

3. If you’re dehydrated you won’t perform at your best

  • Dehydration means you don’t have enough liquid in your system.
  • You need to top up, to drink the right things.
  • Your body uses water to keep your body cool. Running heats you up. It also uses liquid to keep your mouth, throat and airways moist.
  • Even with 1% dehydration you will not perform your best over 90km. Your heart rate increases, the volume of blood you heart pumps with each stroke drops, the amount of energy you deliver to your muscles decreases, your performance level drops. The liquids in and between cells in your muscles decreases and the cells get damaged. Even drinking the wrong things can make this damage worse.
  • You can’t practice to overcome dehydration. You can train yourself to drink while running
  • It’s Logic 300 to work out what you need to drink and to blend it with your food intake. In the meantime start with water and learn to take in the right amount of the right kind of liquids

4. If your sugar levels (energy supply) are low, they are low. You won’t perform your best.

  • Low sugar levels mean you need to ingest foods. Equally it means being able to digest and absorb them
  • You need to know what foods you need and how to ingest them.
  • You also need to know what it takes to digest and absorb them.
  • You can only store so much glucose in your body. Comrades will require more. You will need to eat.
  • You have stored a lot of fat. If you are relying on it you have to know how to mobilise it and that often means going much slower than what you want.
  • The harder you are working, the harder you are running the less likely you are to want food and too digest it.
  • Much as they are well used, colas are not energy drinks. They do give a boost. They can’t sustain ultra-runners. You need more than colas

5. If you are doing too much, you are doing too much.

  • It’s easy to do too much.
  • Too much training for a short time and you may recover before Comrades but it’s unsustainable.
  • Too fast, too much effort when you set out on the run is also not sustainable. The thing is that you may not recover from the exertion even if you do survive it.
  • Too much isn’t the same as a hard workout, even a very hard workout.
  • It’s easy to do too little hoping to do a harder workout next time.
  • It’s also easy to do too much of the too little to get your through the race you are actually doing.

6. If you are injured, you are injured.

  • Get fixed. Then get training again. Running with injuries makes them worse. It further erodes the best you are hoping to do.
  • Most injuries are fixable. Many come from overdoing what you are doing.
  • If it’s an injury to your legs, stop running until you get professional advice. Go on exercising the muscles you haven’t hurt.
  • If it’s to another part of your body, keep running while you get it fixed.

7. If you are sick you are sick.

  • Get better. Wishing, hoping, taking a chance won’t make you better. Weakening your systems by running more, makes it worse.
  • It’s funny. No matter how obvious this is, in the grip of Comrades training it can be hard to stop running when you should. We are all guilty of it. The more aware we are of its negatives, the more likely we are to do something positive.
  • Making the mental effort to make the right tough decisions, is one of the best things you can do for your training.
  • Accumulative training over time depletes your immune system. You get a bit sick. You don’t want to stop training. You think you will recover from your illness while maintaining your running. The risk of running while ill are big and will set you back more than you gain by carrying on training

8. If you are not enjoying your training, you are not enjoying your training.

  • If you are your happiest when you are your most miserable, keep on going. If you think of running as a punishment, or are convinced that being uncomfortable means you are training properly, keep going.
  • The other view is that training should be fun, build strength, add energy and zest to your life. So when you stop looking forward to a run, the next week’s training, the race, you are doing it right.
  • The power to make the most of your training is in you. You have the right to know that and to make it work for you.

9. Comrades race distance is 90 km. It is not 8 km, 10 km, 21.1 km,  42.2km or even 60 km. It is, near enough, 90 km

  • The things that happen to you on or you need for shorter runs, are not the same as those when you run for 6 to 12 hours.
  • Its gets harder to keep going with the further you have run.
  • You need to train for the last kilometres when your legs are tired even shot, when you’re most depleted.

10. If you run a personal best marathon 4-5 weeks before the Comrades you will have a personal best marathon time. You will have jeopardised your personal best Comrades.

  • You may also set a personal best Comrades time, but that time will always be less than you could have. It won’t be the best you could have done and could leave a little hole in you.
  • Comrades training can make you very strong and feel very powerful and to some extent invincible. But all that strength can only be used for one event run at your best. Your choice is whether you want it for a marathon or for Comrades.
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aside

Running logic: you can’t do what you didn’t do. No matter a long day went past the bed time story – Michael and I are re-telling Star Wars 10 – with a glass of wine, while rain came ever harder.

A serious runner would’ve slept to the alarm after 500 sit-ups while reciting lessons of a Training Tome.

I’ll start on 1 September when Comrades entries open. Aargh .. tomorrow … already.

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Ten Training Axioms

August 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Training Axioms

1. Without running, without putting enough miles in the legs, you won’t get strong enough to do Comrades.

2. There are ways running that make you stronger, there are ways of running that make you weaker, then there are way of running that add minimum value. You can choose which you prefer, but know that the default option is a lower value one.

3. Training is a practical thing: knowable, doable, measurable, adjustable

4. You need to get your legs strong – you know that. You also need to train the rest of your body to keep up and support your legs.

5. You need to train (maybe in the sense of allowing them to adapt) all your systems – e.g. endocrine, cardio vascular, immune, lymphatic, digestive.  They all need to be able to cope with the relatively extreme demands you are asking of them.

6. Your mind is continually involved whether you are aware of it or not, in every aspect of your running. The more you engage your mind, the more you understand about what you are doing and how it affects you, and use that information, the better your training will be.

7. Comrades “training programs” will, mostly, tell you to do more distance than you need to get through the run or achieve the target you want to. They may therefore make you aim lower than you can achieve, even put Comrades out of reach. Or they make you do more than you should and end up breaking down rather than building your strength.

8. The better you train – running, adapting, engaging your mind, developing your race strategy and practicing it – the more you will get out of your Comrades running experience.

9. Liquids and nutrients are involved in every aspect of your running. Without taking in the right liquids and nutrition on the run, you will not perform anywhere near your best, hasten your breakdown, even create the risk of serious damage to yourself.

10. The more you take control of your training, understand what you are doing, have at hand options for what you encounter while running or racing, the more you will get out of your running.

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Running Logic-Assumptions

August 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Excerpts from The Logic of Running©,  a work about,well, the logic of running.

Summary

Training for Comrades is simple really.

  • You need to run. Training takes place outdoors, well out of bedroom-, office-, pub- and other-distraction-doors, preferably on tar, preferably on hills.
  • Training means putting distance and strength in your legs.
  • You need to get your drinking and eating right before, during and after every run, to support your running.
  • You need to get your internal systems from the cardio-vascular to the endocrine systems in shape to support your ultra-running
  • You need to allow your body to adapt to the training
  • You have the option of doing more than merely going out on the road following a predetermined schedule in pursuit of mammoth mileage. You are not obliged to do more. It’s just a marvellous opportunity to make the most of your time out on roads and trails and finally on the run itself.

Assumptions

Underlying this view on training are the assumptions that:

  • Those enter and train for Comrades actually want to get to the start line and complete the event, really want to get a medal.
  • They want to do if not their very best then at least their best.
  • They understand what they can do now and work to get the strongest they can, then do the most with what their training allows.
  • Those who want to run know that marathon and ultra marathon running are extreme events that carry health risks becasue they are going beyond their design limits. They therefore know or will take steps to ensure that they are healthy enough to take on the challenge. They will equally know that training for ultras carries its own health risks that they will take steps to manage them.
  • They understand the irrational element of ultra-running is merely that they don’t know in detail why the challenge appeals to them. That irrationality isn’t something they need to apply to their training methods.
  • Runners understand that no matter how obvious a problem is it sometimes takes a lot of effort to correct it; that no matter how logical and simple the solution, the desperation of wanting to be strong enough for Comrades can, though it shouldn’t, override the rational easy solution
  • Runners understand, however vaguely that training for and running Comrades is more than just running, more than physical exercise and want to explore a little of the “more”.
  • Runners understand that the full book of training hasn’t yet been written. And even if it has, it would needs to be adapted to each of us, each of us as we train and age and enjoy.
  • All forms of running are good. There is no lesser Comrades or ultra-finisher. Bucket-list runners have a reason for running Comrades as valid as those aiming for a time-driven goal. Even the sundry masochists, chancers and other personality disorder runners are allowed and empowered to run.
  • That completing the training for, doing Comrades and getting a medal is good for your soul even if you get a blister or ten or worse.
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