Running Shorts

Despite the lack of activity on the blog, I have in fact been running. I did have brief Achilles flare-up in August and into September which derailed my original plans for a fall marathon (and even backup plans for a half marathon). I stayed active, but I had lost enough fitness that it wouldn't come back quickly enough for that season. However, I had a slight epiphany while I was injured: as I was cycling a lot, I saw how popular cyclocross was, and for the first time since college I missed racing cross country. As luck would have it, USATF Club XC was being hosted in December in Lexington, KY -- an easy drive only an hour and a half away and enough time to round into some semblance of racing shape. To sum up training, I did a six-week block of fundamental base-type workouts, which I then blended into about six more weeks of race-specific ones. I was definitely overly cautious with my training, because I didn't want to aggravate any injuries (I'm still managing my ...

(You can find all this information under the "COACHING SERVICES" tab above, or on the Featured Posts link to the right of the page.) Coach Tommy Kauffmann Do you need some guidance in your training? Are you targeting a specific race for a peak performance? Looking to build the foundation for a successful track or cross country season? Above all, do you want to get faster? Then let me help you! Starting this year (2018) I will be offering coaching services to individual athletes. Sure, you could use a canned plan from a book or some other resource, but if you're really trying to maximize your performance then you need to adopt a more individualized approach. Pre-written training plans are often too general and too rigid to truly create your best race; they lack the individuality that all athletes need and they aren't adaptable to the vicissitudes of daily life. As a coach, I'll adapt training to your specific situation: we'll fine-tune and...

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't really gotten around to it. This is for anyone using the summer to gear up for a fall season of racing, whether that's a marathon, road races, or cross country. That said, this is especially for you high school and college athletes. Summer is the most important time of the season. It's when you build your base -- everything that's to come later in the fall is determined by the quality of this base. In fact, some might even say that your end-of-season peak is limited by how well you trained over the summer. Arthur Lydiard believed this. And his philosophies still form the foundation of modern-day distance training. You've probably heard (and maybe internalized) many of the common critiques of Lydiard-style training: it's old and outdated , or it's too hard, or, most common, it's just a lot of long slow distance. And low slow distance makes for long slow runners . The lat...

Not racing for all of the last fall season got me thinking: do we race too often? Like most running-related questions, the answer is simple; but unfortunately, that's where it gets complicated. I decided to break this down into two parts with two different answers. And really, I think these parts speak to the divide between the competitive sport and the participant activity. The first one (this one) is a scholastic edition, focusing on high school and collegiate cross country and track athletes. The next one will cover more of the road, trail, and ultra racing scene. So. Do scholastic athletes race too often? Yes. Absolutely unequivocally 100% in the affirmative. Ok sure there are a select few elite NCAA teams who have the luxury of resting their top athletes for most of the season until conference champs and NCAAs (then I think the case could be made for racing more), but the vast majority of the rest do, in fact, race too often. Think of the high school team which, duri...

Now that it's the heart of fall racing season and I'm getting antsy not  being able to race, I thought it'd be a good time for the first in a new series of posts. I write a lot about various aspects of training that go into race day and I also recap race efforts fairly often, but I haven't written much about the strategy and tactics  that go into each competition. In fact, not many people do talk about tactics. If anything, they get a bad rap in running circles -- as in a sarcastic, "oh great, another tactical race." When you hear people talk about tactics, they do so in a negative tone: a tactical race is one that is slow, where the runners just jog around for 90% of the time until someone finally sprints to the finish. Sit-n-kick. Of course, this is  one tactic (an effective one, at that) and one you see often in championship-style races, where place matters more than time and most athletes are of about the same fitness caliber. But race tactics can be m...

This is a post for all you high school track and cross athletes looking to make the leap to the next level. This is a post for all you collegians at that level, shooting for the next step. This is a post for all you post-collegians eyeing the next Olympic Trials. This is a post for all runners, of all ages and abilities, who want to PR, PB, BQ, OTQ, or any other acronym you can think of. You want to get better? You can put away your training manual. Set aside the Hanson's program, or Pfitzinger, or Daniels or Higdon or Galloway or anyone else who writes a mass program. Most importantly, if you own Run Less, Run Faster : burn that crap. There is only one Way. Here it is: You need to run more. How much more? I don't know, but definitely more than you're doing now. Could be 30 miles a week. Could be 120. That part's up to you. It can't be that simple, can it? It is. For real. Running is a simple sport; stop trying to make it more complicated than it nee...

In 2013, I ran the Boston Marathon, finishing in 2:28:28 for 67th place. I was student teaching and training on inconsistent 60-70 mile weeks. Even though I wasn't in great marathon shape, that race still stands as my personal best. For comparison's sake, here are some historic results of similar placings (Boston's archived results are nearly impossible to find - I'm not even sure they exist online). 1993: 67th place - 2:32:01 1989: 50th place - 2:30:14 1983: 83rd place - 2:19:51 (a 2:30 would have been over 300th place!) 1980: 54th place - 2:25:47 1979: 50th place - 2:19:28 (source: http://www.coolrunning.com/boston/results3.htm) The general trend seems to be that as we look at results from further in the past, race results actually get faster! How does that make any sense? Since then, training methods have improved, performance technology has improved, prize money has improved; so why haven't we improved? While road races have flourished in the dec...

Despite all the convolutions of training -- Lactate Threshold, vVo2max, cadence, foot strike, turnover, etc. etc. etc. -- running is a very simple sport: who can cover a specified distance on foot the fastest? With all the technology and tactics and strategies and training approaches we have today, it's not really any more complicated than that. So what's my training advice for you? Simple: Do what makes you feel good. That good feeling you get in training -- the endorphin high, "full of run," effortlessness; however you want to describe it -- is your body's way of telling you, "I like this. I'm responding to this. I should keep doing this. This is playing to my strengths." You wanna get better? Listen to your body. What feels good is going to be a little different for everybody. For me, I get that effortlessly good feeling during steady-state type of runs...longer, sustained workouts at an aerobically challenging but not crippling pace. I tr...

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho...

"Quenton, this is where you find out. This is the time and place. All the rest is window dressing. ... You can do very nearly anything. Haven't you figured that out?"                                                                                                  - Bruce Denton, Once a Runner If you've read this blog before, you know how I often preach training at a controlled effort. Strides should be run at a relaxed fast effort. Interval workouts should be finished feeling like you could do one more . Et cetera et cetera. And I stand by the philosophy that most of your training should be controlled. Most of it, but not all of it. Every once in a while -- maybe once or twice a season MAX -- you should think about running a workout where y...

In baseball, there's a term for the ideal position player: the Five-Tool Player. This player can hit for average, hit for power, run the bases fast, throw hard/far/accurately, and excel defensively. All players strive to master all five tools, but few players actually possess them. For the competitive runner, I believe, there is a similar set of five 'tools' they should strive to develop. Perhaps a better term for the runner might be 'five paces', as there are five sets of paces that runners should have in their training repertoire. These are the types of paces that should be touched on year-round, but at different intensity levels based on any upcoming race schedules. These paces -- these tools -- will help you train smarter and race faster. Here they are: A runner's five 'tools' (or paces): Easy.  This is an easy effort. Real easy. Like, laughably easy. So easy, it should feel like you're not really getting any work in. That's because y...

So this is another edition of WOTW that I didn't do, but my high schoolers did. I do think it has value for runners of all abilities though. What is the workout? Explosive hill repeats are really simple: find a hill -- something steep, preferably grass. It doesn't have to be long, just something that takes you 8-10 seconds to bound up. (If there's not a hill near you, stadium steps work as well). Then, do hill repeats: sprint up the hill as fast as you can. Visualize yourself exploding up the hill. This is an all-out, maximum, 110% effort. At the top of the hill, walk back down and then rest for 3-5 minutes before the next one. Yes, 3-5 minutes. That part's essential -- you want to be fully recovered before you start again...this is a sprinter's workout; don't try to gain aerobic fitness on these. No, no running during rest. The first time you do this workout, only do 4-6 reps. Work your way up to 10. That's it, pretty simple. Why should you do it? M...

Ok now, before I get any complaints about being arrogant or an elitist or anything like that, let me first give my definition of an "elite runner." The way I think of it, in the running world an "elite" is anyone who places competition before participation. Elite runners range the gamut from full-on professionals to the local fast post-collegiate runners; the term to me also includes high school and college xc and track athletes as well as masters and age-group competitors. More than meeting a certain time standard, being an elite runner is more about having a competitive mindset. So now that that's out of the way, let me also say this: while elite runners are often the most visible athletes to the general public, they do make up a minority of the running community. People are often intimidated or put-off by elites, thinking that the faster runners judge anyone slower than them as inferior, less worthy, "not a real runner," etc. Of course, when you a...

And by 'easy long runs' I mean long runs (no matter how long) done at an easy effort; long slow distance, or LSD is how some people term it. But first, a caveat: long slow runs still have their place in the running world, but can we please stop doing only long slow runs? LSD runs are great in two situations: 1) when you are building your mileage early on in base training, and 2) as a low-key aerobic maintenance session during your peak competition season -- your focus should be on race-specific workouts, so long runs shouldn't be enough to tire you out. At any other point in the heart of your training? Change it up. Why? Because always and only doing long easy runs is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Listen, I know consistency is important to train well, but so is variation. If you want to improve, you have to mix things up bit, you have to challenge yourself and push the limits of your comfort zo...

Alright, so now that cross country season is starting to gear up (first day of official practice for the high schoolers in Ohio is Monday!), I thought it'd be a good time for another post geared towards the scholastic runners. Not that this topic isn't applicable to everyone else out there, but I think it'll resonate most with the former type of runners. Showing up at practice, no matter what team you run for or who your coach is, you can bet one of the first things you will run through are the classic form drills. High knees, butt kicks, A-skips, B-skips, high skips, carioca, backwards running; the list goes on. You've probably already done some of those and you probably also do some other not on that list. And if you're in school, you'll probably do them just about every day from Day 1 without any more specific rationale than, "they improve your form." But do they improve your form? In my opinion, the answer is no. So you do you really need to ...

What is the workout? Strides aren't a workout per se , more like an addendum to your regular running schedule. Typically you'll finish up an easy or normal run with 4-10 strides of 80-120 meters. So what's a stride? It's a short sprint at sub-maximal effort (somewhere between 80 and 120 meters; doesn't have to be exact, just eyeball it) followed by full recovery between reps (about a minute or so walking around; again, doesn't have to be exact, just feel fresh before your next one). This is all done by feel...run at a relaxed-fast, near effortless speed; no straining, no flailing, no racing. Don't worry about splits, don't worry about pace; just run smooth so you can feel fast and focus on solid form. Think of these like the running version of free-throw practice. (Edit: if you really wanted to, you could make strides a stand-alone workout: warm up, then run 10-30-ish strides with full recovery , then cool down.) Why should you do it? You should do...

What is the workout? This workout is super simple yet super effective: after a 10-15 minute warmup (starting real easy and gradually increasing the effort) you run for an hour at aerobic threshold effort. When possible, do it on a course with rolling hills. Finish it off with an easy cooldown of 5 minutes to a mile. So what's aerobic threshold? In my running lexicon, it's a moderate-intensity, high-end aerobic effort; in terms of pace, it ends up being slightly slower than marathon pace but slightly faster than normal run pace. For me, depending on the day, my pace will average somewhere between 5:30 and 5:50 per mile. That said, notice that I described the workout as "an hour at aerobic threshold effort ." Like with other WOTW installments, I feel that effort is way more important than pace. Some days you'll feel good and naturally go faster, some days you'll feel rough and have to grind it out a little more. Some courses will be a little flatter and faster...

Ok, so this post also applies to everybody, but it's especially relevant for high school -- and, on occasion collegiate -- runners. Ready? Here it is: Stop thinking you need to run harder to get faster. That's it. Simple. Unfortunately, too many runners at too many levels don't get it. I didn't get it until after I had already graduated from college. Here's the problem: the 'no pain, no gain' attitude permeates every aspect of sports culture in America. You see it all the time on high school XC team T-shirts. You know, the ones with the slogans on the back that say "Pain is weakness leaving the body," or "Pain is temporary, pride is forever," or "Our sport is your sport's punishment," or...well, you get the idea. It's all couched in the glorification of pain and suffering -- the idea that if you're not working hard, then you might as well not be working at all. However, by and large that does not apply to end...

What is the workout? Disclaimer: This isn't a workout I did, but one the high schoolers I help coach did. That said, I think it's a great workout, so I wanted to share it. The "speed shifter" as they ran it was: 5 sets of 3 minutes easy, 90 seconds moderate, and 30 seconds relaxed fast. No real rest between sets, just go from the relaxed fast portion straight into the easy portion of the next set. While the 'easy' part should be around your normal everyday running pace, the 'moderate' part should be near your tempo pace (or lactate threshold or half marathon or whatever you want to call it) and the 'relaxed fast' should be as fast as you can run without straining, while still holding form (think: strides. Relaxed is the key word here.). In total, it was 25 minutes of total running and 10 minutes of hard running. Add in a warmup and cooldown, and that's a solid day for a high school athlete. Why should you do it? You should do this t...

As I write this, a crisp wind blows a pre-winter chill in from the north. Roiling grey clouds cover the sky as leaves float to the ground signalling the fiery death summer. It's jacket weather. Better yet, it's distance-running weather. Training in the Midwest, you get to deal with four distinct seasons -- which all, in a way, lend themselves to a periodized schedule over the course of the year. Winter represents the hibernation, where the college athletes (and increasingly, high schoolers as well), take to the indoor track. Runs in the gusty winter chill are endured, not enjoyed, knowing they'll make for a stronger, tougher athlete come spring. Spring is the rebirth. As the flora comes back to life, so too do athletic aspirations. Rising from the winter doldrums, we step on the track once again, eager to unleash the speed that has been pent up all winter. As May comes and goes, Spring merges into Summer, and training takes different paths for different runners. F...