Running Shorts

2/26-3/04 Monday: 16 miles in 1:51:01 Tuesday: 9 mile fartlek in 56:03 Wednesday: 6 miles easy Thursday: OFF Friday: 6 miles easy + strides Saturday: 11 miles total - 5k race, 1st in 16:06 Sunday: OFF TOTAL :  48 miles in 5 days This week started well enough, I got in the long run I missed on Sunday and then a true fartlek workout on Tuesday. My plan had been to alternate longer easier days with shorter faster days in classic Lydiard fashion, and that's how this week started. I ran slow for my long run, but that's the only gear I had. For the fartlek I just ran hard for 30 seconds to 2 minutes whenever I felt like it. I felt more fatigued as the run went on, so this one was a mistake -- especially the day after the long run. I should have taken an easy day instead. I needed all easy days the rest of the week, especially since I had a low-key race that I was nervous about. I was planning on a longer marathon-effort tempo on Thursday, but I just didn...

Monday:  2 miles -- slow Tuesday: 3 miles -- slow Wednesday: Off Thursday: 8 miles Friday: 12 miles in 1:20:28 Saturday: 7 mile marathon effort tempo in 41:17 Sunday: Off TOTAL : 32 miles in 5 days Well this week was slightly less sucky. I had made up my mind to start off this week running, and I did on Monday and Tuesday...but all I had energy for was 2 and 3 miles, respectively. I was spent after each one. But hey, when you can run in a t-shirt in February, you take advantage of it. By Wednesday I knew I needed to be responsive and take the day off, and on Thursday I felt exponentially better. Not back to normal energy levels, but at least enough to run something of substance. Same deal with Friday. One of the keys to establishing aerobic endurance is to alternate longer, slower days with shorter, faster days (see Lydiard explained here ). That's going to be my general plan going forward, and since I had felt a kind of normalcy back in my running I wanted to p...

Monday:  3 w/u; 2 x 6 x diagonals (4 min jog between sets), 1k in 3:02, 2 c/d Tuesday: Easy hour of running Wednesday: Planned off day Thursday: One hour of running with 5 surges by feeling in the second half Friday: 10 min up, 57 min marathon effort tempo, 1 mile c/d Saturday:  Very easy 8 recovery Sunday: Planned long run, but sick in the chest so no run today TOTAL : 48 miles on 5 days Well, for my first week back in a while this was...passable. I was almost really happy with it until I got sick over the weekend, but there's nothing you can do about that. Better to miss a day or two than to have a cold just drag on. Usually a head cold is fine to run through, but a nasty cough is something not to mess with. Monday's workout was exactly what I needed, both mentally and physically. Diagonals are a popular mid-distance workout in Kenya, and it consists of running diagonally from flag to flag across a soccer field, with a jog across the baseline for recovery. Th...

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...

...is an Ohio guy named Bob Schul. Sure, you know all the American greats: Ryun, Shorter, Pre, Rodgers, Salazar, Joanie, Webb. Maybe you even know of some of the more obscure stars: Mills, Kastor, Lindgren, etc. But how much do you really know about Bob Schul, the only American to ever win Olympic gold at 5,000m  -- which he did while also coming into the race as the favorite and world #1 at the time? The race that made Schul immortal was the 5,000m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Racing the deepest field ever assembled to that point (including Ron Clarke, Bill Baillie, Harald Norpoth, Michel Jazy, Kip Keino, and Bill Dellinger -- all running royalty), Schul waited patiently through a tactical, surging and slowing 4800 meters until unleashing an incredible kick over the final lap. To beat out nine (9!) other runners in contention at the bell, Schul closed in 54.8 for 400m and an astonishing 38.7 for the final 300 meters -- as fast, if not faster, than Mo Farah's kick in London 20...

This week I want to feature the Fast-Finish Long Run . I've written about n ot doing easy long runs before , and this is one that can be a staple of your training no matter what distance you're training for. A Fast-Finish Long Run is exactly what it sounds like: a long run where you run the last portion of it fast. It could be as simple as closing out the final 15-20 minutes of a run (no matter the distance) at an up-tempo, aerobic threshold-type effort; or it could be as tough as the marathon-specific session of 10 miles easy straight into 10 miles at marathon pace. The Fast-Finish fits anywhere within that spectrum. The point of a long run is to build up aerobic endurance, but sometimes we end up just slogging around at a slow pace, not really stimulating any aerobic gains while just beating ourselves up. Adding on an up-tempo finish at the end can stimulate that aerobic stamina without being too destructive. (Sometimes, running faster can be less stressful on the body t...

Yes, this is a selfish post. I mostly train alone; as it turns out, so do most of the post-collegiate runners in the Greater Cincinnati area. It's time to change that. Cincinnati is way too small of a town for us all to be doing our own thing, only to meet on race day and maybe the occasional long run. When you consider that many of the best runners train in groups, it makes sense that we ought to start training together. I get that everyone has different schedules; I'm not saying that all us runners need to live and run and hang out together all the time. All I'm proposing is a track workout on Tuesday. a tempo/threshold run on Friday (or Saturday), and a nice hard long run on Sunday. That's it, just three days. Three key workouts on three days, each week, every  week. I get that life gets in the way and you won't be able to make it every time, but you wanna get better? You gotta train consistently. Who better than training partners to keep you consistent? ...

GEAR CHECK is another semi-regular-when-I'm-feeling-it series like the WORKOUT OF THE WEEK and various race recaps. There's a ton of different products out there marketed towards runners, so I wanted to highlight some of the things that I use and what I think about them. It might also be telling the stuff I don't use, but that's a whole 'nother topic. The New Balance 1400v3  (in the pictured colorway, too!) is the shoe I'll be racing in during the Olympic Trials Marathon. I've worn this particular shoe in one previous race and a few workouts as well.  This is my review of the shoe, but it's going to be a little different that most shoe reviews: I'm not going to talk about manufacturer specs or product details or anything like that ; instead, I'm going to talk about how it fits, how it feels, and who it's for. In my opinion, that's the truly important stuff, anyway. How does it fit? This shoe fits like a cross between a pure racin...

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...

So it's been about four years in the making, but I'm now going to the Olympic Marathon Trials. I ran the B-Standard qualifying time, I've registered for the Trials race (most reasonably priced marathon ever, by the way), and I've bough the plane tickets to LA. I'm all in. Well now what? What do you do after you finally run that cathartic qualifying time? You recover, race a 10k on Thanksgiving, and then hop into marathon training. I've spent the past two weeks taking training pretty light. The first week was very unstructured, just lots of easy mileage to get my legs back to feeling good. This past week was a little bit of a step up, with more mileage and some more tune-up workouts. This coming week I'm racing Cincinnati's classic Thanksgiving Day Race (if you'll be there come say hi!), looking to get after it  a few weeks removed from Indy Monumental. I don't want to go into the race with too many expectations, but suffice it to say I'...

"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...

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...

GEAR CHECK is another semi-regular-when-I'm-feeling-it series like the WORKOUT OF THE WEEK and various race recaps. There's a ton of different products out there marketed towards runners, so I wanted to highlight some of the things that I use and what I think about them. It might also be telling the stuff I don't use, but that's a whole 'nother topic. The Asics DS-Trainer is my shoe. I've been running in various versions of this for nearly the past eight years, with the exception of one lost year while I was wearing the Saucony Guide as part of their Hurricane program. This is my review of the shoe, but it's going to be a little different that most shoe reviews: I'm not going to talk about manufacturer specs or product details or anything like that (if you want those, go to the manufacturer website ); instead, I'm going to talk about how it fits, how it feels, and who it's for. In my opinion, that's the truly important stuff, anyway. M...

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...

Alright, so I'm bringing back the WORKOUT OF THE WEEK segment, but changing it up a bit. Instead of detailing the exact workout I'm doing, I'll lay out the general synopsis of the workout and then try to give some tips on how you can incorporate it into your own training. What's the workout? A progression run is any run where you start out at an easier pace and then progress over the course of the run to a faster pace. The beauty of this workout is that it can be anything you want it to be -- want a hard tempo workout? Start the progression a little slower than marathon, then over the course of 20-40 minutes progress down to half marathon or even 10k pace. Want a long threshold run? Start easy and over the course of 60-90 minutes progress down to near marathon pace. (When you're just starting these out, it's always a good idea to begin at the lower end of the range and gradually extend your workout to the longer end). Since this was the first one I've do...

With 10 days to go until the US Half Marathon champs in Houston , I'm in full-on taper mode. Well, it's mostly because of the race coming up, but also partly due to the sub-zero temperature outside. That's not so fun to run in. Out of all the aspects of training -- base fitness, intervals, tempo runs, nutrition, injury prevention, etc. -- the taper is the toughest to really hit successfully. Which is ironic, since (in theory, at least) it's the easiest part of the training calendar. Why is it so tough? Because it's a balancing act between running with just enough intensity to stay racing fit, but resting just enough to feel fresh for race day. Too much intensity in your running will leave you tired for the race. Too much rest and you'll feel flat. And that balance completely varies from person to person -- some people respond best to more rest, some people to more running. Oh, and to make matters even better, you've got all the psychological games going ...

This is the first in a hopefully-weekly segment covering the different workouts I'm doing as part of my race preparation. Before I get too far involved, I should mention my basic philosophy on workouts: no one workout is going to make your season; however, one overdone workout can ruin it . The key is to keep everything within a certain level of moderation (as Arthur Lydiard put it, "Train, don't strain") so that each successive workout builds on the previous one. A successful program of workouts should fit together like pieces of a puzzle, building the race you want to run when you want to run it. That said, I thought it'd be cool to give you an idea of the type of work I'm doing, the rationale behind it, and how it all fits together over the course of a season. WHAT'S THE WORKOUT? 4 x 2 Mile at around my lactate threshold (aka, tempo) pace on a bike path. Negative split the intervals as follows: #1 - 10:05-10:10; #2 - 10:00-10:05; #3 - 9:55-10:00; #4 ...