Instant Running?

I was "batching it" last week, as Suzanne was out of town at an internet telephony conference.  There are benefits and drawbacks to these one-week separations.  The benefit, I guess, you could say, is that I become sort of a hermit; I focus all of my attention on taking care of the dog, as well as my training runs/cross-training.  That meant I had to wake up early enough to feed and walk the dog before getting ready for work.  We do have a coffeemaker with a timer on it, which if I prepare accordingly will awaken me with the aroma of mountain-grown goodness.  Unfortunately, we ran out of "real" ground coffee and I had to settle for freeze-dried instant coffee. 

When you're desperate enough, even freeze-dried coffee tasted pretty darn good.  I wrote myself a little mental note: "stop at the local grocery by the gym; don't forget the beans, stupid."  But, naturally, all I wanted to do once my afternoon workout was completed was get home, change out of my wet soppies, feed the dog and grab a cold beer.  Each morning I kicked myself in the behind for my laziness.  Each evening I conveniently forgot the need to go to the store.  Until Suzanne got home and we needed to go shopping to replace the freezer-to-table, microwave-friendly entrees with frozen veggies, bread, meat, and our other "real" food staples.  Oh, and beer.

We are a lazy, "instant" generation.  I can hear all of the responses from here:  "Duh," you say.  Microwave ovens make freezer-to-table entrees possible for even the most ham-fisted and inept of cooks.  Writer/chef Anthony Bourdain dedicates a chapter in his book "Medium Raw" to the need for culinary literacy for all persons, not just married women.  Face it.  You never know when you're going to have to fend for yourself. 

But we always have a deadline standing in our face; a target which we need to hit at least once a year, sometimes twice.  How many persons do you know who race one event a year; train for six weeks, eight weeks, do the race, then nothing for the next 40. 

It happens every October in my workplace.  The training manager who works next to administers the twice-yearly fitness testing and weigh-in.  If I had a dollar for every time an instructor questioned him, "how soon do I have to be fit?"  Duh.  Isn't that part of your profession?  Aren't you supposed to be ready to go do your job whereever your employer (and mine) tells you? 

The great New Zealand running coach Arthur Lydiard didn't have a lot of nice things to say about American runners, which probably had a lot to do with the American "overnight success" mentality.  He said that to become a good runner (besides winning the genetics and parenting lotteries) it took "...a lot of hard work for five, six, or seven years.  There is no secret formula.  There is no shortcut..."

Unless you're participating in a program where there's at least one pop icon serving as a judge, I cannot think of any other "American Idol." "The Voice," or "X-Factor," I can think of no human endeavor where success occurs quickly or instantly.  Definitely not running, as I've seen while watching the ups and downs of guys like Dathan Ritzenhein.  Or in rehabilitation; my own stumbles and failures have made me much more compassionate, or at least emphathetic, to the struggles of persons who "would love to run" but are perplexed by physiological, psychological, or economic (and when I say economy, I'm talking time, which definitely is a limited commodity) barriers.

It's easy to go the "microwave" route and focus on running for that all-too-brief period of the year, ending up with something that really doesn't satisfy the taste buds and looks like, well, like something that's been microwaved.  There are smells, sights, sensations and feelings which can be found from running throughout the year...even if most of the mileage is done on a treadmill...which we all need to "read," to "loan out" to our friends, and perhaps to "write about" on occasion.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth? Quantity v. Quality Speedwork

During the "good old days" of speed workouts on the PJC or UWF track, before the rise to coach-dom (coach-dumb?) I gave little or no thought to the ratio or hard efforts to recovery. Well, it wasn't necessarily my job to think about it. That's why I had a coach, right? Over time, as I started to look at stuff like total mileage per workout, relative intensities, and my (decreasing as a result of the aging process) ability to recover from the workout, I began to ask "what is the right ratio of 'fresh,' 'good build-up,' 'good,' and even 'hard' efforts to recovery running?"

Of course, the ratio of each type of effort isn't etched in stone, but dependent on the individual runner's level of fitness - or tendency toward injury, their ability to recover from hard efforts - a function of fitness level, and race focus. Some coaches, like Arthur Lydiard, were all about the base training first, then adding speed. Others feel the other way around is best; work on speed once the initial race fitness is built, a fast short distance runner can become a fast long-distance runner over time. Once again, each runner is an experiment of one. I like the structure of base-building followed over time with a modicum of speedwork.

Still the question presents itself: How much speedwork is a good thing?

I first went back to my books to see what Jack Daniels' had to say. Daniels earlier plans in his first edition of the Running Formula broke things down into four cycles, for which I won't go into detail. If you want to read it I recommend a copy of his book, either in paperback or on e-reader.

I borrowed from his four sets of six-week training cycles to draw up my training for the next six months leading into a half marathon in late May. The first six weeks were mostly easy aerobic-paced runs. Once the second six-week cycle began, I plugged in runs at threshhold (what I used to call "fresh") pace, either as 400-meter, kilometer, or mile repeats with brief recovery periods, or as something Daniels called "cruise intervals," another nice term for tempo runs. Threshhold running, Daniels recommends, should be no more than about ten percent of the training volume. At this point that's only one speed workout a week.

The faster paces Daniels uses to work on VO2max, his "interval" and "repeat" paces, are also only small portions of the total training volume, that of eight percent and five percent, respectively. So, an experienced runner using any of Daniels' training plans would be doing not much more than ten miles a week in speedwork. Three-quarters of the time is spent running at either "easy," "long," or "marathon" pace.

I guess where I'm heading to with this is this:
There's a time and a place for the speed, but it's probably not as much as wethink we need.

Joggers? Welcome!

I showed up at the beach run last night to see a good friend in the parking lot. Ron had just returned from a six-week sojourn in Michigan. After the requisite insults and innuendo we started our trek on the six-mile loop, at a mutually-agreed upon pace; laughable for him, comfortable for me. I knew he was going to want to talk about his time in the Great White North, so the pace was soon to become one where I could speak little.

We initially joked about the weather conditions, which explain why I live in the South...

Ron: "I was scraping ice off my window two days ago."

Me: "The only glass. I want ice to touch. Is one filled. With unsweetened tea. Or an adult. Beverage of choice. Depends on time of day."

Ron then told me about a couple of track workouts he ran with a local running group, and the running club affiliated with the (multinational) company for which he was briefly employed.

"They said, 'oh, we have some really fast runners in this group. One of our guys ran a (blank)-minute 5K.' I went out running with him twice. The dude was a hockey player; in decent shape, but not really fast." Having seen his rear at more than my share of road races I know what Ron defines as "fast."

I responded, "Gee, thanks, Ron. Glad you're being. Nice to me. Since I haven't. Run that time. For 5K. Since my injury." At least he didn't call me "fat." Or a "jogger."

What is a jogger? Why is there this insulting connotation to a term which, to the majority of runners, seems as nebulous as a presidential definition of sex?

The English language has used the term "jog" to talk about movement (running included) since at least the mid-16th century. Arthur Lydiard made "jogging" popular in New Zealand during the early 1960s; fitness and sociability seemed to be the rationale for very easy running (defined by UK-based running coach Mike Antoniades as a pace slower than 10 minutes per mile). Bill Bowerman, coach of Steve Prefontaine, literally "wrote the book" on jogging and its benefits, way back in 1966.

The running philosopher Dr. George Sheehan, in 'Running and Being,' wrote "the difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank." If you started running because of an event put on by a running club, or you joined a running club which didn't exist before 1962, you most likely owe your running habit (obsession? routine?), and perhaps a word of thanks, to a jogger.

So where and why does the arrogance toward joggers exist in the running community? From what I've observed it certainly isn't the elite or former elite road racers who harbor such animosity, pity or contempt. One usually needs to look a little farther back in the pack than the elites, a little closer to the point where the bell curve starts to rise. These are the guys/gals who (often) didn't quite win the genetics, training, coaching, recovering or incentivizing lotteries...or didn't buy the ticket...and prefer to tell how good they could have, would have, should have been...and how others will never be.

In their mind, THEY are runners. Everyone else behind them are just joggers.

I've engaged in such arrogant behavior in the past. I've also been called out for it. There are values, assumptions and closed beliefs, bordering on the edge of dogma, which exist in the mind of the "jogger haters."

They (falsely) assume other persons are not exerting the effort they are, therefore they lack the desire and are "children of a lesser god." Boy, was I disabused of this assumption by my loving wife, a long time ago. She took me to task one night after a track workout, saying, "Michael, just because we're running our quarters a minute slower than you are doesn't mean we aren't working hard. Believe me, we are."

The value system also is different. "Real runners" consider their title earned because they are faster on race day. They consider themselves superior to those pitiable souls who are still plodding about on the course as they reach for their first post-race beer. Their medals, beer glasses and coffee mugs were hard-won, and sometimes, considered to be their right: Why go five-deep at a race? It's only the first three in the age group who should be lauded.

Then, there's the near-religious dogmatic belief that one particular training group, training plan, workout, magazine, shoe or nostrum is guaranteed to make a better runner. "If you really wanted to improve as a runner you would do exactly what I do, or train with my group, or do this particular workout. Because you don't I can only guess you are lazy or unmotivated." This point of view has probably been the most difficult for me to get past as a group coach. I have learned over time there are more viable obstacles than strictly:

1. "Parentism," the nearly-two-decade extension of the state of maternity
2. Education
3. Work, and
4. Citizenship.

I've heard excuses, and I've heard rationales over the past six years. After that period of time you smile, shake your head, and continue to promulgate an "open door" policy.

I only hope, on that "invisible door" of my life, there's a sign posted for all to "see:"

Joggers Welcome.