A Mind Is A Terrible Thing

The aches and pains have again returned, twelve weeks into my quest to become a "runner" once again.

Our bodies can clearly communicate the message we've done more damage to ourselves than eight hours of prophylactic sleep is going to repair. Some days, it takes a couple hundred milligrams of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories to do the trick. And on the worst days, perhaps even a bike ride rather than a run.

Like I've mentioned in past posts, when something like the little aches and pains return, it's wise to look back and see where the plan has been not followed. In this particular case it seems to have come over the last two weeks, when I increased my run times from 46 minutes to 50, and from 50 minutes to 55, following that "ten percent" rule of thumb.

However, I was doing it all wrong. I wasn't following my own counsel, and planned as though I was stronger than I truly was. I wrote in the past about the ten-percent increase at three week intervals, but figured I could do it at one-week intervals.

It's the sort of hubris which can turn a person, if they are not careful, into a former runner. John L. Parker, Jr. writes eloquently in his second work of fiction, "Again To Carthage," about the process of slowing down. In one chapter, two former Olympians, coach and athlete, talk about the marathon after a twenty-mile run, and the coach directly mentions one particular race he considered the probable cause for his relative debility.

How frightening is it to be able to look at a training log and say: 'right there?' I spend more time crawling within the recesses of my own head than probably the average bear. To borrow partly from an old public service advertising campaign, "a mind is a terrible thing..." Slowing down any more than I have in the past year doesn't frighten me. Stopping altogether does.

It's the reason I tell my own athletes to err on the side of caution.

It's the reason most good training plans are exactly that, plans. If they were supposed to be rigid, without adaptation, and guaranteed to succeed we probably would have called them training itineraries.

It's the reason rest, recovery and rehabilitation are underrated.

And, it's probably the reason the best cure for a bad day is another day. And another. And another.

15 Miles-A-Week To 26.2 In A Day: The Marathon Puzzle

This is part two of a response to a question I received in my personal e-mail from a reader:

"I have a question regarding your 10% increase every three weeks. How would this work if I were training for a marathon? Would I have to do a 20 mile run five times a week? I'm sure that can't be good for your legs. Do you have another training schedule that you recommend for marathons? Like your friend in the article I have also had IT band problems, which I believe was due to increasing my mileage too fast when training for my second marathon. Thanks for any help you can offer."

The previous post covered training plans I've recommended to my own athletes when they've considered running/racing a marathon. But the training plan only gets the athlete to the starting line, (ideally) healthy and ready to run a good 26.2 miles. A sensible pacing plan takes advantage of the smart training and lets the athlete perform up to their potential. Train hard/smart for 16-to-20 weeks, sacrifice family time, free time (morning, evening, weekends), and work time to get to the starting line, then go out the first five or six miles like a maniac? Never a good idea.

After I wrote the first post I sat down with an Excel spreadsheet to determine how long it would take to progress, given an approximate ten-percent increase in run duration/distance, from 20 minutes-a-day, six-to-seven days a week, to marathon training volume.

Before I start, let's come to a couple of understandings:

I've read of couch-to-marathon programs which -ideally - get the participant to the start line in 26 weeks. But I believe this shortchanges the runner on many fronts: They run the risk of overuse injury because of a very sudden increase in volume. They don't really learn to enjoy racing, racing etiquette, or what works and what doesn't on race day. And, there are so many different race distances and formats which are grossly overlooked...to many, it's either marathon or nothing.

In my humble opinion, it takes right on the verge of four years of consistent, (preferably) injury-free training to go from couch-to-marathon. Yes, that sounds elitist and discriminatory. I did my first marathon after only four months of "training;" I had a lot of fun, beat myself badly over the course of 26.2, and didn't run ANYTHING for ten years. It took another ten years for me to try another marathon, and STILL I did it wrong. I've been working the "marathon puzzle" ever since.

When it comes to the "marathon puzzle," every athlete is an experiment of one. I've drafted plans for both male and female runners, ranging in age from the mid-20s to the mid-40s, averaging four years of running experience. The athletes have been given free rein to adapt and adjust based on their own life constraints (treadmill adaptations for Canadian winters, for example...), and more often than not they've seen success...not so much because of my plan, but because of their hard work and consistency over time.

The only person who has ever failed on one of my plans is me (Chronic injuries and recovery issues have been my undoing - I'm not yet willing to admit I'm too brittle for the marathon.). Coaching, to me, is a zero-sum game: If I'm training well it's because I'm not paying attention to you. By "paying attention" I've helped four people finish iron-distance triathlons, four people to qualify for the Boston Marathon, and another four people to finish Boston. So I won't argue with the method/madness I've developed the past six years.

The Kindness of Strangers

"Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure." - Confucius (551-479 BCE)

I made a woman cry this weekend.

I told her something she didn't want to hear.

Before you consider me cold and heartless, let me tell you the front half of the story...

I was standing out in a grassy transition area with thousands of bicycles on racks all around me, watching athletes check in their bicycles for the Ochsner Ironman 70.3 New Orleans.

Many questions were asked of me: Where was the exit from the lake? Where would they enter the bike course? How would they return to transition? How would they start the half-marathon run? Most of the questions were not difficult, and it was my job to answer them, in the hope their race day would be less chaotic.

Two hours before transition was scheduled to close, the young lady showed up to check in her bicycle. Unfortunately, she forgot to place the number tag on the bike frame. "Sorry, we can't check in your bike," is the response she received from our crew.

Later in the weekend, as the sun encouraged a state of giddy delirium, the crew began to think unthinkable thoughts: What if a dishonest triathlete (A rhetorical question; I know of no dishonest triathletes...) were to peel the number off their less-expensive bike and place it on another, more-expensive bike? If volunteer workers weren't following instructions to the letter, or closely paying attention, there was the outside chance of a bike upgrade at the cost of a race entry. There was the method to our madness; we HAD to be certain the number on the athlete's wristband matched the number on the bike; no tag number on the bike meant we couldn't tell if the bike truly belonged in transition.

The crew asked her to see me.

She, an experienced triathlete, spent 20 dollars to bring her bike by taxi. Telling her "no" meant she had at least three 20-dollar cab rides on her evening agenda. (If I were a dishonest race volunteer, I would have asked for a kick-back from the cab company.) Was there any way possible for us to tag her bike frame and let her check the bike? She PROMISED she'd bring the tag in the morning.

Mind you, this was the tenth instance of "missing number" I encountered in six hours. If we had blank tags we might have been able to assist in this situation. But we didn't. I told her she had to go get her tag before I could check her bike.

The issue of pre-race preparation isn't strictly related to multisport athletes. Runners, too, can suffer the consequences of "transient brain flatus," "senior moments," or...more crudely put, "CRS." It's just that triathletes have so much more to "un-prepare" for than runners.

Or do they? Large road races like the Classic don't have expos ONLY because out-of-towners like my wife and I want to drink beer while picking up our race swag.

Race expos also exist because we leave our homes 15 minutes later than we originally planned, rushing to get to the race. We don't pack the night before. We don't use checklists. We don't prepare "the bag" with the extra socks, shorts, shirt, pins, number belt, hat, sunglasses, and so forth...much to our peril on race day. All I have to do is remember 2007's Classic, the wind and the cold in Tad Gormley Stadium, and the 20-dollar windbreaker...the picture becomes more clear.

Add to the sartorial preparation the physical, mental and emotional preparations (like previewing course maps, knowing terrain, training accordingly) which can mean the difference between success and failure, and Lord Baden-Powell's advice to the Boy Scouts rings more clearly. Be Prepared. Read the information on the race web site, the paperwork in the race packet, and the participant feedback from previous years, if it's available.

The individual racer can choose to slow down a little bit and prepare for race day (checklists, laying out items on the bed, dressing a stuffed animal, and so forth) so they don't have to pay a 300% "unprepared tax" and raise their blood pressure.

...So how does the story end?

Well, the young lady returned to transition with an hour to spare and her bike was checked in. She was in a much better mood, especially after I offered to give her a ride back to her hotel and we shared some of our "supplies" with her.

The next day, she ran through transition on her way onto the run course, yelling, smiling, and slapping me a high five.

What was that Tennessee Williams had Blanche Dubois say at the end of 'A Streetcar Named Desire?' "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."

Don't be forced to depend on the kindness. Be Prepared.

Being The Window

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history." - Dan Quayle

My wife has been blessed with an interesting skill. She writes a great deal about seemingly incompatible concepts like modern telephony/communications & their relationiship to anything else under the sun, & she does it with a style which highlights the underdog, the underappreciated, & the sometimes unseen members of the telecom world. She writes & markets to a degree which provides her the opportunity to interview or speak at major telecommunications conferences. Her greatest challenge is not always the naysayers or detractors in the industry, more often it is from the persons whose businesses have directly benefited, some to the tune over a couple of million dollars of income per year, by her efforts. It's particularly galling to hear those persons tell her, 'without me, you would not be who you are today.'

Stuff like that really gets under a guy's skin.

When I write about running & coaching, I try to use my foibles & mis-steps as an illustration of what not to do in their training. More often than not, I also provide these 'sea stories' to my own athletes & hope they will take them to heart. It warms my heart - after the initial fear I am about to be pummeled - to be accosted in a local bar & complimented on what I've done for a particular runner. Mark Twain was reported to have said, 'I can live for two weeks off a good compliment.' But, I've told many a person who has complimented me: 'all I do is provide the workouts.'

Regardless of who the coach is, or how much they're getting paid, it's still up to the individual runner to do the work. I can't go out & run the race for them. If I could, in a number of cases, the outcome might have been a little different. In some cases, I've heard friends & loved ones place all of the credit on the athlete, when I've known well how much hard work their coach put into polishing up raw talent & untapped potential.

This morning, as my wife was talking about something business-related, preparing for a virtual conference, I reminded her all she needed to do was be the window. What makes a window most effective is the fact it is there, solid, but allows light to shine through...an especially interesting analogy during the winter holiday season, when many put up twinkling lights & garland. It's not so much the window that is beautiful, but the things which are placed which draw the onlookers' attention. When we draw too much attention to ourselves we can affect the view through...I think stained glass is marvelous & it makes sunlight look nifty, but I've never seen a stained glass window I could see through.

So, if you know of someone who has helped in some way to make you what you are, take the time to thank them. But don't be fooled into thinking it was all them...or all you.

Humiliation as a Means of Teaching Humility?

Well, lately it's become painfully obvious to me people (Other than my family - thanks, Dad, for the compliments! I guess you've read enough stuff in the past seventy years to know what you're talking about...) do follow what I write here. So what if the blog is dull? Just because I write here doesn't mean I possess expertise or claim accomplishment at ANYTHING. (There are plenty of self-absorbed bloggers in this world who use their space as a cathartic. why should I be less worthy of that opportunity?) I have no corner on deep secret wisdom with regard to swimming (as my swim coach could tell you!), cycling, or running...it's my way of thinking about what a lot of smart(er) people have theorized, hypothesized, analyzed, pasteurized & cannibalized...trying to boil it down into a (hopefully) more entertaining format. If I could do it in as witty a manner as Chuck (Chuckie V.) Velyupek I might have a few more friends, or at least fewer detractors.
That having been said, it was interesting to read Shane Bacon's article in Yahoo Sports this morning:

"There are times to be competitive. Moments when all you want to do is humiliate your opponent as you defeat him. It's the nature of sports, and what our internal competition meters usually read. That, we all know, is how athletes feel most of the time. But, at times, and these are few and far between, we see acts that defy wins and losses. A moment when a girl is brought in on crutches to score a layup to break a record or someone being carried around the field after she twisted her ankle rounding the bases. Opponents coming together to transcend the game. That is what happened between two collegiate golfers, vying for a spot in the NAIA National Championship. A sophomore at the University of St. Francis had locked up a spot in nationals with his team, which won the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship, but was in a playoff against an Olivet Nazarene golfer for individual honors. As championships go, both the winning team and winning individual are asked to move on to nationals, so if the St. Francis golfer won the playoff against the Olivet golfer, he'd be honoring both spots. What happened next is the type of stuff movies are made about. The St. Francis golfer stood over his tee shot on the first playoff hole, looked down the fairway and back at his ball, and hit it 40 yards right of the fairway, out of bounds by a mile. He made double bogey, the other golfer made par, and Olivet Nazarene had a man in nationals. What makes it so incredible?

The St. Francis golfer felt his opponent had earned a spot in the next round.

"We all know him very well, and he not only is a very good player, but a great person as well. He’s a senior and had never been to nationals. Somehow, it just wasn’t in my heart to try to knock him out. I think some people were surprised, but my team knew what I was doing and were supportive of me. I felt he deserved to go (to nationals) just as much as I did. It was one of those things where I couldn’t feel good taking something from him like this. My goal from the start was to get (to nationals) with my team. I had already done that."

Too many times we read about cheap shots or fights or cheaters, and it is stories like this that make it all seem petty. A golfer simply knew his place, was comfortable with where he was, and thought that a senior, playing in his final tournament as a collegiate golfer, had done enough to earn one more week with the game he loved. I'm not a big believer in karma, and I'm sure the story won't end the way it should, but if the St. Francis golfer somehow won nationals, it would make for a really nice screenplay. He did what most of us would never do, and although he is short a trophy in his case, he earned respect from anyone reading this story." One thing I will never be accused of is sugar-coating my own foibles. I lay out my mistakes & weakesses, my warts & battle scars, all to hopefully save some other well-intentioned runner or entry-level triathlete from falling down the same storm drains from which I continually extricate myself. I think some of the more critical followers of me & this blog fail to read (the same way we mindlessly sign the waiver on race entry forms...but that's another topic altogether...) the disclaimer I shamelessly adapted/borrowed from Canadian Olympic/ITU triathlete & two-time Olympic medalist Simon Whitfield:

Whatever is said here - as with any blog/"tweet"/mountain top announcement - is an opinion, a perspective, a rant, a cry for help; some innocent chest-thumping, painfully-inane humour, useless/useful banter and/or all of the above. Take all that is written within with the amount - grain, shake, shaker or entire box - of salt to make it palatable. Heck, you can even apply that to this disclaimer.
Even the title of this blog is a proviso: I've had many runners ask me questions about training specifics, injuries & events; the first words out of my mouth have always been, 'if I were your coach...' Some even follow & appreciate the advice; a few have even had some success (Ironman finishes & Boston qualifications)...every once in a blue moon I even receive a public thanks...which means a great deal to me.

What I write here is not the sum total of all my foibles, weaknesses & shortcomings. If I were to do that people would mistake me for a negative whiny-butt...& then nobody would ever read it, including my parents. So I really don't feel the need to be more humble, & those who consider it their mission in life to publicly humiliate me...save your efforts.

My friendly neighborhood swimming pool is humility-check enough.

Things Which Make You Go "Hmm..."

Thing 1 (...which has nothing to do with The Cat In The Hat...):
A brief trip to the men's facilities in my office building reminded me of something I observed last week, but didn't have the chance to talk about. So, I'll talk about it here.

It's nothing off-color or bad. Just something to make you scratch your head in wonder, or say to yourself: 'dude, why didn't I think of that?'

I think it was in the men's room of either the Mellow Mushroom or Pineapple Willy's in Panama City Beach. In fact, it was the 'Shroom, because I didn't hit the 'head' anywhere else I can recall...Senator.

Okay. The urinals in the mens' room (I don't think there are urinals in ladies' rooms, but if there are, I don't want to know...) had the rubber/plastic screen to keep cigarette butts & various/sundry debris out...imprinted with the name & phone number of a local urological practitioner.

Whodathunkit?

Thing 2 (...still, nothing to do with TCITH...):

Went to the local running emporium yesterday afternoon to have a chat with the proprietor about stuff, provide a post-mortem of what went awry, talk about the way forward, & assure him I had not fallen off the face of the earth. Darned if Mark wasn't setting up a bike fit, & John Murray, a local swim impressario (who did an open-water swim seminar a month ago at the store) was up taking care of business.

John has an understanding of cardiac issues, so when I told him the tale he shook his head knowingly. Something he said made perfect sense. Actually another one of those things which make you go, 'hmm...'

"No athlete minds having an event named in their memory; the hard part is you have to die to earn it."

Thing 3 (...which has much to do with Thing 2, but nothing to do with the aforementioned Cat...and how many card-carrying, hat-wearing cats have you met?)

While discussing the way forward, event-wise, I started to mention my thoughts about doing a marathon in eight weeks, just down the road in Mobile. However, as the words began to come out of my mouth, I realized the unrealistic expectation I would place on myself. I then said: 'y'know, John...I'm worried that if I set myself up for failure on the marathon; have a bad day, get injured, or whatever...it will be impossible for me to train for the events I know I can accomplish.'

So, today, I'm reading an on-line article from some Ironguides cat (well, a coach!) by the name of Vinnie Santana, who's talking about letting your competition beat themselves rather than you doing the deed. What I borrowed (okay, stole!) from Vinnie was this:

"Training too hard too close to your big race is a mistake. If you really want to perform on that specific day, you should be training “hard” for months and months before it - even years depending on what your goals are (N.B.: Okay, I've told my athletes this in the past...). Doing a six-week training camp will only create a load your body is not used to. And those...tend to get back into training too soon & train too hard....It is extremely difficult for a working age grouper, in many ways, to do...in such a short time bracket....athletes put too much pressure on themselves, which kills their confidence & they just quit the race before they have even started. Athletes might compare their training performance...realize they are going slower which can be a result of deep fatigue instead of a lack of fitness per se or life circumstances that are not 100% optimal & think it is better to just wait for another opportunity."

Waiting for another opportunity. Sounds simple, but very few listen to that simple advice. And as Tom Petty sang, the waiting is the hardest part.

Get Up And Do It Again, Amen...

(PROBABLY SOMEWHERE NEAR FIRST YELLOW MARKER BUOY, UPPER CENTER)

I received an e-mail (one of many from friends and family, wondering what the hell happened and whether I was all right) the day after IM Florida from a friend of mine, Mark Sortino. Mark's an experienced triathlete; he's finished multiple IM events & qualified for his first trip to Kona at IM Louisville last August. He's one of the smarter tri-geeks I've met in the past few years. He has never hesitated to provide advice, counsel, a pat on the back or a dusting off of the bike shorts to less-experienced wanna-be tri-geeks like me. He's a F.I.S.T.-certified fitter who does bike fitting on the weekends at the local running emporium; our initial 90-minute fit session turned into a two-plus-hour discussion on nutrition, technique & the mental side of triathlon.

Mark's blog is always insightful & a lot of fun to read, because he's not talking about the nuts & bolts of training & racing all the time. He likes to look at the lifestyle part of being a tri-geek, too. When I say lifestyle I mean the balance of work, family, training & competition. He's got it fairly down pat from what I can tell, & has no problem putting things into proper perspective. The video clips taken by his wife Andi after he finished Kona said much more than thousands of words of written commentary; the mix of joy in achieving something that very few people do (complete IM Hawaii) & disappointment in not being able to give the performance he really wanted to on the day (because you never know if you'll make it there again) was palpable.

So when Mark's e-mail came into my inbox I took the time to really read through it. Not only did he knock the dust off my bike shorts but provided a little nudge (in the direction of my swim gear, mind you!) to get back on the horse that threw me.

It's hard to think about the existential 'now what?' when you're five or six hours out from sitting on the tailgate of an EMS truck on the beach with a tech worrying over you with a heart rate monitor, pulse oximeter & stethoscope. The perspective doesn't exist there...add a few more hours of hearing Mike Reilly welcome someone else into the IM family as you're going to pick up your crap in transition. That's something which hurts like a punch in the ribs. Even then the perspective is still far down the road.

I stood out on the run course outside the Mellow Mushroom, after my beer & salad, watching the athletes come through on the first - some on their second - loop. I had the privilege to see my friend & (part-time) business/training partner come through the first loop:

Steve - 'What are you doing here? What happened?'

MB - 'Bad day, dude. Now, go finish this thing!'

The perspective usually comes as a result of the same cycle a'la Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' death/dying/grief cycle: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Kubler-Ross' stages don't progress in any particular sequence, which is a good thing...'cause I think I shot right past Bargaining. IM doesn't allow you to bargain after you are on the shore, the side of the road, or in a medical tent/emergency room.

No. There is Bargaining: 'Get me out of this alive & I'll do it right next time.'

Denial: 'I cannot believe I busted my chops for all these months & still got my butt kicked.'

Anger: 'I hate myself for not putting in more open water time. I still can't swim!'

Depression: 'I don't want to be near anyone; I'm ashamed of my failure.'

Acceptance: 'IM is not easy. If it were everyone would do it. This year wasn't your time.'

The beginning of the closure from my bad day came as Steven finished. His family, my wife & I were standing at the beginning of the finish chute & cheered like crazy people. Hey, the company had a fifty-percent success rate on the day.

I had a brief thirty-minute temper tantrum the next morning as I saw all the finisher shirts/hats/acoutrement & thought to myself: 'dude, that should have been you.' But it was balanced with the ER physician's comment: 'you probably made the right decision today.'

Today. It all boils down to today. And today. And today. And today.

So, I feel much better today. I've got a few hundred more of those on the way to the next stop on the journey.

And maybe I'll have a better today in the Gulf of Mexico on a November morning two years from today.

Thanks, Mark. Thanks also to my long-suffering wife, Suzanne...you didn't panic or freak out through the whole ordeal. We'll do it right this next time.

Why, Why, Why, Why, Why?

Last week, I saw a Facebook status for my friend Jean Knaack. She serves as executive director for the national running organization I represent. On top of this, she has a husband & two young children & has done several Ironman triathlons. Jean & her husband recently returned from Ironman France in Nice. She posted her race report on Facebook & said something along the lines of ‘hardest race I’ve ever done...not certain whether I’ll do another…’ I responded by congratulating her, & added, ‘I bet you register for another IM in a few weeks.’

When I saw Jean's 'registered for another IM event' status on Facebook I could not help but let out a solid guffaw. There's no way she could duck the challenge of another cycle of training and travel which makes directing a non-profit, or being a wife & mother, any less simple. But, when you see someone’s eyes light up about the journey to the starting line, like Jean's did when Suzanne & I talked with her last spring, you know they are the type of person who continually needs a challenging, yet attainable goal before them. Probably that little extra oomph to get them out of bed in the morning.I know; sometimes even a big event or two on the horizon might not be able to get you out of bed (like me this morning). But...we set goals to guide what we should be/do (daily or twice-daily workouts, rest, recovery, massage, etc.), & sometimes even to remind us what we need to avoid (junk food, stressful situations, etc.) so the vision becomes our reality. Like intermediate points on a long journey, our big, audacious end-state goal should have short-term points (short races, key workouts) so we know we’re on the right path...and if we're not, they should be early enough in the training cycle that we can adjust accordingly and still benefit from the change.
Jordan Metzl, MD, recently wrote in Triathlete magazine about a benefit of goal-setting: ‘What I tell my patients is to set a goal and work toward it. I generally find that it doesn’t matter what the sport or level of athlete is; from triathlon to ballroom dancing, everyone needs a goal. Athletes who exercise just to exercise, without a specific goal in mind, are much less productive than those who set goals.’

Not only are we more productive, we’re less likely to overtrain or over-race. If our focus is on a long-distance triathlon, we work on our endurance by engaging in steady state runs & bike rides; swim longer intervals & do what it takes to toughen ourselves mentally in order to go anywhere from 4-to-17 hours...depending on the event. Marathoners will run up to 150 minutes on those long run days, just to get time on the feet. Some pros do what is known as a metric marathon (26.2 kilometers, or 16.2 miles) late in the training phase. All they want to do is simulate the event by doing 60 percent of the distance. And we can probably say without a doubt recovering from an effort of a particular distance is easier than the distance plus 25-to-50 percent.

If you want to know what the real reason for something is, or a real root cause for a failure, take the time to ask why five times, at the very least. For example:

Runner: I want to train for a marathon, but I want to do 20-milers as part of the training plan.

Coach: Why do you want to do 20-milers as part of marathon training, when most of the good programs I've studied & coaches I've consulted consider 16-mile long runs long enough?

Runner: I don't think the 16-milers I did training for my last marathon were sufficient.

Coach: Why do you say the performance in your second marathon ever was insufficient?

Runner: I didn't run the marathon as well as I wanted to. (Never mind the warm/humid weather conditions on race day & other factors out of his control.)

Coach: Why do you want to improve your marathon performance?

Runner: I want to finish in a time which will qualify me to run the Boston Marathon.

Coach: Why do you want to run Boston?

Runner: I don't want to run Boston. I just want to run a time that will qualify me for Boston.

When you look at the underlying reason the runner wants to train in a particular manner, is the goal relevant? Did the runner set the bar too high?

When the coach asks the fifth why, about the goal event, then walks backward 20-to-24 weeks, he finds the athlete has three one-week holiday trips during which the coach knows no trainng whatsoever will occur. And that's just a best-case scenario. At that point, the athlete either needs to think about another goal event, adjusting his training cycle further out to make up for the lost training opportunity, or lowering his expectations.

Ask Coach: What Do I Need to Change To Stay Injury-Free?

I have been suffering from an overuse injury. What do I need to change to stay injury free?

Overuse injuries are caused by not listening to your body (or to your coach). You need to be smarter than your ego. You can do this by:

SETTING A GOAL that is specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, & time-specific (in this case, performance in a particular race). Every training plan, regardless of the author, begins with a specific end in mind (which, by the way, author Steven Covey says is the first habit of highly effective people).
DEVELOPING A PLAN once you have the goal set. This means walking backward from the target race week anywhere from 18 to 24 weeks; 18 for 5K, 24 for marathons. Divide the plan into four phases. The first phase, Foundation, is where you establish the training routine, with lots of easy (aerobic) pace running. The second phase is where you begin to work on the mechanics of faster running; learning to run as efficiently as possible with a minimum of stress. Phase three is where you begin to stress different energy systems (the anaerobic & ATP/CP) & begin to challenge yourself with hard(er) efforts. The final phase is where you take care of the final details which prepare you for that goal race.
FOLLOWING THE PLAN but adapt your training as necessary. When I talk about adaptation, usually I mean to the more kind & gentle…rarely, if ever, does a workout get ramped up in intensity. It’s more likely to be scaled down. If you’re beat-up, take a day off. I CANNOT OVERSTRESS THIS: IF YOU ARE BEAT-UP, SORE, OVER-TIRED OR INJURED, TAKE A DAY OFF.
RECOVERING FROM THE GOAL RACE (or any race, for that matter) is included. The rule of thumb is a day of no activity for every hour of racing, followed by a day of easy running for every mile of racing. A person who runs a 40-minute 10-kilometer race should take the next day off completely, followed by six days of easy running. If it’s the goal race, it’s time to set a new goal & develop a whole new training cycle from the beginning. Plugging in periods of easier running, active rest or complete rest altogether between training cycles will keep you from getting injured, & from getting burned out.
Specific goal-setting & laying out a plan in macro will keep you from going out & running on the wrong surfaces, or the wrong terrain, or at the wrong intensity for too long a period of time. Even if your race focus is on early September 5Ks, the first week of aerobic-paced running in an 18-week training cycle would commence this week.

I’ve been working on “plug & play” training plans which focus on specific distances, which I can adapt to the individual athlete’s personal schedule. Talk to me so I can help you fill in the details.