Me Against The Watch

Before I start talking about the main topic, I have to confess this time of year, with a lead-in to another Olympic Games, is a sports junkie's dream.  It has been good for my recovery.  I’ve initiated my own little ‘occupy the couch’ movement with the US Olympic swimming and track/field trials, topped by the Tour de France as the background. 

While many of the participants of the larger ‘occupation’ movements were nebulous in what they desired, I have two goals:  The first goal is to let the lingering tendonitis in my ankles and knees completely heal.  It’s simple:  The only way to recover from an overuse injury is not to overuse what gets injured.  The second goal is to motivate myself into a frenzy of smart training once the Olympics are over.  It’s still going to be infernal, but I have a gym membership and a flexible schedule, so early morning and late evening training is not a problem.

Track and field events, and the Tour de France cycle race, have more in common than the average television spectator might guess, for a number of reasons:  When there are preliminary and semi-final heats at a track meet, the goal of most every athlete is to finish either in a position where they automatically qualify for the next round or in as fast a time as possible to be selected.  Does the athlete necessarily want to finish in first place?  All they need to do is exert just enough energy to qualify, save their energies for the final heat when a win means something. 

During the years when Lance Armstrong won seven Tours de France, he didn’t win every single stage.  He’d win a mountain stage here, and a road stage there; he would finish consistently close enough to the front of the pack every time he was on the road. 

There were races during the Olympic Trials, like the final of the women’s 5,000-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase, where the leading runners not only had to win (or finish in the top three) to qualify, but also had to push the pace of the race in order to make the Olympic qualifying standard.  Some of the athletes collaborated with training partners and co-competitors to ensure a fast pace.  Others felt the need to go “off the front” and do it alone. 

Road stages of the Tour de France (and other cycling races) are a collaborative effort between teams and individual riders, both to push the pace or to hold the pace back…depending on their own best interests.  But there also is what is known in cycling as the race of truth.  Many stage races, including the Tour de France, begin with a short prologue individual time trial and also have one or two longer individual time trials during the course of the event.  The ‘race of truth’ sorts the good from the great athlete.  A rider can win a grand tour without being a great individual rider but there’s no way to win without being a good individual rider.  The time trial exposes every weakness in training, more so than the typical mass-start race.  There’s nobody to hide behind; no teammate to help pick up the pace should they falter. 

For runners, it’s more difficult is it to run a race going off the front alone without a supportive pacer than as part of a pack of individuals with near-identical fitness.

I trained under a coach who (i know) adjusted my training efforts based on recent racing results.  I never did time trials on my own because I ran at a level where I was out of reach of the really good runners and ahead of the slower ones…after the first mile of a race I was usually in “no-man’s land.”  But, when training a runner who is focused on, say, the half-marathon or the marathon, I like to schedule a 5,000-meter time trial on the roads to judge their fitness and make adjustments to their training paces.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be an organized 5K race (although I prefer a certified course), and it might not be until somewhere around six-to-twelve weeks out, but I prefer a course which resembles the terrain or conditions for their target event.

The goal of the time trial is either to run it at a slightly faster pace than the previous time trial, or to run it at the same time, but with a lower perceived effort.  If the athlete’s previous 5K time trial was at a pace where a few seconds of improvement will move them to a higher Daniels’ VDOT score, and subsequently faster training paces, I prefer the “same time at less effort” result.  Just like “heat racing,” the goal is not to light the fuse for a fantastic short race effort six, eight, or ten weeks out from the longer target event, but to develop the runner’s confidence; hiding an “extra gear” inside their head which they can save for race day.  It's the sum total of good runs, rather than a single great workout surrounded by a bunch of crappy ones, which are going to help define a running performance.

Finding The Sweet Spot

"These sudden joys have sudden endings. They burn up in victory like fire and gunpowder. . . . Too fast is as bad as too slow."
--"Romeo and Juliet," Act 2, Scene 6 (William Shakespeare, ca. 1597), in modern English.

My loving wife often warns me about what she calls "hobby-horses." She knows I tend to be fixated to the verge of obsession on certain topics. When I served as RRCA state rep for North Florida, headphone use was my "hobby horse." I've had other "hobby horses," too, but the headphone thing was most-notable.

I've talked a lot about treadmill running with people who hate treadmills. Some of them are folks who say TMs are no good for training, others don't like the boredom factor. Since late November, I've done every weekday run, including speed workouts, on a treadmill. True, the TM can be breathtakingly boring, but they let me control many training variables. I can adjust one variable at a time and see how my body reacts, or I can end the workout the instant my tendons are in distress.

The initial 35-minute runs are now 60-minute runs, averaging eight minutes per mile. The good news is I'm near the training volume where I was when I was running six days a week and racing once every three months. But the ache in my back and hips is not so good.

It's not the shoes - the oldest of my three pairs has somewhere between 260-270 miles on them, with the newest pair less than thirty. Could it be the treadmill? The "Gait Guys" wrote an article for Triathlete magazine; they warned readers about how a treadmill can adversely affect a runners' gait.

After reading the research by University of Virginia physical therapist Jeff Dicharry, I called the overwhelming majority of the "Gait Guys" article bupkis. Except for that "downhill" thing.

Like a road or trail surface, the feel and comfort of a treadmill varies by manufacturer, model, and even the machine's installation. Ed W. sees treadmills and elliptical trainers as warm-up, not the workout itself...that means run/tri guys like me are not his gym's typical customers. The treadmills in his cardio area are on solid rubber flooring, and thick rubber matting supports his lobby area TMs. There might be a slight slope in the lobby naturally; all the lobby treadmills seem to have this feeling like one is running slightly downhill.

The "Gait Guys" say the downhill sensation is caused by the "pull" of the belt on the runner's lower extremity, in contrast to the "push" of the lower extremity on the ground surface. They say it affects the gait; Dicharry has proven whatever variations exist (in 40 percent of runners) are so miniscule that to tell the difference it requires equipment which exists in only two sports labs in the country.

So, runners who sense that "downhill" feeling on the TM may benefit from an elevation tweak of 0.5-to-1.0 percent. I've tried both; for me a 0.5-percent adjustment is enough to take away that sensation.

The cause of the hip ache is simple - spin class on the "off" days. The exercise bicycle in the gym cannot be adjusted as readily as a "real" bike, or like a "spinning" bike. Different movement patterns cause musculoskeletal aches and soreness.

Any runner who has ever tried to run a pace that is too slow for their comfort has probably found out too late the error of their ways. I like to tell the tale of running with Suzanne at Honolulu's Ala Moana Park in January 2008; a solid minute-to-two-minutes-per-mile decrease in pace left me hobbling after the third day. A pace that is much slower than a runner's intrinsic efficiency forces major gait adjustment, either in stride length or stride duration. A shorter stride length is not biomechanically injurious; a longer stride duration means a longer period of compression time for the large muscle groups and joints. Drive with your shock absorbers compressed beyond their normal range for an extended period of time is most likely going to shorten their lifespan.

So, perhaps it's possible not only for a runner to go at a pace that is too fast - leading to fatigue, overstriding, a compensated gait pattern, and heel-striking - but also too slow on a treadmill.

How can a runner determine what are good training paces for treadmill runs, without going into a lot of trial and error? There are a couple of really good on-line calculators developed by some of the nations' best running coaches (e.g., McMillan, Daniels) which provide optimal pace ranges for easy runs, recovery jogs, and speed work of varying degrees.

I used my Daniels VDOT training pace for easy/long runs as the starting point for treadmill runs. After a time it appears the easy/long run pace is too slow. So, I will probably start at the "marathon pace," a little closer to 7:30/mile, and adjust downward until I find the least uncomfortable pace which doesn't feel too slow.

That's why the later editions of Running Formula, and McMillan's calculator, have pace ranges, because there will always be a sweet spot at each of the intensities which feel best for the individual runner. While running too fast on the treadmill can injure a runner, too fast is no more injurious than running too slow.

Twenty Minutes To (More) Speed - Tempo Runs

Everyone has seen this runner: They toe the line at the local 5,000-meter race, go out at 6:30 pace for the first mile, subsequently slowing down to 7:30 pace on the third one. When you approach their gasping form as they hang onto a signpost, they tell you, 'I could have raced this one, but this was only a tempo run.'

Oh? Really?

When I coached weekly workouts it was my "job" to provide training which worked as many energy systems as possible.

(ED. COMMENT: My coach reminded me we used to do tempo runs as part of the group's training, for which he is correct...a few things changed some over the course of a few years...sometimes change does not always move toward the more beneficial.)

One day a week we did a lot of aerobic-to-threshold-pace stuff at a short (one-to-two-minute) duration. The second workout of the week consisted of efforts lasting anywhere from two-to-five minutes. Several members of the training group liked the longer repeats a great deal. But it was difficult to encourage tempo running as a solo workout outside of training sessions.

I didn't run regular tempo workouts, either. Yes, there were the occasional "anti-social" Wednesday evening beach runs, where I'd go out at a low-seven-minute pace for as long as my lungs could stand, then push a little harder for the last three miles. But it wasn't until I became treadmill-bound and more-closely focused on my own training I started to look a little more closely at the tempo run.

Most recreational runners don't like tempo running; I'm not certain if it is because they don't know what pace to run, they think tempo runs are too painful, or they'd much rather socialize during their runs. But I can tell you they're missing out on some free speed at a low (time) cost-to-(speed) benefit ratio.

First, let's look at what constitutes a tempo run. Dr. Jack Daniels, in "Running Formula," says that (ideally) twenty (to-thirty) minutes of steady running at threshold pace is a tempo run. That's twenty minutes of steady running at an effort level where our body uses the lactate as fast as it is produced from carbohydrate metabolism during physical exercise.

For example, a person who runs a 21-minute 5,000-meters would - according to Daniels - run tempo runs at about 7:10/mile pace (for those who speak treadmill, that's about 8.4 mph). If you still don't have a copy of "Running Formula," never fear. Take your 5,000-meter race pace per mile and add 25-30 seconds.

Are tempo runs painful? I will say they are no easy, breezy walk in the park. After running my first tempo run in about a year - and my first tempo run on a treadmill - my average heart rate was about five beats higher across the board, and my max heart rate near the end was just shy of 85 percent of maximum. For those runners who prefer to not inflict twenty minutes of "comfortably hard" effort on themselves, Daniels recommends what he calls "cruise intervals" of one-mile or ten-minutes, broken up with 30-to-60-seconds of recovery.

Another challenge of tempo running comes from having the right course. The right circuit or course can make all the difference. If your favorite training stretch - for example, from the hotel where Suzanne and I like to stay to Audubon Park and back - has a lot of intersections and traffic, it's easier for me to run "cruise intervals." A good, lightly-trafficked and distance-marked loop or bike path, like the 4.25-mile or 5.8-mile loops on Pensacola Beach, are good for tempo work. Levees and rails-to-trails are also good.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a solitary affair. Social runners who are at or near the same ability level can work together and ensure the run tempo does not slack off.

Tempo work is probably one of the most under-appreciated, and under-used, workouts which are available to the self-coached runner. The only things necessary for longer-distance speed gains are to know the proper pace, set aside twenty quality minutes, and keep pushing the entire piece.

Treadmills - We're Talking "Circus Animal Stressful"

One of my fellow running bloggers from the New Orleans area, Jenny, asked me this question:

"A friend and I were discussing road vs treadmill running and wondering why we can run at 6mph on road but on the treadmill run at 5.2mph and get tired much quicker? Have you ever done a blog on that phenomenon ? LOL :) I figured you would be the one who knew best."

When my friends Betsy and Aaron Boudreaux come visit and we go out for a run, I swear she can tell the slightest elevation variance on what I would consider a fairly flat road. I guess that's what happens when you live in a city which is laid out like a soup bowl. What I see as normal near-level terrain she notices as a rise in elevation.

Dr. Jack Daniels talks about the difference between TM and road in the most recent edition of "Running Formula." In fact, he has a series of charts which equate TM pace/elevation to road pace. From what I can tell, most of the possible reasons for this phenomenon all seem to boil down to variation, or the lack of it.

Pace - If you refer back to the comment by Jay Dicharry, PT, which I shamelessly ripped out of that "Running Times" video, It might have to do with the fact there's no pace variation to speak of when you use a TM. We might 'average' 6 on the road it might vary from 5.5 to 6.5.

Equipment - Some TMs are more accurate in their measure of a "mile" than others. If you take a wheel and measure the TM belt, then run it for a minute at 7.5mph, ideally, you should get APPROXIMATELY .125 miles.

Environment -It's harder to stay comfortable running indoors on a TM compared to running outside on your favorite pathway. While we can control (to a degree) the elements in which we run on a TM, especially if it's bitter cold, raining or freaking windy outside, but what we lose in nasty weather we also lose in that cooling airflow we experience in the great outdoors.

Add to that controlled environment the joy-killing factor of boredom. Even though some of the best-equipped gyms have televisions/DVD players/music, the unnatural act of running on a moving belt is mentally stressful. Think circus animal stressful. There's only so much a guy/gal can do to dissociate, so mental discomfort soon leads to physical discomfort.

Now that you've got me to thinking about a run, it might be a good idea for me to grab my stuff in the bag by my coffee pot here at work and get out on the chip trail before the weather turns nasty again.

Happy Christmas to all of you!

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.

The One Book

My wife, Suzanne, received an e-book reader for her most recent birthday. She naturally was pleased to have the new acquisition, graciously offered to let me load books on it, and use it at my convenience.


Ah, but that's the way she is.


She's downloaded a couple of business and marketing books and a few biographies from the Barnes and Noble site. She's able to tuck the reader in her carry-around bag, mark passages she likes, and have hundreds of books - all that information - in one little place.


I, on the other hand, like paper and binding and glue and thread. I am 'old school.' I like the heft of a good history text. It doesn't necessarily mean I'll carry it with me the entire semester but it will stay opened on my work desk until I've taken all the notes I need. It then fills up another bookshelf and makes people think I'm more of an intellectual than I truly am.


There is at least one book, however, I would love to have available everywhere I am but don't want to risk damaging my paperback copy.

If I were forced to buy (again!) only one book (either for downloading to an e-reader, or in paper form) it would have to be Daniels' Running Formula.


Dr. Jack Daniels has been described as "America's Greatest Running Coach." There are great athletes - including several Olympians - who have made a successful transition from athlete to coach. But the list comes few and far between. Not every gifted athlete makes a great coach. Sometimes the smart, physically-limited athlete knows how to tap into the head of their charges. That's what makes a great coach, in my humble opinion.

But where many coach-turned-authors seem to lack bonafides, Daniels brings both personal performance - two Olympic medals as part of the US team in the modern pentathlon (a combination of swimming, equestrian, pistol shooting, fencing and cross-country running), academic credentials - a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, and outcomes - team and individual national championships, and All-American distinctions in cross-country - to the table.


If a self-coached runner is willing to take the time and effort to carefully read through Formula - don't be scared by the mathematical calculations for VDOT at the front end - they can put together a reasonable training plan based on several past race performances, as well as their goal event/s. I like to use the VDOT chart to divide my own training group into smaller ability groups based on a 5K or 10K time. The VDOT chart not only helps to predict performances at other distances (once the other variables are equalized), but provides insight to proper pacing efforts for long runs, threshold runs, and interval workouts. I like to borrow from the pace charts for my "longer repeat" workout day of the week: I might assign an early-to-mid-season workout to a runner with a VDOT score of 38, (a 3:29 marathoner), of 6-to-8 400-meter repeats at "threshold" pace...which is 1:51 for a 400, or a 7:25 mile, with a minute recovery.

Daniels provides plans for runners who are focused on short track racing (800 to 1500 meters), as well as the 5k, 10k, half-marathon and full marathon. Naturally, the plans can be adapted to fit the schedule of the (often) time-constrained runner; don't have enough time to run all those 'easy' paced runs? Schedule the quality training efforts first, then fill in the remainder of the week with the easier efforts.

Regardless of whether you download a copy to an e-reader or you purchase a hard-copy for your library, Daniels' training and racing guidance is probably the next best thing to a coach's advice a runner can have at their fingertips.

Back In The Fight

Three weeks. That's an important period of time.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago why 21 days can be crucial for women starting a training program - even if it doesn't have anything to do with running. That's how long it takes for the first positive physical changes to show. A person who has done only one workout without changing the duration or intensity for that period of time will no longer gain any benefit from it. Of course, I don't know anyone who would do that. Or do I?

I actually have a friend who does the same 5,000-meter course, day in and day out. He came to me once and asked why he couldn't improve his race performances. I took a deep breath, then recommended he consider doing a long, easy run once or twice a week. At first, you would have thought I demanded he sell his mother to the gypsies. He thought about it, told me he'd give it some thought, then continued eating his lunch.

But, getting back to 21 days...after the disastrous training run I had three weeks ago I decided to do a complete reset on my training. That meant I had to discard the idea of the Rock n' Roll - Mardi Gras Marathon; even the half-marathon was out of the question. No racing in the immediate near-term, either. The choice was either to rest or risk a debilitating injury to my achilles tendon. Three weeks of rest or minimal-impact training seemed like a reasonable alternative to surgery, physical therapy and the slight possibility of never being able to run again.

So, I planned my first runs to be little more than easy 20-minute jaunts with a focus on the time rather than the distance. Silly me, I then remembered I was going to lead a hare-and-hounds (hash) run this weekend. I could have driven the course earlier in the day and marked everywhere the "hounds" needed to run. But that would have been cheating.

In light of the injury I don't think anyone would have disagreed with that tactic. But I promised myself and the friends who drew me into hashing I would do things the right way. That meant being an honest "hare" and not pre-laying any of the trail. So, twenty minutes of easy running ended up twice as long. While the average pace (according to my data) was fairly slow it felt like a nearly all-out effort. Must have been the stops I made every 80-to-160 yards to leave a trail marking of some sort. My job was to provide some confusion for the "hounds," but I was suffering from my own form of confusion, that of the cardiorespiratory kind:

Run! Stop! Run! Stop! Turn? Not Yet! Turn here! Mark! Run! Holy cats - who is that guy and how hard did he have to run to catch up with me!? At that point, it was more like Monty Python's knights meeting up with the Killer Rabbit: 'run away, run awayyyy...'

Three weeks of nothing more than elliptical trainer will slow the decline in cardiopulmonary fitness, but that much time off will drop run performance by anywhere between five and seven percent, according to Dr. Jack Daniels, author of "Jack Daniels' Running Formula," which is one of my three most-referred to run training texts. Add to that the sudden change from no impact to impact, and it felt like running the first time all over again.

If you have to take time off from running, the best thing I can remind you is that running is a sport of patience. It takes lots of patience to become a habitual runner; one who runs because they want to, not because someone says they must.

It's so good to be back in the fight, even if it's only twenty minutes at a time, a couple times a week.

S'weat's New?

Every once in a while I write something that upsets the few - outside of my immediate family and some close friends - who actually take the time to read this blog. Many of them overlook the caveat I shamelessly adapted from the blog of Canadian 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..." Today's thoughts may do exactly the same. However, these are my thoughts, supported (on many occasions) by reading, research & - at times - trial & error.

My body loves working out twice a day but my joints & tendons are too old to handle the cumulative stress of running on pavement for 60-to-70 miles a week. When I lived in Tampa I could drive 15-to-20 minutes from my home and run on dirt trails. However, I haven't seen trails like those where I now live, & I only get to run trails now when I travel up north. Thank heavens for Jay Yanovich at the gym on the base where I work, as well as my wife, Suzanne.

Jay is an ultrarunner & served as my strength coach in years past - he suggested using the elliptical trainer as a way to get that second workout without beating my achilles' tendons to death. My wife managed fitness centers in her younger days, she also knew the benefits of ellipticals. So when I've done a little too much on the pavement & I'm eating ibuprofen like candy I take a couple of days to do the elliptical at our local gym.

There are some people in this world who have high sweat rates. I'm one of them. The easiest warm-up leading into a workout or race can have me soaked within five minutes. When the comments begin, I often inform the source, "I sweat when I think." Naturally, when a person with a high sweat rate works out indoors on an exercise machine, all that sweat stays in one confined area. And when the workout is over the majority of my cool-down before going home is taken up by toweling down the machine & the area immediately surrounding.

The other day, the gym owner stopped to talk to me; I had just started my workout on one of the machines. "Mike, some folks have commented to me about your dedication & your effort, but they complain that you leave the machine soaking wet when you're done." I told him, "Ed, I wipe off the machine after every workout, believe me. I know what my sweat can do to machines...and electronics..." I - pun intended - stewed in my own juices for the 40 minutes of my workout, then walked to the office to get Ed's attention. I then showed him my exact post-workout wipe-down of the elliptical trainer. When I finished, I pointed to the footpads, which were still damp, & said, "This morning, the footpads were a little less damp than that, but everything else I showed you was the way I just wiped." Ed smiled, shook his head, & said: "Yes, I guess this is a gym, right?" The tone of his voice told me we were on the same page of sheet music.

I guess people look as critically at the way I work on machines as I look at the way they, um, don't work on the machines.

I marvel at elliptical trainer users who never get the RPM count above 60 per minute. I also marvel at users who never get their heart rate any higher than 50 percent of their maximum rate. And what really gets me spinning like a top is the user who decides to use the reverse pedaling workout. Really? Do you, when walking or running, go that slowly? Do you spend 15 to 20 minutes of your life continually walking or jogging in reverse? Unless you're an offensive lineman or a defensive back for the Saints I can't see any need for going in reverse on an elliptical trainer.

The objective of an elliptical trainer is to simulate the act of running without the potentially damaging impact. The most efficient runners, according to research done by Jack Daniels, Ph.D., & other coaches, have an average footstrike of 160-to-180 steps per minute...that's 80-to-90 RPM on the elliptical trainer.

I know the objective of most elliptical users is to burn fat rather than to maintain or build cardiovascular fitness, but most fat burning programs on the elliptical trainer are assuming a heart rate at least 50 percent of maximum heart rate. Ellipticals, for dinged-up runners like "yours truly," are used both to burn off that excess fat & to maintain or build the cardio. In that case, getting to 50 percent is not so much the issue...cardio enhancement needs a heart rate closer to 70 or 80 percent of maximum.

So, if you see me sweating all over an elliptical trainer, don't worry: I promise to wipe down everything that might potentially be touched by your skin. Now, let's talk about this time you're wasting on the machine, shall we?

Not Enough Of A Good Thing

Wow...just when I thought it was safe to (go back into the water?) say we were in comfortable late summer conditions, a couple of sources reminded me otherwise the other day.

I'm in the second week of a 24-week training plan through Marathon Nation, & life so far is pretty good. I think I mentioned a little bit about this training last week, but I'll recap my take on it so far. I'd like to call it a blend of Daniels' & Hansons' methodologies. Pat McCrann, the main guy behind Marathon Nation (and it's slightly-older triathlon-related group, Endurance Nation) has a very no-nonsense philosophy. He likes the idea of getting the work done in the shortest amount of time possible. If you've read any of my earlier posts you know that's also one of Timothy Noakes' Laws of Training.

A MN workout pretty much consists of a main set of work at intensity levels based on prior race performances. Warm-up & cool-down? Whatever amount of time you want to take care of it, my friends. Variety? Definitely a blend of tempo runs, strength work, skill development & a weekly long run. There's even downloadable guides to help prepare the race day plan, core workouts, pacing charts, and a number of good videos out there. If you know your best race performances and can click your way through a computer web site you can tailor a plan which ideally should get you to the starting line in good shape and ready to run a good race. It's so easy, even a stubborn coach like me can use it.

I originally planned to take a two-week look at the program to see what I could learn from Pat, but when he offered a few six-month memberships to folks who follow the group I figured I'd throw my (running) hat into the ring. It's not always simple for a guy who coaches others to be objective about his own training. Rare is the guy (or gal) who can see the mistakes they are making & adjust accordingly in mid-stream. Sure, I can tell you all the goof-ups I made after I crash & burn. But I'm scared the number of good marathons I have in me are small, so I want to get this marathon thing right, & soon, so then I can go back to being a tri-geek. Fortunately for me, Pat was kind enough to take me on as a member.

So, I got out yesterday morning to do the planned skill run out on the Bayou Loop. Boom, right off the bat I can tell it's going to be a challenge, because I was running at least a minute per mile faster, on the average, than I should have been going. Uh huh, the adrenaline thing & the solo run thing reached out to bite me on the behind. Fortunately the heart rate was looking a little closer to a reasonable effort, even on the climbs. Stopped to kill off half my bottle of water at the 3.5-mile mark on the course, then continued for the last ten minutes of the assigned workout.

I got to the point where I suspected I would make it to, then turned back to catch back up with my wife. Once she caught up with me I turned back around and decided it might be a great idea to get the striders from the assigned workout in at half-mile points; eight 20-second striders over the course of four miles? Should be no problem, right?
The first four or so were wonderful. But once I got to the last two miles of the loop, number five and six reached out to grab my attention. Wasn't that I couldn't get the cadence as high as I needed to...far from it...but I could tell I was starting to get very DRY. Not so much my clothing, but the fluid on my outside wasn't helping my insides a bit. Most everyone who knows me knows I have a heavy sweat rate; I kill unprotected electronics on a regular basis. Ziploc baggies are required uniform items for me...if you can double bag it, so much the better.

I stopped at the dog beach at the bottom of the park - it's a sad state of affairs when your city parks only have working water fountains in the dog areas - to try & rehydrate before walking back up to the car at the top of the hill. Even then, I was in no mood to dawdle at the car. Next stop, the nearest convenience store for a pint of lowfat chocolate milk & a bottle of ginger ale.

Yep, too much of a good thing can be bad. But definitely, not enough of a good thing - water - can be worse. I've read articles written by nutritionists & coaches which cite the fact most Americans exist in a state of dehydration...maybe under-hydration. That's an issue which can lead to having a very long recovery period after a workout - if you make it through the workout.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Keep those water bottles in circulation, amigos.

So if you don't mind, I'll be heading off to the water fountain now.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Adaptation

Some of the athletes I work with remotely have their own special set of constraints, having much to do with maternity or Mother Nature, both of which are a force stronger than E.F. Hutton. The good news for me when I begin to lay out a training plan for them is they usually have a treadmill for running purposes close by. The only place treadmills are used as a clothes valet, as far as I can tell, is Florida.

The difficult part, however, is how to figure the proper training intensity. I can spend thirty minutes in an e-mail discussing what some call Coach Mike-speak, a variant ot terms used by my former coach, Dale Fox, his coach (1964 Olympic 5,000 meter Gold Medalist) Bob Schul, & his coach, Mihalyi Igloi...which works great when the individual athlete is on the track with me over the course of five or six weeks, because they'll catch the understanding eventually. But when dealing with remote coaching situations I can get a good effort approximation from some other really good coaches; Jack Daniels or Greg McMillan. Daniels' run intensity calculations are easily figured out through a table in the front end of his seminal work, Daniels' Running Formula (which I consider one of the three absolute must have running books), or you can find calculators and reference charts on many different web sites on the Internet (http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-nov-00.htm has what I would call Daniels In A Nutshell). I've encountered a fantastic spreadsheet you can use (http://www.electricblues.com/html/runpro.html) to determine the training effect of a particular workout, given the heart rate & run duration, but I recommend it for calculation's sake. McMillan also has a web-based chart, located at http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/ which aligns closely to Daniels'. I'm more familiar with Daniels, so I'll use his terminology to talk about run intensities here.

To determine your VDOT score, which Daniels explains is an estimate of a runner's VO2max at velocity, you'll need the results of your races (1,500 meters, mile, 3,000 meters, 2-mile, 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters, 15,000 meters, half-marathon or marathon) from the past year or so; if you have a variety, so much the better. Find your time for the particular race on a Daniels VDOT Values Table, then look at the number under the VDOT column. A list of best performances over more than one race distance will provide a more-accurate calculation; if you race more long events, focus on the findings based on those results and not so much on the shorter races. I'm one to err on the side of a lower VDOT score, personally, as your body can adapt to a training intensity that is a little too low better than it can an intensity which is too high. Once you have a VDOT score, a second table shows the training intensities based on that particular score for distances from 200 meters up to the easy/long run for the week, depending on the intensity level. For example, the athlete I talked about when I wrote about heart rate monitors has a VDOT score of 44 based on her recent 5K racing. She's training for a marathon in November - given the right conditions, a VDOT of 44 equals a 3:32 marathon performance prediction, but that's another story. Based on that performance I recommended she run her easy runs & her weekly long run at a sliver over nine minutes per mile. Her runs to prepare her for the pace she'll need to run in the marathon would be a little over eight minutes per mile, & the pace I recommended for tempo runs on the track is a little slower than a 7:30 mile. Once the runner knows their specific paces, they can use one or more of a few good 60-minute workouts for the treadmill-bound runner. I recommend one long run, one tempo & one repeat workout per week, with easy runs filling the remainder of the time available. If the athlete finds the workouts a little difficult based on perceived exertion or heart rate, we adjust the pace/s downward or extend the recovery period a little:

Progressive Tempo - 30 minutes at Easy/Long pace, increase speed by .1 mph every four minutes until Marathon Pace is reached. (Runners training for half-marathon or shorter races can continue on to Threshold pace.)

Marathon Tempo - 2 miles at Easy/Long pace, increase speed by .1 mph every two minutes until Marathon Pace is reached. (Runners training for half-marathon or shorter races can continue on to Threshold pace.)

Long Repeats (improve lactate threshold) - 2 miles at Easy/Long pace, increase to Threshold pace for up to five minutes, followed by Easy/Long pace (recovery) for up to two minutes.

Medium Repeats (improve velocity at VO2max) - 2 miles at Easy/Long pace, increase to Interval pace for up to three minutes, broken up by Easy/Long pace (recovery) for up to two minutes.

Short Repeats (improve economy and speed) - 2 miles at Easy/Long pace, increase to Rep pace for 30 seconds to one minute, broken up by Easy/Long pace (recovery) for up to two minutes.

How do you know when you're ready to move the intensities higher? Daniels says race performances are the test of when you're ready to move up...under no circumstances does he recommend trying to beat the training intensities for specific efforts.

While many persons will say a treadmill (simulation) workout is not as good as getting out on the road or the track, I consider it an "eighty-percent solution" for those days when the weather conditions are less than optimal or the runner has a limited amount of time available to train.

A Coaching Legend on Training in the Heat

One of the first running books I acquired was a cast-off from one of my present athletes. He purchased it to see what great advice & counsel he could glean from its pages, but was immediately scared off by a couple of the formulas printed at the front end of the text. I gladly lightened his load, sat down for a brief read one fine weekend, & subsequently informed him of his folly.

It doesn't take a degree in physiology or a USATF Level III coach certification to understand or appreciate Dr. Jack Daniels seminal work, Daniels' Running Formula (Human Kinetics). In fact, if a runner did not want to invest in Timothy Noakes' Lore of Running I would recommend Daniels' work as an 80-percent (plus!) solution to the (as I wrote previously) one running book only question.

In fact, Daniels is (probably) one of the few former Olympian & Olympic medal-winning athletes who have gone on to coach (24) NCAA national individual champions, (7) NCAA national team championships, (110) collegiate All-Americans, and (4) Olympic marathon medalists. In my humble opinion, those are bona fides.

So, I'm shamelessly borrowing some his advice to Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team In Training participants on running in the heat.

Respect the Heat - Of all the adversities that distance athletes face, heat is one of the worst. Although not necessarily so, excess heat often leads to dehydration, another major enemy of endurance athletes. It is possible to be adversely affected by the heat without becoming dehydrated, you can also become dehydrated without getting overheated. These two conditions affect the body independently.

Overheating - An overheated body is the result of inadequate cooling. Adequate body cooling depends on evaporation of water from the skin. The fluid must evaporate from the body's surface. So, when the body heats up, it starts to sweat and also starts to send more blood to the skin where it is cooled by coming in contact with the relatively cooler skin. The cooler blood then circulates, picking up heat from exercising muscles, which allows them to continue contracting more efficiently. When cooling cannot keep up with heat buildup, core temperature rises, and body functions start to suffer. When the temperature rises more than just a degree or two, function is adversely affected. When blood flow increases to the skin for cooling, less blood is being directed to the muscles. With less blood going to the muscles, less oxygen gets to the muscles, which affects performance. The body is more interested in self-preservation than in ideal race performance, so it usually chooses to maintain a desirable temperature before it allows you to keep a particular pace which would interfere with cooling. It's either go at a pace slower than you want, or overheat.

Give in to your body under these circumstances - it knows best. Slow down in the heat, if you must be in the heat.

Minimize the Effects of Hot Weather - You can acclimatize somewhat to hot weather, and exercising in the heat will speed up that process. However, it is not advisable to purposely exercise in the hottest part of the day. Rather, seek out the cooler times of hot days - early morning and evening. Early mornings are the coolest part of the day, but are often more humid. Evenings are often less humid, but considerably warmer. It is really a matter of personal choice - higher humidity and lower temperature or higher temperature and lower humidity. Either is certainly better than exercising when the sun is up. Wear light, loose-fitting clothing. Experiment with different types of garments, caps, socks, etc.

Dehydration - Dehydration is most often associated with the heat, but occurs even in cool weather. It is simply the process of losing fluid from the body. Again, the body knows what is best for it; when fluid levels get below a certain desired amount the body slows down in hopes of lowering the stress. If fluid levels get low enough, the body will just about stop functioning and you will pass out. Dehydration is a terrible way to go and must be avoided at all costs. Among healthy individuals, exercise is the most usual cause of becoming dehydrated, as a result of loss of fluid (via sweat) as you work to maintain desired temperature. Different people react differently to the same set of conditions. A loss of about 5 percent will negatively affect performance; more than 7 percent or 8 percent will not be tolerated.

Minimize the Effects of Fluid Loss - First, learn to drink during long runs or walks. Drink a lot with higher ambient temperatures. Your body can absorb about 1,000ml of fluid per hour, so learn to be able to take in that much, if necessary - just over a cup every 15 minutes. Drinking more than about 1,000ml per hour may not be beneficial, if not more than that can be absorbed anyway. If you lose 240ml per km (10 liters) and drink 4 liters in a 4-hour marathon, the net loss is 6 liters (13.2 pounds - 8 percent of a 165-pound runner's body weight - not good).

Some people will have real trouble completing a marathon, others very well may not. But, if it is hot enough, almost everyone will have trouble, and under some conditions, a run must be given up or the approach altered (walk/jog or just walk, which will lengthen the time taken to complete the distance, but which allows for greater fluid intake).

More To Sweat Than Water - As you sweat, you lose water and electrolytes, which is the reason specialized sport drinks have become popular - they provide you with water, electrolytes and energy. Unfortunately, many distance athletes become serious about what they consume only during races, but the body can gradually become lacking in electrolytes if fluid intake during daily training sessions is water only. Get in the habit of consuming a reputable sport drink during practice sessions. This will get you used to that particular drink and will also keep your body supplied with needed nutrients. The trouble some endurance athletes have in competitions is brought on by inadequate attention to what they do during practice, and they go into a competitive effort already partially depleted in some important nutrients.

How To Calculate Your Reaction To Warm Weather - Follow these steps to prepare your own guide to determine how much you need to drink to avoid dehydration during a marathon:

1. Record your nude body weight prior to and following runs or walks of 40 to 60 minutes at the intensity you expect to perform.

2. Record the temperature and humidity conditions for each of these test efforts.

3. If you drink, record exactly how much you drink.

4. Generate a table that presents the rate at which your body loses fluid under different temperature conditions, and what the loss would be over the course of a full marathon.

5. Take the steps necessary to counteract the predicted loss, to stay under a 5-percent loss.

The table below indicates how much slower you might expect to complete a marathon under different temperature conditions (compared to a nice day of about 55 degrees and moderate humidity). Under the indicated temperatures and with abnormally high humidity, these adjustments may underestimate the effect. Walkers will face similar reductions in time, but they have more time to ingest and absorb fluids so the problem should not be as great.

TEMP (F*) - RACE DURATION IN MINUTES
55 - - - - - - -2h10m (130’) - 2h30m (150’) - 3h (180’) - 4h (240’) - 5h (300’)
70 - - - - - - -2m - - - - - - - - 2.5m - - - - - - -3m - - - - -4m - - - - - 5m
81 - - - - - - -4m - - - - - - - - 4.5m - - - - - - -5.5m - - - -7.5m - - - - 9.5m
90 - - - - - - -6m - - - - - - - - 7m - - - - - - - - 8.5m - - - -11.5m - - - 14.5m
100 - - - - - -8m - - - - - - - - 10m - - - - - - - 12.5m - - - 17.5m - - - 22.5m

Feel The Rhythm, Feel The Rhyme

Coach Patrick McCrann's Endurance Nation (and lately, his new Marathon Nation) sites have provided me some great common-sense hacks to pass along to folks I advise, coach or mentor. If you feel like you're spending way too much time training, not achieving any positive outcomes, and more likely ticking off everyone around you (family, friends, co-workers, employer) because you spend too much time working harder rather than smarter...well, I'd definitely recommend giving any of the two sites, or his personal site - http://www.patrickjohnmccrann - a long look-see.

This month, Patrick is providing 30 marathon (I'm going to borrow and read "distance running" where he says "marathon") tips over the next 30 days...of which you might run into on any of the three blogs (here, or North Florida RRCA, or F.A.S.T. Pensacola) on which I post. I might punch them in verbatim...I might provide some editorial comments, which will be duly noted:

I picked this tip as the first tip because I think it's that important. After years of doing run clinics and gait analysis sessions, I have learned that if a runner can get her cadence into the right spot, almost every other running technique variable takes care of itself. In other words, if you ignore the next 29 tips but nail this one...you'll be in a pretty good place. Repeat studies and performance reviews of elite athletes have shown that 180-190 steps per minute is the golden standard of cadence. In other words, taking approximately 180 steps per minute (or 90 for each leg) is an excellent way to:

move your stride length into the optimal range;
vastly improve your running economy;
reduce your chance of running injury;
and...all of the above without unduly placing too much focus on running "form."

For many people, this 180 steps per minute is much faster than what they are used to doing. While it will take time and focus to ensure that you can properly make the transition to a higher run cadence, since you can actually control (and measure) how many steps you take, this is a very easy way to implement a positive change in how you run. At the end of the day, running with a good cadence can help keep you going stronger, faster, and even help protect you from many common injuries. Let's get started...

Step 1: Assess Your Cadence
Step 2: Practice + Feel 180 Cadence
Step 3: Implement + Score Your Running

Step 1: Assess Your Cadence in :15 Increments
While it's tempting to just start tweaking...you shouldn't. Before we can make any changes, we have to know where you are starting from. The next time you go for a run, make a mental note to count your steps during the warm up, warm down, and main set portions of your run.

Try counting the strides of one leg for 15 seconds and see how close you can get to 22. Alternately, you can also count arm swings if that's easier. If you're a stickler for details, you'll want to multiply the number of steps by "4" to get the number of steps per minute for that leg, then again by "2" to get the total number of steps taken.

Regardless of your effort level / speed, your cadence should be very similar. By the end of the run, you will have a ball park number for your current "default" number of foot strikes.

Step 2: Practice + Feel 180 Cadence
Now that you know what your default cadence is, it's time to begin working on the 180. Following the same target of 22 steps per 15 seconds, begin your next run at this higher cadence. Check in every minute -- or as needed -- to assess. From experience I suggest you keep this run relatively short in duration (no more than 30 minutes) as the mental focus will really consume the workout.

In addition to counting steps, there are many other cues that you can focus on to help maintain this optimal cadence. As Jack Daniels, elite running coach and renown author advises, optimal stride rate should feel like you are running "over the ground, not into it." Here are a few other things to keep in mind:

Stay relaxed.
Land on the balls of your feet.
Keep your knees slightly bent.
Work on being light-footed / reducing friction.
Concentrate on turning your feet over as fast as you can.
Don't put too much emphasis on pushing off the ground. Instead, work on gliding across it.

Step 3: Implementing The Cadence Habit
With a quality run under your belt at the target cadence of 180 we can now go back to your regular running schedule -- i.e., whatever you are training for. As you continue running, make note of your cadence when you feel great and when you feel, well, not-so-great. Check in on the numbers during your intervals and your longer runs. If you notice a decline in steps -- or related running form/performance -- then get back to those quicker steps! Before you know it you'll be hitting 22 steps every 15 seconds like a well-oiled running machine...leaving the old you (and some of the competition) in the dust.

Notes...
Making the cadence change, like any other new element to your running, takes time and practice. At first you will need to repeat the workout in Step 2 rather frequently, but over time you will begin to gravitate to this more natural rhythm. You will also notice a slightly higher heart rate than usual for the same (or slightly slower) pace. This is not uncommon and is evidence that you are, in fact, making a change to how you run. Awesome! Give yourself until the end of the Project and you'll find that as your cadence evolves, your higher heart rate will simply fade away.

COACH MIKE'S COMMENTARY:

While I'm not a fan of running with music, especially on race day or during track workouts when acceleration drills might be on the agenda...there are times when having the right tempo music can help you to groove in that 85-90 left/right foot strikes per minute. I'm one of those guys who loves to know exactly what tempo the tunes in my iTunes are...not only for the benefit of those days when I might be on the treadmill, but also on the elliptical trainer or in the pool (I have a waterproof MP3 player). I have playlists of tunes in five-to-ten beat windows (to borrow from Foghorn Leghorn...), just for such an occasion.

If you prefer to not wear an iPod or MP3 player you can do a search on the internet for song tempos, or purchase a little metronome to clip on your hat or waistband.

There are some folks who can be their own jukebox as needed. I used to memorize entire albums of music and could pick tracks out of thin air. Strangest thing was the tune I picked out for my first road race, across the Gandy Bridge between Tampa and St. Petersburg, was in that 85 left/right foot strike per minute sweet spot...A Thousand Years, from Sting's Brand New Day release (a staple of my late college years). When I went back through my Sting collection in iTunes, I found a few other tracks which fell in that window:

Brand New Day-

-A Thousand Years (88)

-Perfect Love...Gone Wrong (90)

Bring On The Night-

-Low Life (90)

Dream of the Blue Turtles-

-Love Is The Seventh Wave (85)

-Shadows In The Rain (92)

Fields Of Gold: Best Of Sting-

-When We Dance (90)

-Why Should I Cry For You? (84)

Mercury Falling-

-All Four Seasons (88)

Nothing Like The Sun-

-Fragile (84)

Sacred Love-

-Dead Man's Rope (88)

-Forget About The Future (88)

The Soul Cages-

-Mad About You (90)

Ten Summoners Tales-

-Love Is Stronger Than Justice (85)

-She's Too Good For Me (90)

-It's Probably Me (90)

If I had to pick three tunes to channel in order to work on my pacing/rhythm/tempo/footstrike from the tunes above:

3. Fragile - a great tune for those long runs when you want to go to your happy place.

2. Why Should I Cry For You? - perfect for tempo work; the groove just goes.

1. A Thousand Years - race day tune, pure and simple, at least in my opinion.

Take the time to look at the tunes which are your running favorites and see how many of them fall into that 85-90 footstrike/minute pace...I bet there are more than you care to admit.

Another Year on the Job

...okay, so there are worse jobs. Actually, I saw something posted on the work area of one of the training division's officers that made my job seem pretty good in comparison. While not one of those Discovery Channel, Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs, definitely food for thought: I guess every one of Johnson & Johnson's rectal thermometers are tested and inspected to determine they are of the highest quality. How would you like to be the person who works in rectal thermometer quality control? Oh, I heard this song and dance before...and so have many coaches. Didn't Jack Daniels call these kind of athletes coach frustrators? Actually, I'm blessed to have motivated athletes - most of them are exceeding my expectations, almost all of the rest are meeting them.

I think everyone has at least one or two athletes who prefer not to (or choose not to) tap into those deep wells of desire, and there's only so much a coach can do for them. With those athletes, it's maintenance of the fun factor that's most important. They don't really want leadership, just a lack of bother. Today marks my fourth anniversary as a married man, and the beginning of my third year as a coach. Yep, that means the warranties on both counts have expired and I can't be returned to the manufacturer for replacement.

Both have been learning experiences. Both have humbled me and shown me (regularly) the limits of my knowledge, my patience...and the worth of continuous improvement. So, thank you, Suzanne, for not deciding to trade me in on two twenty-something guys. Thank you, ECRT, for not (as a whole) resorting to on-line coaching. This always happens to me, especially on the weekend. After a while a guy can get a little cranky about any phone call. I had a couple of beer mile participants comment about my flat affect on the phone, to which I responded, 'well, if you had as many (stoopid) phone calls as I've had, you would have a flat affect, too.' I always thought (otherwise rational) adults were capable of reading instructions and following directions. I've learned otherwise in the past year. However, I keep holding out hope...maybe they will once I do. Gee, you think? Last month of training and racing for the locals before the weather gets too awful...and they go into the Florida version of hibernation: Tuesday night music on the beach, Thursday night music downtown, Saturday or Sunday out on the water in the boat (for those who have boats). Since most of my folks are training with an eye toward a couple of triathlons in May/June, we've decided to not field a team in the local major race here. I haven't heard much disappointment, either...some of the group will run with other teams (and have in the past), others will probably run independent (or not at all). As for me, I won't be around to see the action. I get to go to Cincinnati. Sometimes I think the national organization decides to switch between cool cities and not-so-cool cities (in my humble opinion) for their national convention. My first convention was in New Orleans - cool city. The first convention I was slated to go to as a rep...Houston - not-so-cool city. First convention as a rep, Chicago - cool city. I hope, sincerely, that Cincinnati is a better city than I suspect. Come on, I like gumbo...deep dish (Chicago-style!) pizza...but I can't seem to get my stomach to jones for Skyline Chili. Oh, next year is in San Francisco, a city I've only been to in utero. That's going to be an expensive endeavor, but well worth the visit. I've got some running friends there who are dying to get together.
I might even get the missus to take a week for that one.