Quality Runs (Read 1191 times)

This is an observation; take it for what it's worth.

In my opinion, there is no need for novice runners to do any formal speedwork at all.  Formal speedwork in the first year of the runner's life is often detrimental. It teaches you to listen to the clock and not your body. It teaches you to associate running fast with grueling workouts. It teaches you to focus on the small picture of training rather than the big picture. It teaches you to think of running in terms of splits, paces, and intervals instead of effort, intensity, and duration. It reinforces the race times you've already achieved by telling you to run at this or that pace instead of understanding that novice runners usually race nowhere near their potential.

The best training plan for the novice runner is a pretty damn good one for the advanced runner, too:

1. Run every day.

2. Think of tomorrow's run (and the next and the next) during today's run. Keep it easy.

3. Run fast when you feel good.

4. Don't force it when you feel bad.

5. Run farther if you're having fun.

6. When you race, compete. 

I just want to say 'thanks for posting that, and for explaining it so well'.

 

I just want to say 'thanks for posting that, and for explaining it so well'.

 +1 I just sent that to a new runner I know!  Good advice..wish someone had told me that when I first started running!

This is an observation; take it for what it's worth.

In my opinion, there is no need for novice runners to do any formal speedwork at all.  Formal speedwork in the first year of the runner's life is often detrimental. It teaches you to listen to the clock and not your body. It teaches you to associate running fast with grueling workouts. It teaches you to focus on the small picture of training rather than the big picture. It teaches you to think of running in terms of splits, paces, and intervals instead of effort, intensity, and duration. It reinforces the race times you've already achieved by telling you to run at this or that pace instead of understanding that novice runners usually race nowhere near their potential.

The best training plan for the novice runner is a pretty damn good one for the advanced runner, too:

1. Run every day.

2. Think of tomorrow's run (and the next and the next) during today's run. Keep it easy.

3. Run fast when you feel good.

4. Don't force it when you feel bad.

5. Run farther if you're having fun.

6. When you race, compete. 

Very well said, Jeff (and a cool pic!).  However, personally I wouldn't go that far.  I think running fast is very important, particularly for beginners.  That said, that's not necessarily running "hard".  I agree partly with Tchuck.  I think for him (Postal) to do repeats at 5k pace is way too hard.  But I even feel 10 pace is too hard.  For someone like him, and perhaps majority of readers here, should just go on a park, not knowing exactly how far you're running, and run "hard enough--challenging, but controlled" for, say, 3 minutes and repeat...  If you wear HR monitor, this is one of the best time to use it.  Know how it feels like to run "challenging but controlled"; what it feels like to "be recovered".  Jon Brown would do 10 X 1km in something like 2:55 during the winter.  Now that's way easier compared to his 10k best (what, 27:30?).  I know some people at different message board would get all bent out of shape (and they have) to hear, given this workout, that he does Lydiard training.  But he does.  And this is well within the scheme of training principles. 

I would probably prescribe him to do something like 3~5 X 3 minutes at half marathon pace as his "quality" workout.  Plus maybe 5~7 X 200m fast.

Now, going back to his original post; I thought that's a rather interesting phenomena.  To me, it's like saying; "Hey, I get more hungry when I eat 5 times a day instead of 3 times a day..."  In other words, it doesn't make sense.  But it does in a way...  (no, it's not a typo)  I mean, you know how sometimes if you eat a lot, your stomach stretches out and you can squeeze in more food and, therefore, you might feel more hungrey after your stomach gets stretched out.  It doesn't make sense for him to say that if he did one quality workout a week, his legs get more sore...  Maybe his legs get more used to it; maybe 7 days a week of recovery (from quality workout) is too much recovery for him...I don't know.  I mean, I was just thinking about this yesterday--I believe in doing more runs during the week than, say, 3 times a week.  I mean, training is all about stress and recovery and adaptation.  If you take too much recovery, you might be completely recovered and your base fitness level might be on the downward swing and you may not gain as much benefit from THE workout.  I don't buy FIRST program; I don't like 3~4 times a week training program though some people do sell such program simply because that's what the audience wants to buy using "Oh, I don't have time" as an excuse.  That's a bunch of BS.  I missed probably 3 days this year so far.  Looking back, it's not because I didn't have time but because I was lazy.  I could have easily squeezed 20~30 minutes of running or some sort of exercise any day.  I just didn't; not that I couldn't.

Anyways, my suggestion would be to incorporate hills.  It sounds like the issue is leg muscles.  Maybe he needs to activate his leg muscles more frequently for whatever the reason.  But, that said, that wouldn't mean to go back to twice a week quality workouts mainly for the reason Jeff had provided.  But he could easily do one day of hill workout a week without stressing his body's metabolism too much.  Just go easy, don't run fast; fine a hill about 150~200m long and run up on your toes, lifting your knees high and moving forward SLOWLY.  This way, you can knock your legs around without getting too highly anaerobic. 

I hear quite often how great it is to just run by how you feel (as a matter of fact, I might respond to one of those comments elsewhere...I've got to look for which one it was!).  It is and it's one of the things we promote (run by feel).  But that does not necessarily mean "take it easy all the time".  You've got to look at what your goal is; it's like training anaerobically is not necessarily recommended if your main pupose of running is for health and fitness.  But if you want to race well, you need to do that because that's the condition you will face during the race.  If your purpose of running is just have fun, just run whatever you feel like on that day.  But if you want to improve your performance, then you'll need to structure your program and structure it in such way that you may have to face some uncomfortable workout here and there.  I remember talking to Dave Morris years ago; he's the one who went to Japan and trained under the team's coach; came back to Chicago marathon and ran 2:09 out of blue.  Then he came back to the US and train the way he wanted to train; i.e.; lots of 400m repeats.  "We did lots of long slow running and long tempo run in Japan," he said.  "I thought I needed more speed..."  So I asked him what was wrong with the Japanese style training.  "I felt always tired," he said.  He may have.  But he ran 2 minutes faster than any other marathon he'd ever run  If your goal is to do 2 quality workouts a week; that's fine.  But if you're getting results by doing one a week, why not stick with it?

 If I understand your training correctly, then by alternating intervals and tempo runs each week it means there are 2 weeks between each particular speed workout (2 weeks between tempo runs and 2 weeks between intervals).

 

Assuming you are running your intervals at a faster pace and/or a different distance than your tempo then you are training a different subset of muscle fibers with each of those workouts.  The tempo run trains one subset of fibers while the intervals trains a different subset of muscle fibers.

 

If all this is accurate then soreness after each of those speed workouts is not unreasonable.  A two week break between workouts is a pretty long time for any particular subset of muscle fibers to be inactive and is certainly long enough to lose some of the prophylactic effect of training against soreness.  I know in my own case, when I go 2 weeks between a particular workout I usually get sore.  When I train a workout every 7-10 days I rarely get sore.  Also, when I train the same workout twice per week I get sore.  So, soreness for me is a marker of too frequent or too infrequent training.

 

The training you are doing is working and making you faster but it is possible a different frequency might be more suited to your recovery ability.  The no soreness with twice weekly strength training versus soreness with only once per week strength training supports this idea, IMHO.

 Rich_, very well said. I think you're correct. Too much time between a particular subset of muscle fibers. I'll try to experiment and try to find a better frequency.