I've drank the kool-aid and I'm rethinking how I run (Read 1010 times)

After spending about two weeks here I have have seen two messages repeated over and over... Run lots of miles at a relaxed pace. Listen to your body and derive your metrics from it and not a watch or a book or a well-meaning but slightly mysterious stranger on the trail. I'll admit, I struggled with these concepts but I'm finally ready to buy in. Last night was my first attempt at running this way. I still took my HRM and my 305 but I changed my data screen to only show my heading since I wouldn't be able to derive any real info from that if I did try to cheat and glance at my watch. I did leave my iPod at home (something that I believed would make me completely miserable but I was completely wrong). Before I started I did a quick mental rundown of how I felt. Normally I would just head out the door and just try and run through whatever I might be feeling pre-run. My knees were a bit sore (old shoes that I just replaced), there was also some GI discomfort (keep an eye on that) and my left hamstring has been causing problems and felt a little tight. The run was a great success! I wasn't bothered by the absence of music at all and not having a distance/time/pace goal seemed to take a lot of pressure off me mentally. Depending on the terrain I can usually get 8 miles on my hamstring with little pain and up to 15 if I want to walk for the rest of the day with a limp. At the first sign that it wasn't happy I stopped my run, did my cool-down, and stretched. I wasn't going to look at my numbers at all but I did end up peeking after my stretch. I'm not making judgements about them because I don't want to have expectations. My goal for the remainder of the year is to build as much base as I can safely build with no regard for pace, hr, etc. I will run a couple fun races but I'm not going to train for anything and I'm not going to stress about them. Here are my questions... Should I still track my distances on a daily basis just so I can keep within a ballpark range? I don't want to significantly under or over run and I had zero idea how far I'd gone last night because I've been so reliant on a device telling me (plus I intentionally ran in an area where I've never ran before so I didn't have my usual markers). Any recommendations on frequency/duration for base building? I would like to be at 50+ MPW by January and I'm running 20-30 MPW now but most of that mileage is done in two runs. Is running 3 miles every morning with a couple longer evening runs better than running 6 miles 4 days a week with a long weekend run? Any advice? Does the picture change if I'm trying to rehab a hamstring that's at 50% now? I'm inclined to drop the long runs but I don't want to lose endurance. Should I even think about tempo or any kind of faster running or just be content with a couple striders or fartleks thrown in from time to time when I feel like stretching my legs? I like to run fast (fast being completely relative to me) and left to my own devices I will do more speedwork than I should. If I implement more cross training should I make mileage concession? My assumption is my body can handle 10-12 workouts a week as long as none of the workouts are ass kickers. Is that a valid assumption? I obviously wouldn't just jump into that but slowly bring in more workouts. Thanks for all the help!

To the first question: I track my mileage, and my time. Whenever I head out the door, I have an idea of how far I'm going, and the level of effort I want to put forth. So yes, I think it makes perfect sense to track it. You still want to have some sort of plan in place to work towards your time/distance goals. The second question: Frequency, consistency, and volume. If you're doing 20-30 miles over two runs, I think you're better off doing 5-7 runs a week, and worrying about doubles later on. You'll see more fitness gains the more often you go out. One long run a week, about 30-40% of total weekly volume, a couple mid-length runs, and the rest short. The injury could modify this, but I think you're not doing it any favors with your current schedule, either. Third question: With the suspect hamstring, I would drop the tempo runs until it's back to healthy. Once it is, you could do a tempo run once a week, or every other week. Strides can be done regardless. Fartlek runs, I rank up with tempo runs in terms of intensity. Last question: I can't really say, since I don't do anything but run.

One quick correction...I'm not doing two runs a week, I'm doing 4 sometimes 5 (sometimes 3 but let's not talk about those weeks). It usually breaks down where one run is 2+ hours, one run is approximately 70-90 minutes, and then the rest are 3 to 4 miles but I might end up running 21-25 miles in the two longer runs and 6 in the two shorter runs. I'm also more inclined to skip the shorter runs. Conceptually I know they are important but I tend to to treat them like junk miles. I'm going to shoot for about 5 miles 4 days a week and then scale my long run back to 10ish miles (or until the discomfort becomes too much). Last week I tried to run through the pain and I think it was just dumb luck that I didn't do more serious damage or cause injury to another system. It was almost interesting watching my glute and lower back start to fail as well as my opposite knee because I was too stupid to stop. I'm not going to get in a hurry to get to 50 MPW. I think 25-30 MPW will suffice until everything feels good again. Last question, and this is for future, not present, reference...is it safe/smart to run more than 10 miles multiple times a week or to consistently run mid to high teens every week? I once read (and I should just stop there) that the risk of injury increases dramatically when training over the 10 mile mark. Is 50 MPW a safe year-round volume or is that more of a specific training volume for a marathon? I'll admit that I pulled that number out of the air because it seemed like a sufficient volume to be ready for more serious training in 2009.

You're actually inspiring the heck out of me, and I'm gonna follow your example. I'll still play with all my pretty graphs when I get back, but I'm going out today and not looking at the stupid Garmin. Be interesting to see what happens. I think you should still track all the data - just after the run instead of during. Adjust your training accordingly and make changes before the next run or week or cycle. Re: mileage - YMMV, but for me the magic base number is 40 miles per week. I have to hit that to see noticeable improvement. 30 miles per week just isn't enough. Once I get past 60 miles per week, the returns are diminishing pretty rapidly. 40-60 is my current perfect range. Yours will be yours, but I'd guess that 40 mpw is a pretty good target for most people to start with.

I'll still play with all my pretty graphs when I get back, but I'm going out today and not looking at the stupid Garmin. Be interesting to see what happens.

That leads me to a thought I had yesterday. I wasn't going to look at the data initially, just dump it into SportsTracks and maybe review it weekly. I still didn't look at it in depth but I did look at my mileage and time which gives me an approximate pace, although not splits. I'm still thinking I might try and look at it weekly or even monthly, which would be a radical departure from before when I would spend way too much time looking at it right away and trying to compare it to any run that I thought might compare. I'm going to try to avoid looking at and comparing individual efforts and try to focus on the bigger picture. Let me know how you do with your distance estimates. My head insisted I'd ran 5 to 6 while my body felt like maybe 3.5. Turns out it was 4.25. I interpreted that to mean that I'd ran at an easy pace (since it felt like less) and that my head is still caught up in numbers (hence the gross over-estimate).

Should I still track my distances on a daily basis just so I can keep within a ballpark range?

Yup. Wear your Garmin. Collect the data. Analyze later. But just don't be a slave to it during the run.

Should I even think about tempo or any kind of faster running or just be content with a couple striders or fartleks thrown in from time to time when I feel like stretching my legs? I like to run fast (fast being completely relative to me) and left to my own devices I will do more speedwork than I should.

Skip the tempos until you can improve your hammies. But do the strides. Also, hills. Some hamstring exercises: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0206.htm

Let me know how you do with your distance estimates. My head insisted I'd ran 5 to 6 while my body felt like maybe 3.5. Turns out it was 4.25. I interpreted that to mean that I'd ran at an easy pace (since it felt like less) and that my head is still caught up in numbers (hence the gross over-estimate).

There are different levels to running blind. I still look at distance on my Garmin when I'm running a loop I haven't done before. But I make a point not to pay much attention to the pace, especially on easy/recovery days.

Skip the tempos until you can improve your hammies. But do the strides. Also, hills. Some hamstring exercises: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0206.htm

I read the article and I'm going to start doing some of the exercises. I've got a good cool-down/stretching program but my active warm up is usually just running the first mile or two slow. I've been avoiding hills. Going up really hurts and going down seems likely to cause over-extending. I've assumed that the pain I feel going up is to be avoided but per the article I can see the similarity in the motion to some of the exercises (higher knees).