My article in December "Vetrunner" magazine

Tempo running and racing

I thought I had better round out this year’s series on conditioning by reviewing both “tempo runs” and “races”.

Too little training: the key to good races is to train well, train often, and have a good mix of training sessions. It would be so easy to just race and to never train, as there is so much racing on offer. The wise runner is selective; plans out which races to compete in, and with a coach’s assistance gets ongoing feedback. You don’t need to race all the time to get a good idea of how fit you are getting.

Too little racing: Training isn’t an end in itself. It takes on meaning when there is a race at the end of it. Some runners, but probably few reading this, train all the time, and rarely put in a supreme effort in a race. A shame really. A race is the ultimate test of where you are at. A PB is the most satisfying outcome of all, and racing draws that out.

But in all likelihood, you the reader race too often. This can result in lots of good races, but no brilliant ones! So a suggestion is that you learn to sacrifice many of your races for the sake of better results in the few.

There was once a marathon runner who could have broken three hours, so I set out a plan for him to spend three months consolidating his training then three months of specific marathon training, including pace work and middle distance intervals as well as longer runs. However in his wisdom the marathon runner decided that racing every marathon he could find was the way to go. He ended up running them up to an hour slower than he was capable of. The quick one never happened.

There was once an 800m runner who hated losing. He won the first few 800m runs of the season, true, but by the end of the season he hadn’t improved, while his rivals who had started the season more conservatively did improve. A disappointing championship was the unhappy outcome.

But you want to go in many races, don’t you? Then I suggest you use many of the minor races as tempo runs.

Definition: A tempo run is a sustained run at faster than usual training pace.

One can use a race to do a tempo run. Before any tempo run, go through your normal warm-up and stretch routine, as if racing. Then be disciplined enough during the run to maintain the steady pace planned, ideally a good 15 to 20 secs per km slower than flat out racing pace would be on the day. Sustain that pace all the way to the finish. And follow this with your normal cool-down run. While the distance of a tempo run is not particularly important, holding back to at even pace is very important.

Some benefits of tempo runs:
1. Faster pace – You would normally, in training, do a run of a given length at a slower pace. This is a way of getting training runs up towards your lactate threshold. This has real benefits, you get fit faster.

2. Running form – Compared with races, while doing tempo runs you can focus more on form: relaxing and striding along with a spring in your step, for example. The goal is to run with good form over a long distance at reasonable speed.

3. Pace judgement – Is only learned by doing.

4. Self reliance – If you usually run in a group, which you should, tempo runs mean you alone are controlling how you run.

5. Race practice. Your preparation, hydration, running gear, warm-up, adrenalin, are all the same as in a big race.  And you get the feel of a race, without the exhaustion afterwards.

6. Recovery. You find that you recover immediately, even when you felt during the tempo run that you were pushing along at a good pace.

7. Train on as normal. You don’t have to peak for tempo runs, and you don’t need extra easy days after them. Normal training is not interrupted!

To summarise the year’s articles on conditioning, training for middle and long distance running is a combination of sessions, each single session aimed at no more than one of the following areas:  general aerobic endurance, specific aerobic endurance, speed endurance, strength endurance, and tempo running. Please read the other articles in this series as published in Vetrunner during 2011 to get the full picture. 

Foundations of Running #5: anaerobic endurance

I wonder, how fast can you run when your energy supplies are almost depleted? I am not so much thinking about the marathon runner who “hits the wall”, i.e. has run out of muscle glycogen and is starting to utilise less efficient energy systems, as I am thinking about the track runner who has run at maximum speed and has no “energy in the tank” to continue at top speed any longer. Any of us who have run track know the feeling. Such as one’s first attempt at 400m, discovering the total inability to sprint down the straight. Or one’s first attempt at 800m, having in mind to “sit” for 600m then put in an all out sprint for the last 200m and win the race, only to discover that at 650m the calf muscles cramp and unaccustomed pain is experienced. We all know, or at least all of us who have (or used to have) the ability to run really fast know, that extending one’s maximum speed beyond normal distances causes unique muscular pain, described as “lactic” or more simply as “tying up at the end of the race”. The excruciating look on the face of the 400m or 800m runner as they slow up in the home straight isn’t their resolve wilting; it isn’t through lack of willpower, or a symptom of insufficient guts and determination; it’s the result of a genuinely muscular/biochemical phenomenon which we all can experience if we run fast enough for long enough.

It’s all due to the anaerobic system coming into play when the aerobic system cannot deliver enough energy. And it hurts, because the anaerobic system leaves waste products in the muscles, which hurt.

Anaerobic means "without oxygen". During anaerobic work, involving maximum effort, the body is working so hard that the demands for oxygen and fuel exceed the rate of supply. Waste products accumulate, the chief one being lactic acid. The muscles, being starved of oxygen, take the body into a state known as “oxygen debt”. The body's stored fuel soon runs out and activity ceases, painfully. Once into oxygen debt, it takes only a few seconds at maximum effort for the fuel stored in the muscles to run out. Fortunately the body can resume limited activity after even only a small proportion of the oxygen debt has been repaid.

What can we do to overcome this? We can train the body to get rid of lactic acid more efficiently, to handle higher intensities, and to run at a higher heart rate, all of which means we can train to run continuously at a faster pace. To achieve this, setting out on regular training runs at “threshold intensity” is the best approach for Masters athletes. On some of your longish runs, pick the pace up for just a few minutes at a time, rest for a bit then repeat. You want to find out where your anaerobic threshold is: the point at which lactic acid is being removed at the same rate it is being formed. The “talk test” comes into play here. Most training is aerobic and you can talk; at the anaerobic threshold you can just about talk but with few words at a time; beyond the anaerobic threshold you can hardly talk at all!

The other approach is to do specific anaerobic workouts, such as very fast intervals of between 100m and 400m with a very short recovery in between, just enough recovery to get your breath back. These are risky because they are so exhausting. And after such a session, racing or speed-work shouldn’t recur for 3 or 4 days, even for the fittest athletes. So these days, I don’t recommend this kind of intense session for Masters. There are plenty of effective alternatives which are kinder to our bodies.

Foundations of Running #4: speed-endurance

The term "speed endurance" is often applied to sprinters when addressing how to extend their 100m speed to 200m or even 400m. This can also be applied to longer distance runners and is still about how to take a racing speed over any given distance and extend it to a longer distance. My own running career developed from short races over 100m 200m and 400m as a schoolboy, to races over 800m and 1500m as a young adult, and then to longer distances later on. Many people develop the other way; they start off as distance runners then see if they can develop speed after they build an aerobic base. But there is good reason to do it the way I did. Even though we talk about an "aerobic base", that doesn't mean that such a base must be the starting point. When one takes the attitude of very fast running into longer races, one achieves good results much more quickly.

 

I consider, rightly or wrongly, much of the repetition and interval training we do, as "speed-endurance" training. In contrast, if the interval between efforts is too short, speed is compromised, and the training is better described as "anaerobic". Or if efforts are short and the interval between efforts is too long, this is sprint training. And longer efforts with long recovery might fall into the category of time trials, tempo-intervals, or even aerobic training. In speed-endurance training, on the other hand, there should be a minimum amount of rest to enable a hard effort to be repeated, often many times.

 

The purpose of speed endurance is to prolong the amount of time where a near maximal speed can be maintained. Effort distance is less than one’s racing distance. Speed approaches the speed at which one wishes to race the longer distance. For example, an 800m runner might attempt sets of 200m intervals at speeds approximating 800m speed with a 200m jog recovery each time. Or, a half marathon runner might run intervals of 1k to 2k at half-marathon speed, with minimum rest.

 

When our speedygeese training group focuses on speed-endurance, we run fairly hard over short-ish distances, then have a recovery jog of about equal distance or less. What works, and is fun to organise when there are a large number of persons present, is a three person continuous relay, which gives participants sufficient recovery to continue on, to jog the course while the other two run hard in turn. These sessions last about thirty minutes.

 

If you are doing a speed-endurance session and want a second interval session in any given week, it might be best to do some hill-work or some easy fartlek running instead. Once a week speed-endurance training is quite enough for anyone. Any training session you do should have as its focus only one type of training. Our Monday night speedygeese sessions are wholly speed-endurance sessions during February, June, and October. For other months, when Mondays focus either on aerobic, strength, or anaerobic endurance, it would not hurt to do a speed-endurance session on one other day of the week.

 

A reduction in injury risk should result from having a complex training program. There’s little doubt that if you are doing only aerobic endurance training then you are increasing the chance of injury. There must be variety in training.

 

To summarise: speed-endurance training is where, if your rest between intervals were any shorter, you would be venturing into the anaerobic, and if your rest were any longer, your efforts would be all out sprints.

 

There are so many possible training sessions one can use. To quote Nic Bideau, "So varied are the possible combinations that rarely do the athletes repeat the same workout". As always, the principles are more important than the actual detail. Nic Bideau has many appropriate words of wisdom on this kind of training. I daren't say more except quote him at length:

 =========================================================

INTERVAL OR REPETITION TRAINING (excerpt from Nic Bideau's article) 

“I prefer high volumes of work when using intervals of 6-10k or running at various speeds relevant to the athletes current fitness level for 1500m, 3000m, 5000m or 10,000m with recovery bouts as required to maintain that pace. In the first stages of a training program these are initially focused on 10,000m race pace or even slower. Closer to the main target race faster speeds are introduced at the specific pace of the event the athlete is training for. I believe that too often athletes try to run too fast in track sessions relevant to their current fitness and are too anxious to focus on their cruising speeds for 1500m or 3000m races, whereas I prefer to set the bulk of these sessions at 5000m or 10000m cruising speeds over longer distance repetitions interspersed with shorter faster work. For example, when training for an event such as the World Cross Country in March, Benita Johnson may begin the preparation in November with 8-10 x 1km on a dirt path in around 3.20 with one minute rest. This develops into 3.10 and the next step is to speed up 2 of the reps, the 5th and 7th in 3.00. This may progress to 4 x 2km reps on the track with a lap jog recovery doing the first and third rep alternating laps in 70s (current 3k race pace) and 75s (half marathon race pace), the 2nd and 4th rep all even paced at 75s per lap (10k race pace).

 

“There are a myriad of workouts that can be designed with this philosophy. The main aim is to always be doing enough high volume to continue building aerobic endurance while introducing some faster running that relates to shorter distance race paces and still avoid flooding the athlete’s muscles with lactate during the workout. So varied are the possible combinations that rarely do the athletes repeat the same workout. I see a couple of distinct advantages in this - they don’t go home to check their diary and compare workouts from week to week or year to year — too often athletes try to compare workouts from one period to another, which I regard as impossible to do for any real gain. You can never go to the track with all other elements of your life exactly duplicated from one day to the next so you will always fail to read into the effects of other situations whether they be weather, poor sleep the night before, harder training the week before, personal problems or whatever - and being different, the workouts always provide an interesting challenge to the athletes who don’t know exactly how they will feel not having done that exact workout before.

 

“Benita did a workout of 13 x 400m at 5k race pace (72s) with one lap float (marathon race pace relevant to current fitness (82s)) recovery between laps while winning the national 10,000m title in 31.49 shortly before she won the World Cross Country in 2004. This year in her preparation for the Commonwealth Games she ran 3000m in 9.10 beginning with laps at 10,000m race pace for the 1st km, 5000m race pace for the 2nd km and 3000m race pace for the 3rd km, jogged a lap then did 4x200m at 1500m race pace with 200m jog recovery before repeating the effort with the 2nd 3000m in 9.05. For other complex reasons relative to another dimension of coaching that I won’t go into here, Benita was not able to produce that fitness during the Commonwealth Games 10,000m yet it was exactly that fitness that she was able to call on that enabled her to place 4th in both World Cross Country races just a week after the Melbourne Games this year.

 

“Closer to the big race, these type of workouts often mimic planned strategies due to be employed in the race whilst surrounding it with volume to ensure aerobic fitness is still maintained. Before the Melbourne 5000m Mottram ran a series of 3x1600m. The first one was done in 4.20 (basically what we felt was around 10,000m race pace for him or more specifically the slowest we could imagine the Commonwealth 5000m race being run at inside the last 2km). The 2nd rep was to practice the tactic, which we hoped could take him clear of the Kenyans in the Melbourne 5000m. His training partner England’s 5000m runner at the Games, Mo Farah ran the 1st lap in 65 secs and Mottram went to the lead running the 2nd lap faster, the 3rd lap faster again and once more increasing the pace on the last lap. He ran those laps in 59, 58 and 57 for a final 1600m time of 3.59. He then eased back to 4.20 again for the 3rd rep and finished the workout by cruising 4 x 200m at 1500m race tempo with an easy 200m jog recovery. We felt he was ready for Ben Limo and he was. But, unfortunately for us, Augustine Choge had something else.

 

“These sessions are usually only carried out once per week.”

Foundations of running #3 revisited: aerobic endurance.

Compared with training only short distances at a fast pace, long slow running gets you fitter. Long slow running gives you a fitness base which is not easily lost again. Long slow running makes you faster over long distances than sprint training does. Long slow running is the starting point of all fitness programs. It is the very best way to make huge gains in aerobic endurance (unless you have year round access to cross country skiing courses!)

So, here is an interesting article on long running which may further inspire you: "The many benefits of long runs"
http://www.pfitzinger.com/labreports/longruns.shtml

Saturday morning's metro run from Acton Ferry terminal: running 10k: Julian (new), Richard (new), Chuan, Ann, Byron. Running 20k: Ewen, Andy, Zainab, Emma P & me. Running 32k: Ruth. Some of the Metro runners are in training for the half marathon here in April, so will be gradually building up distance run.

Metro runners

Saturday morning a week ago

ACTEWAGL Women and Girls 5k Fun Run/Walk. Entries now open.
The YMCA of Canberra Runners Club invites women and girls of all ages to join in the ActewAGL Women and Girls' 5km Fun Run/Walk on the 3rd April 2011 at 9.00am.

Entrants may walk, jog or run the 5km loop starting from Stage 88 in Commonwealth Park, Canberra.

Online entries now open.

Please note no late entries will be taken on the day of the event.

Our charity partner this year is a local ACT charity - OvCan - an Ovarian Cancer Support Group.
Contact: Kerrie Tanner. Visit the website http://wgfunrun.com.au for more details. Click here for an entry form http://wgfunrun.com.au/docs/wgEntryForm.pdf.

Foundations #1 revisited: "Variety". (Endorsed by Jack).

Running Around In Circles.
Well we all do it. Run in Circles, that is. Running on the track is not entirely natural when you think of it. If you want to arrive ahead of others, start sooner! But even if you avoid the track, what happens on your other runs? You drive to some venue, park the car, run from point A back to point A again, and drive off again. Strange behaviour, I wonder what alien observers think we are achieving?

Here’s a thought; we are achieving a great deal when we run. Maybe it’s
• Solitude. The loneliness of a long distance runner is not loneliness at all, it is peace.
• Or, if the iPod is attached, the longer the run, the more pleasure there is listening to your favourite music, uninterrupted.
• Or, if competition is your thing, a focus on achievable objectives, doing the training you need to make you good at your sport.
• Or the point of the exercise may be to take steps towards developing or maintaining your desired level of fitness and health.

The great coach Percy Cerutty would have said that running is our way of getting in touch with nature; of establishing a link back to our evolutionary origins, of learning how to live instinctively again. His was the way of striving, achieving, overcoming pain, conquering self. He wouldn’t have been too happy with this era of stopwatches, heart rate monitors, massages, blood tests. (However, I suggest he would have loved iPods and Garmins; i.e. music and maps.)

Percy also would have said that running teaches you about life. I am not sure what exactly it teaches you, unless it’s about life kicking you in the shins occasionally. While it is certain that running does, or can, build confidence, self-assurance, isn’t it also possible that in people we don’t see after a token run or two with us, it may have the opposite effect? I think Percy may have been a “survival of the fittest” supporter; one of his books is titled “Be Fit Or Be Damned”, which just about sums up his attitude towards those who did not excel, I suspect.

Running in circles, i.e. on the track, doesn’t appeal terribly much because it is quite “unnatural”, except in this regard: it is the perfect way of testing your level of fitness in a controlled, predictable environment. For those who are not going to win any medals or receive any prizes, there is this to recommend about track: how else will you know for sure how your training is going if you don’t push yourself to the limit on the track from time to time? The times you run there are the best way of measuring your progress.

Percy on the other hand loved track because it was on the track that his athletes could prove they were the best in the world. That was his ego on display. But his bread and butter training was on sand, on sand-dunes, and along the coast line, as well as on bush tracks. The weight lifting, chin-up, and sit-up area was outside under trees. Few of his training sessions were conducted on a measured running track: in the dozen or so times I visited his home / training centre in Portsea, Victoria in the 1960s I recall only one such session, and that was a five person continuous sprint relay, what fun. Otherwise the training we did do every day varied between sand and the trails around Portsea and beyond.

In the spirit of Percy Cerutty, I am repeating my first “foundation of running” for 2011: VARIETY.

Vary your running from day to day. Run long. Run short. Run over hills. Run on the flat. Run when it is hot. Run when it is pouring rain. Run on the road. Run in water. Sprint up hills. Race down hills. Run on the track. Run on grass at Stromlo. Run with great friends. Run alone. Run with music. Run in silence. Run through the suburbs. Run out in the country. Experience every kind of running condition, and see how enjoyable each experience can be. Run!

Variety helps us establish a solid base upon which can be built any specialised kind of running we might like to pursue. And I think more importantly, variety keeps us motivated, keeps us training consistently and regularly, protects us against staleness. Don’t just do the same thing every time you train; develop variety in your running.

Percy also would have said that we soft Australians don’t push ourselves hard enough. But I also heard him say privately that we should NOT train flat out. Not all our endurance training should be fast: in fact it is far better to slow down and run further. More of that, again, soon.

Foundations of Running #3: Aerobic Endurance. Running slower to race faster.

Aerobic means "with oxygen". Training aerobically means running slowly enough so that the oxygen breathed in and the fuel drawn from the muscles will be sufficient to meet the body’s energy demands, causing no "debt". Faster running puts extra demands on the body which exhaust the body’s ability to perform. With aerobic running, everything is steady state, the only waste products formed are carbon dioxide and water, which are removed by sweating and breathing out.

There are indicators you can use to tell if a run is aerobic, e.g. heart rate no more than 65% maximum. A simpler rule of thumb is, can you hold a conversation? If so, you are running aerobically. If not you are probably running too fast.

Aerobic Threshold: the aerobic threshold is the point at which anything faster is starting to get into the anaerobic (without oxygen) range, roughly 65% maximum heart rate, or if you like, where you are starting to breathe a bit heavier and find talking more difficult.

Here are two kinds of Aerobic Endurance:

• Continuous aerobic running
• Aerobic interval training

Continuous aerobic running will increase your VO2 Max, which is your ability to take up oxygen. Therefore continuous aerobic running is essential as a major part of training for anyone wanting to excel from 800m and up. Continuous aerobic runs can be short (up to ten minutes), medium (up to 30 minutes) or long (more than 30 minutes).

Aerobic interval training is useful when you want to focus on pace while staying within the aerobic range. Intervals of 1km, for example, with a good active recovery in between, can be run at about your best current 10k race pace, and probably no faster, if they are to be wholly aerobic.

An advantage of training within the aerobic range is that recovery is immediate, muscle injury is minimal, and energy demands are tolerable. The ability to run long distances comfortably is progressively developed over time. Each session builds on the previous session. Debilitating fatigue does not occur.

It is so important to learn that running slower does in fact make you faster. I took twenty minutes off my marathon time and a minute off my 5k time back in the 1970's by running slower, while developing the ability to run longer. The further I ran in training, the quicker my race times were, and the easier running felt. In hindsight, I ran my weekly kilometer interval session too fast when the emphasis should have been on aerobic endurance, but the bulk of my running was still continuous aerobic endurance training.

This year we plan as a group to focus on aerobic endurance during February, June, and October. [correction: April, August, December. Not a change of plan: I just mis-remembered the plan.] And beginners who join our group at any time will be encouraged to start with this phase of running from the first day they meet with us.

Previously in the "Foundations" series:
#1 Variety
#2 Endurance

Foundations of Running #2: Endurance

In 2011, for the speedygeese training group, I shall be trying out a four month cycle instead of the six months or twelve months cycles we have followed in the past. We are going to devote a month at a time focusing on each of four phases. This allows for more variety: we don't want to get stuck on one training phase for months at a time. And we would like to cater for new runners who can arrive at any time during the year. These new runners will be encouraged to start off doing basic aerobic endurance work, if they so wish, until in no more than three months the group will catch up and the new runners will be in sync.

These are the four types of endurance running which comprise the phases of our four month training cycle:

• Aerobic endurance
• Anaerobic endurance
• Speed endurance
• Strength endurance

Aerobic and anaerobic are important in varying degrees depending on the distance being raced. If you specialise in a particular distance you may be interested in this table:

Distance / Event	% Aerobic	% Anaerobic
200 metres	5	95
400 metres	17	83
800 metres	34	66
1,500 metres	55	45
5,000 metres	80	20
10,000 metres	90	10
Marathon	98	2

Keep in mind however that very few members in the training group want to specialise. Also, I don't know how well the table translates to non-elite folks like us.

Our speedygeese aerobic endurance phase starts in February (and again in June and October). In future posts I will explain more and provide information about the training we do in each monthly phase of the cycle.

All running develops endurance of some kind or another. When you "go for a run", you could ask yourself, "Which type of endurance am I developing today"?

Result from the Pro-Am meet 15 January:
800m
Damian Rutledge 2:11.12

Report from last night's track meet:
Damian had a very good run in the 400m, about 56 seconds, which shows his 800m can improve significantly. I ran both the 3000m and the 5000m, something I "never do". So we shall see if I suffer this time! I am finding 4:20 pace comfortable, which is what I averaged in both races, but may delay by a couple of weeks any attempt to run faster. I don't want to focus on racing quite yet. And I might have to back off after tomorrow's "easy" half marathon run, we shall see.

Good luck to Bronwyn and Jodie, off to run in the Maui Oceanfront Marathon this Sunday. Actually Bronwyn is running the half marathon, and Jodie the 15k. Website: http://www.mauioceanfrontmarathon.com/.

Foundations of Running #1: Variety is the Spice Of Life

I like to vary my running from day to day. How else could I have taken up the sport in 1962 and still be doing it in 2011? Next year will be my fifty years running anniversary. That is quite a marathon effort!

Some of the tactics I use to overcome staleness and to keep myself motivated:

• meeting other people to run with
• running with music
• putting a weekly plan on the office wall
• having achievable short, medium, and long term goals
• starting with a fresh outlook each year
• looking forward to competing in the next five year age group
• connecting with like-minded runners around the world
• writing about running
• mixing with enthusiastic beginners who are new to running

What are the strategies you employ to keep your running experiences fresh and alive?

At Parliament House last night, nineteen runners enjoyed twenty soft sandy uphill 100m sprints: I ran 8k+ early, while Ewen & Ruth ran 6k early. Then we were joined by Abi, Andy, Brett, Caroline, Colleen, Craig, Jochen, Joel, Kym, Mick, Nadine, Neil, Susan, Suzie, Warrick & Yelena. Welcome back Susan & Suzie! It was hot but, because the recent humidity had finally gone away, didn't seem overly oppressive.

Song of the week: "Impossible", by Anberlin, from the album "Dark is the Way, Light is a Place". Yet another album that didn't make my top five albums of 2010 but came close
.


Birds of a Feather