Suddenly
it’s the
end of January with only a few short weeks until your first planned race of
2017 and you're feeling ill-prepared.
You
start cramming with a quick transition to long runs at as fast a pace as you
can muster, and inevitably suffer a barrage of aches and pains attacking your joints
and muscles. Oh-oh, you’re paying the price for missing out on that all-important base-training
time.
Although
there is no really easy way to get those base workouts in this time of year
there are some simple things you can to do to make it more likely that you’ll use January as a launch pad for
your success in 2017 by logging the good slow base miles that will improve your
speed in the spring with a much lower risk of injury.
·
Get a run partner to keep you
accountable.
·
Give yourself some sort of reward for
getting up very early a couple days during the week.
·
Get up early on Saturday and get that
long run done first thing so you can then enjoy the Holiday festivities without
a guilty conscience.
·
Purchase a good headlamp and a
reflective vest/jacket to be safe during the dark hours of the morning or
evening.
During
this base time be sure that at least 80% of your running time is at 81-89%
(zone 2) of your lactate threshold heart rate or 60+ seconds slower than
marathon pace. This is also considered "conversational"
pace where you are able to say full sentences without needing to take an extra
breath. If you are only able to say 3-4 words at a time, you are running too
fast.
Many
important adaptations occur at this slow pace. Mitochondria are the powerhouses
of our muscle cells. Only at this slow
pace do
mitochondria
multiply and improve oxidative power, which leads
to
being able to maintain faster paces longer in the spring. You also benefit from an increase in
capillaries that distribute blood to your muscles - again only at these slower
paces.
With
80% of your running time in zone 2, the rest of your base building time should
be spent in zones 4 and 5 working on either short fast intervals or hill repeat
training to improve running strength.
Zone 4 is 102-105% of your threshold heart rate while zone 5 is >106%
of your threshold.
If
you prefer using perceived effort to determine your paces, use a 1-10 scale
where 1 is walking and 10 is sprinting as hard as you can. Zone 2 would be a
perceived effort of 3-4/10, zone 4 is 7-8/10 and zone 5 is 9-10/10, based on
Matt Fitzgerald's "80/20 Running" book.
This
is a quick recap of some detailed physiology.
For more detailed explanations check out "80/20 running"
by Matt Fitzgerald or "Primal Endurance" by Mark Sisson. If
you're really intrigued and want to read a thick, in-depth book on the
physiology of running try "Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes.
If
all that sounds like a lot of work and science to get your head around, just hire
a coach from Precision Sports Coaching
to help you improve your running.