Tag Archive for "running books" -

Plan for Success

The Man with the Plan

A great (if fictional) man once said, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Well, I just love having a plan in general. I try to run two marathons a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. This give me two major training cycles and leaves room for two rest/recovery cycles in between. Some people love the freedom of the rest and recovery cycle between plans. I’m not one of those people. It feels too aimless. I like to have specific workouts on the calendar and a specific goal I am building up to. The rest and recovery period is nice for about two weeks, then it gets stale. Since I’m not building up to anything in particular, I run random workouts. I’ll get into a rut. I feel adrift. The marathon training plan comforts me. It is long enough that I have some freedom and can switch workouts around if the need arises, but it has a definite goal. Everyone run and every workout is building towards something bigger.

Yesterday and today I have been constructing my new plan. It’s an interesting challenge to build a plan from scratch. There are a lot of choices. How many miles will I run? What kind of quality workouts do I want to include? Will there be tune-up races built into the plan? I consulted Pete Pfitzinger’s and Jack Daniel’s books to build my plan. I also sprinkle some sprint workouts from the FIRST running book. Another thing I’ve done on my plan is to base it on an eight-day training week. This poses some problems because the long run rotates through the days of the week, but it also has some benefits. It gives some variety, and it allows me to structure my hard-easy days to alternate a little more fluidly.

If you’ve never built your own training plan, I encourage you to give it a try. Don’t be overwelmed. Start small. Look at a plan you’ve used in the past (I don’t encourage first time marathoners to attempt their own training plan) and decide what worked for you and what didn’t. Adapt your new plan accordingly. Think about your strengths and weaknesses as a runner. If you faded mightily in the second half, maybe you need more miles. If your core gave out, maybe you should build more core/strenght building into the plan. If you felt good but couldn’t speed up, maybe you should do some progressive runs or more speed work. Whatever you do, take your recovery days seriously. Know why you’re doing the hard days; what is the that workout supposed to build. Pfitzinger and Daniels are great at explaining the physiological whys. Check out their books.

After making a list of the workouts you want to hit and the weekly mileage you want to attain, get a calendar. Start planning in 3-4 week cycles. Every third or fourth week should be a cut-back week to allow your body to recover and grow. Many people will try to keep building higher and higher mileage every week. This is a recipe for stagnation or injury. I like to start with the taper and work my way backwards from there.

Don’t neglect the other areas of your life, either. Having your peak mileage week coincide with the week of parent-teacher conferences isn’t going to work if you’re a teacher. Take it from someone who knows. Doing a twenty-miler on your anniversary might not be a good idea, either.

20th July 2010

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Change your Brain

Neuroplasticity. Odd word for a running blog, right?
I know it’s been a while since I posted here. I was absorbed in a book called The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. This is a book that everyone should read. It explains how the internet is re-wiring our brains and making us shallower thinkers. I know. Another strange idea to bring up on a blog. Basically, the author explains how reading began changing the way we think way back when Gutenberg’s printing press started spinning. Now, people are less likely to go to a book for information and more likely to just Google it. This is re-organizing our brains once again.

According to the author, reading books leads to deeper level of concentration. Our brains focus more in-depth on the information and make more meaningful connections. This causes certain areas of our brains to physically change. This physical change is possible because of neuroplasticity. Our brains are flexible. The parts that are exercised grow stronger. Whenever we learn a new skill or start practicing different things, new connections and pathways are formed.

Leading a mainly digital life causes different changes to take place. The www encourages us to skim rather than read, to skip around on various links, pages, and tabs rather than focus deeply. We end up flitting from flower to flower like a bee rather than drinking deeply and thinking hard on a source. There IS a lot of information out there, but our brain becomes overwelmed. Shallower pathways are formed in the brain and many areas are briefly engaged but none deeply.

So what does this have to do with a running blog? The neuroplasticity was interesting to me. According to studies cited in The Shallows, certain groups engage certain areas of the brain so much that those areas are appreciably larger. For example, taxi drivers in London have significantly larger areas near their hypocampus. These are the areas responsible for remembering streets, maps, and directions. The cabbies are so familiar with the streets of London that it has changed their brains.

This made me wonder if the same change occurs in long-time runners. I’ve often said that I can tell the distance from my house to any place in Holland within a quarter of a mile. So I think this part of my brain has been engaged. I also wonder, though, if training ideas have also re-wired my brain. I study Running Times, Runners’ World, Pete Pfitzinger, et al and have studied them for years now. Has all of this reading on physiology and training re-wired my brain. Has bi-annual marathon training for the past seven years changed the structure of my mind. Does distance running in general change the brain’s make-up.

I think it does. Distance runners are often strangley obsessive about their sport and their training. I’ve often wondered if people like this choose distance running because of this or if running causes it. Neuroplasticity has me leaning toward the sprort causing these traits. How has running changed your brain? How are these changes good? How are these changes bad?

Go out and read The Shallows. Think about it on your next long run.

1st July 2010

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Taper Time

The marathon is less than a week away, so I’ve been tapering. (Sorry, I tapered my blogging, too.) If only I were better at tapering my eating habits along with my running, I’d be all set. Taper time is tricky for runners. On the one hand, most people are tired and sore from the monster training weeks dedicated to the marathon. They’re physically ready for a reduction of miles and an increase in sleep. On the other hand, the increased leisure time allows for doubts to creep in. Tapering runners often go a little crazy with the extra time. They start to wonder if they’ve trained enough, if they should sneak in one more long run. They start to imagine new aches and injuries. They worry about the weather and other things out of their control. However crazy we go during the taper, it is vital to a successful marathon.

First, marathoners need the taper physically. A gradual reduction of miles and increased sleeping time allows the body to repair all the dents and dings of training. The body heals all those micro-tears in the muscles. It stockpiles glycogen. It bounces back from all the stress it has endured for the last three months. This is what allows the marathoner to run harder on race day than in all of those long training runs.

The taper also allows the marathoner to prepare mentally. Yes, it provides time to worry about the training. Runners need to fight the urge to second-guess the training they’ve done. A training log is ideal for this purpose. It allows the stressed runner to look back and see all of those gut-busting work-outs in black and white. This should be reassuring. Concentrate on the hay that is in the barn. Running more miles in the final two weeks won’t help any more than planting seeds at the end of the harvest time. Spend the extra time visualizing the race. Use it to create extensive packing lists to avoid stressful rushing around before the race. RELAX!

This does not mean that marathoners should sleep the entire final few weeks before the race. Most coaches suggest keeping the intensity of training the same and reducing the quantity. If you look at my workouts below, you’ll see that I’ve still done some harder running, but I’ve gradually cut back my mileage. I base my training and tapering off Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning. I usually cut the mileage by about 20% per week, then I cut it by another 20-25% the next week. The final week before the race is usually consumed with counting down to race day. I always run two miles the day prior to the race.

I’ll be adding more thoughts on the Boston Marathon as we get closer to race day, and you can probably count on a pretty detailed report after the race. It’s almost the only thing I’ll be thinking about for the next seven or eight days.

Monday: Rest Day
Tuesday: 8 miles
Wednesday:6.5 w/ 1600 m (800 m recovery), 1200 m (600 m recovery), 2 X 800 m (400 m recovery), 3 X 400 m (200 m recovery) — All repeats at 6:00/mile or faster.
Thursday: 6.5 miles
Friday: 5 miles a.m./5 miles p.m.
Saturday: 5 miles
Sunday: 15.5 miles

Totals for the Week: 51.5 miles

Monday: Rest Day
Tuesday: 8 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: 10 miles w/ 5 at 7:00/mile
Friday: 6.5 miles
Saturday: 4 miles
Sunday: 12 miles

Totals for the Week: 46.5 miles
Totals for the Year: 750 miles

12th April 2010

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Great lessons from Deena

Deena Kastor is the American record holder in the half marathon (1:07) and the marathon (2:19). She also brought home the bronze medal in the 2004 Olympic marathon.
Kastor’s latest blog has some awesome insights about running. She says, “Great drive is far more important than talent.” On a related note, she also blogs, “There is great joy in pursuing a goal. Whether or not you achieve what you are asking your body and mind to accomplish, it is the journey that shapes us and inspires us.” I love these quotes because they focus so much on the act of the runner challenging himself or herself. For me, part of the allure of running is the act of challenging myself to run farther or faster or better than ever before.
As I have improved as a runner, people have started to get the impression that I have always been the runner that I am today. I have not. After my first marathon (Chicago in 2003), I announced to my friends and family that I would never be running Boston; I needed to run over an hour faster to qualify. Once upon a time, my 5k PR was about a minute per mile slower than my current marathon pace. When I share this with newer runners, they often want to know “the secret.”
It all goes back to that drive that Kastor was talking about. I’ve been driven to improve my marathon time, to train harder, and to train wiser. It makes me get up earlier to start a long run, to run twice in one day, to take days off when I need to recover. That drive is what gets me to voraciously devour books like Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning and Jack Daniel’s The Daniel’s Running Formula. It causes me to put in ridiculous mileage over the summer to prepare for a fall marathon. That drive, not any in-born talent, is what helped me qualify for Boston.
Well, drive,awesome support from RunnerGirl and the rest of my family, and some really good luck.

Monday: 6 with stroller
Tuesday: 9 with lots of hills at 5 a.m.
Wednesday: 6 in the morning/5 in the p.m. and lifting/core workout
Thursday: 6 with hills (pulling Myles in the toboggan)
Friday: 5 and some pull-ups
Saturday: 18
Sunday: Lifing and Core Workout
Weekly Total: 55 miles
Total for the Year: 293 miles and 7 core workouts

15th February 2010

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Once a Runner

Things rarely live up to their hype. That’s what I told myself repeatedly when I first got my copy of Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. I was sure it could not live up to its mythical status. Once I opened the book, I read it in less than 24 hours. After I finished the novel, I assumed I had loved it only because I had waited so long to read it. I returned to the book yesterday and finished re-reading it about an hour ago. In case you haven’t guessed, it really is THAT GOOD! (Note: I don’t use caps and exclamation points on a regular basis.)

What makes it so great is that Parker is able to express what it means to be an obsessed runner. He doesn’t write to explain jogging (as Pearl Izumi would say); he writes about what drives the runner striving to farther or faster than he ever has before. He also tries to explain the difficulty of communicating this drive to others. “…they wanted to know “The Secret.” And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared, to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heartrending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials” (Parker 229).

Parts of Parker’s novel are hilarious. Some of it esoteric. A few spots are nostalgic. All of it is worth reading, though. It will challenge you to run harder and maybe help you understand why you want to run at all. I’ll leave you with one more line: it feels like poetry to me.

“Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free” (Parker 123).

Parker, John L. Once a Runner. Scribner: New York. 1990.

21st August 2009

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Running Metaphorically

“The only thing, really, that marks the difference between the beginning and the end is the passage of time” (Pont 210). Isn’t this a great statement about a race and life?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Sorry. I won’t bore you with excuses about new babies, sidewalk sales, my sister’s wedding, etc. I would like to point out that the Boys and Girls Club was the people’s choice for the charity I should support. Join the fundraising effort on Facebook by searching for the Boys and Girls Club of Holland.

I just finished reading Finding Their Stride by Sally Pont. It is the story of a high school cross country season as told by the coach. Very inspirational stuff! She writes a lot about how her athletes change throughout the season. She also examines the metaphors offered by running. Her voice comes through so passionately that it made me long to re-live my high school cross country seasons.

The metaphoric side of running is a by-product of all the silent seconds spent in flight (at least for us non-Ipod impaired runners). Every mile offers time to think and examine life. Throughout the memoir, Pont shares her hopes and dreams for the athletes she coaches. She also examines them for changes and growth. The race descriptions serve as a psychological treatise on her athletes; she uses the symbols of the run to describe the teens’ pain, desire, emotion. On my runs, I understand what she is saying.

“Finding pleasure in the pain of running, she feels no need at all to change” (Pont 190). Everyone has been on a run that hurt, a run that pushed them farther than they thought possible. When I push through that wall, when I live in that pain, I finish feeling satisfied. That is what Pont is saying here. She’s saying that to find the pleasure in pain frees us from the pressures and demands of others. We’re free to be ourselves. Runners push through that physical pain, but people often need to push the emotional pain of refusing to fit into the boxes others try to force us into.

This is a short post, but it’s all I’ve got right now. Find a copy of Finding Their Stride by Sally Pont. It will inspire you to find more meaning in your running. Here’s one last quote for you.

“The point is to be better than you thought you could be. That, really, is winning” (Pont 227).

Pont, Sally. Finding Their Stride. Harcourt Brace: New York. 1999.

14th August 2009

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