Autumn Marathon
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Friday, Aug 19th, 2011 ↓“
You can maintain your cardiovascular capacity by cross-training, but it is extremely difficult to maintain your performance when you rely on cross-training,” Dr. Tanaka said. “This is because you are violating the principle of the specificity of training.”
Anyone who has been injured and forced to do an alternate sport knows this already. If you cannot run and end up substituting workouts on a bicycle for running, almost invariably you will end up losing running speed and endurance.
But if an alternate sport doesn’t help endurance athletes, resistance training might. It’s a bit counterintuitive — if you are training for an endurance sport like running, your workouts increase your ability to perform the same motion over and over again but do not markedly increase your muscle strength. Lifting weights is just the opposite — you do a few repetitions with the goal of increasing muscle strength and size. Yet in a review of published studies, Dr. Tanaka found that resistance training improved endurance in running and cycling. The effect occurred both in experienced athletes and in novices.
A more recent study of experienced runners by a group of Norwegian researchers confirmed that weight lifting could increase performance. One group did half squats with heavy weights three times a week while continuing a running program. The other group just ran. Those who did the squats improved their running efficiency and improved the length of time they could run before exhaustion set in.
”Train less, go faster!
…is the motto of NYC Endurance, whose regular class/workout I joined for the first time Tuesday evening. The group’s approach is to combine a holistic, functional fitness regimen like CrossFit with limited, targeted endurance workouts in order to prepare an athlete to excel in marathons, triathalons and even ultras. The endurance workouts, no more than three per week, include sprints, longer intervals and tempo runs of not longer than 90 minutes.
Tuesday’s workout consisted of six 200m sprints with 90 seconds rest between them. In aggregate, that’s six minutes of work broken up by ten minutes of rest. When Brian, the NYC Endurance Coach described the workout, I wondered why I had bothered riding the subway all the way from Brooklyn just to exercise for 15 minutes! As it happened, most of the hour was occupied with drills to reinforce proper running technique. CrossFit endurance advocates rapid stride cadence, striking the ground with your forefoot, and leaning forward to maximize straight-ahead propulsion. You never think that you to study how to run, yet it turns out to be hard work.
My own training log for the first part of the year reveals mileage of not more than 11 or 12 miles per week which most of my running friends would consider crazy for someone preparing for a couple half marathons in the spring and the NYC Marathon in November. There are also tough CrossFit workouts which I have been doing 3-4 times/week. Results so far have been mixed: generally, my running times are slower than when I was running 35 miles/week two years ago. However, there have been some promising races and I haven’t yet completely absorbed the new technique.
Winter Season
Walking across Gowanus last week with A, we passed my favorite urban garden in NYC. I remarked how pathetic the garden looked (pointing at the wilted sunflower stalks). My wife, who prefers winter said, “You don’t get it! The garden is working hard now gathering strength for the spring growing season.” Or words to that effect.
It wasn’t so cold that evening and gazing around at the austere beauty of that industrial neighborhood, her words made sense to me. You could say the same thing about my current training cycle. New York is still over nine months away. I’m running very little, but doing work at CrossFit, building strength, learning new skills and laying the foundation for an ambitious racing season ahead. This is the year my blog tells the truth: I am running an actual Autumn Marathon, my first. It’s very exciting!
I still don’t care for winter (at least not in the northeast US) and am writing this en route to a week in Florida. Still, seasonality is a very important concept in sports as in life. It’s one of my core training principles. I will post further updates in spring, summer and fall.
I really loved this week’s New Yorker cover by Sempe entitled “The Joys and Torments of Solitude.” Though I like to say that “the solitude of the long-distance runner is overrated,” meaning that most of the time it’s more fun and beneficial to run with a group, most distance athletes got into their sport because they enjoy solitary exertions. Of course, hill work is a torment whether on a bike or on a footpath.
Great summer image - I can practically smell the cool mountain air burning the cyclist’s lungs!
via
Running On
Today was the first day since New Year the daytime temperature got above freezing in WB. Was able to leave work a little early, during daylight, and after a quick errand, I decided to stop by Kirby Park to see if the paths were runnable. The park paths were clear, so I decided to climb up onto the levee to see if the riverside path was ok. It looked pretty dry, but on my way downhill to the car I slipped on a patch of black ice and fell right on my ass. Scraped the hell out of my right arm.
I did motivate myself to do a 6 x 1/4 mile interval workout on the treadmill back at the hotel. Not a lot of fun, but having the intervals as goals make the time go by quicker. Ran 4-miles total. Showered, then sat in the whirlpool and swam a few laps. I rarely swim - must have been inspired by “Up in the Air.”
I gave this blog a running name, but have rarely written about running. The name is only obliquely about the sport - the title is that of a wonderful Russian/Soviet movie of the 1980s. The film is Chekhovian in more ways than one. At the time I started the blog, I had run for many years, but wasn’t sure if the sport would sustain my interest. In the past year, I ran over 1300 miles, competed in a bunch of races, found a great running team and generally started feeling less like a guy who exercises and more like an amateur athlete. Not sure when, but maybe someday, “Autumn Marathon” will be a more literal title.
Spring Half Marathon
On Saturday, I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon - my athletic goal for the past six months. It was a warm, humid day and the race was huge - nearly 12,000 participants announced by the NY Road Runners club. Perhaps because of the size of the race, the weather and a head cold (the lingering souvenir of a recent business trip), I ran quite a bit slower than expected, finishing the race in an official time of 2:02:55. The first 3-4 miles felt ok - I was running 8 minute to 8:30 minute/mile pace which was around my target for the entire event. But as we ascended the final hill in Prospect Park, my energy and pace dropped off significantly. The final six miles of the race were flat and boring heading out to the beach and each one felt as if it could be my last. By mile 10-11, my pace must have been 10 minutes/mile or slower. Final time represented a pace no faster than some of my longer training runs. Nevertheless, getting to the finish line meant accomplishing an important goal which is to be acknowledged and celebrated. It was fun to hang out by the beach for a few minutes with my PPTC teammates. Running with a team is soooo much more fun that working out by myself: the “Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” is definitely overrated.
It’s summertime now, even if the calendar doesn’t admit it yet, so now is the season to enjoy the beach, some tennis as well as faster and better runs!
Photo from Flickr (via mason13a)
