GPS Watch Recommendations For Runners

RUNNING WATCH RECOMMENDATIONS ⌚️We get a ton of questions about what watches we recommend for running. GPS watches are amazing for runners to track their runs in one spot. Many watches are similar capabilities, and a lot of athletes wonder, ‘Which watch is the one I need to get?”. Today we will be breaking down some of the different features in the most popular running watches on the market.

Check out our top picks:🔥

▫️GARMIN▫️

✅Garmin Forerunner 45 ($200): Heart rate, smart notifications, incident detection, up to 7 days of🔋life, lightweight design

✅Garmin Forerunner 235 ($250): Heart rate, counts daily steps/calories/sleep, ability to download other watch faces and widgets from Garmin Connect app, 9 days of🔋life/11 hours while on GPS

✅Garmin Vivoactive 3 ($250): music capabilities,  heart rate, incident detection, ability to send and receive texts, up to 5 days of🔋life

✅Garmin Forerunner 245 ($300): Music capabilities, heart rate & training load, incident detection, 6 hours of🔋life on GPS, lightweight design

✅Garmin Forerunner 645 ($400): music capabilities, Garmin Pay, provides advanced running dynamics, heart rate and training status, up to 7 days of 🔋 life/ 5 hours on GPS with 🎵

✅Garmin Fenix 5 or 6 Series ($600+): Heart rate and pulse oxidation, has preloaded maps, music capabilities, 14 days of🔋life, multiple sport options from 🧘‍♀️ to 🏋️, smart notifications, weather functions

•

▫️POLAR▫️

✅Polar Ignite ($230): heart rate, multiple sport modes, daily activity tracking/steps/calories

✅Polar Vantage M ($280): heart rate, multiple sport modes, training status, lightweight design

✅Polar Vantage V ($500): heart rate, measures running power without a food pod, training load, durable

▫️SUUNTO▫️

✅Suunto 9 ($350): Heart rate, over 80 sport modes, smart notifications, 25-120 hours of GPS tracking using FusedTrack (combines motion sensor data and GPS data to track distance)

✅Suunto 5 ($330): Heart rate, fitness level/stress and recovery tracking, adaptive training guidance, over 80 sport modes

✅Suunto 9 Baro ($600): heart rate, weather functions, 25-120 hours of GPS tracking, barometer functionality

▫️COROS▫️

✅Coros Pace ($200): heart rate, 25 hours of🔋life on GPS, running analytics, multi-sport watch, lightweight

✅Coros Apex ($300+): heart rate, training load, navigation features, running analytics, 30 days of🔋life/35 hours on GPS, durable

 

Features to look for

Ideal Racing Calendar

The Ideal RACING CALENDAR! 🗓is so important to reaching your potential in the sport of running. We have to make sure we have a plan to reach our goals. Overtraining and over racing is very common

Depending on what you are training for, we have different recommendations.

How to structure YOUR racing schedule

👇If you’re running a 🍁FALL🍁 marathon👇

⭐️JAN/FEB/MAR: 5k/10k Training

⭐️APR & MAY: 5k/10k RACE & Half Marathon Training

⭐️JUN: Half Marathon RACE → Get a gauge for your fitness going into marathon training!

⭐️JUL & AUG: Marathon Training

⭐️SEPT: Marathon Training & Half Marathon RACE → Get a gauge for what your goal time for the marathon should be based on half marathon race 4-6 weeks prior!

⭐️OCT: MARATHON!

⭐️NOV & DEC: Recovery/Off-Season!

👇If you’re running a 🌿SPRING🌿marathon👇

⭐️JAN & FEB: Marathon Training

⭐️MAR: Marathon Training/Half Marathon RACE → Get a gauge for your fitness going into marathon training!

⭐️APR: MARATHON!

⭐️MAY & JUN: Recovery/Off-Season!

⭐️JUL & AUG: 5k/10k Training

⭐️SEPT & OCT: 5k/10k RACE & Half Marathon Training

⭐️NOV: Half Marathon RACE → Get a gauge for your fitness going into marathon training!

⭐️DEC: Marathon Training

What this racing schedule can do for YOU 

• Give you much needed time off from the marathon grind
• Allow you to have adequate recovery/off-season time to avoid burnout and injury
• Get you FASTER overall with specific 5k/10k training
• Allow you to race half marathons to gauge your fitness going into a marathon cycle and before a marathon

Running Your Best Boston Marathon

The Elusive Boston Marathon is quickly approaching on Patriots day in April. The Boston Marathon is not an easy course! Many people work their whole lives to get to qualify for this race, and we want to make sure it is a great experience and people are ready to tackle this amazing race. We will go into a deep dive as to what to expect from the course and how to train to be in the best shape possible for race day.

FAQs with Jason Phillippi 2:49 Boston Marathoner & Run Coach

What time did you run the first time you went to Boston? & what was your qualifying time?

I qualified for Boston 2015 during the Las Vegas Rock N Roll Marathon in 2013 with a 3:03. I barely got accepted to run because my time barely hit the standard of 3:05. In Boston 2015, I ran a time of 2:49.

Did you buy the jacket ahead of time?

We purchased the jackets ahead of time both years. There is more apparel at the expo you can get than is available online. Getting the jacket ahead of time is nice so you can ensure you get your side.

Can you wear the jacket ahead of time?

Some people are superstitious about that. I didn’t wear mine ahead of time too much. I think I did on the airplane out there.

How does the coral & wave start work?

There are 30k runners out there. Usually there are 4 waves that start every 30-45 min. Each wave has several corals. You must line up at the start line when your wave is called and be in the correct corals. Most years anyone under 3:05-3:10 qualifying times are in wave one. Bibs will be color coded.

What is athletes village?

This is where the athletes will wait to be called to their starting corals

What was the course like compared to what you were expecting?

The hills were more dramatic than I was anticipating. There is not a lot of flat running on this course. It is either always up or always down. The first 10k is a net downhill, but there are still a lot of climbs. I was surprised by how many hills were throughout the whole race not just the Newton Hills

• Miles 1-6: the deceptive hills. The first 10k is net downhill but there are some pretty steep hills within there
• Miles 6-13: All rolling hills. Small downs. Lots of pine trees. Tons of people
• Miles 16-22: HILLS ON HILLS: Heart Break: Newton
• Miles 22-26.2 flattens out a bit but still hilly

 

How do you prepare for a hilly course?

• Hill repeats
• Downhill repeats
• Tempos with hills in
• Lifting & building strength/power for hills
• Half marathons hilly in build up
• Watching videos of the course

 

Injury Prevention Tips

Flare ups and injuries are the worst words a runner wants to hear. We want to be healthy and injury free to we can avoid having to take time off. The longer we can run healthy, the happier we usually are. Today we are talking about ways to prevent injuries from happening and what to do if something does flare up

 

1- Finding The Right Shoes

Getting fitted for running shoes at your local run specialty shop is the first step in preventing injury. What works for one person might not work for the next, so it’s important for someone to do a gait analysis on YOU to ensure you are running in the proper shoes.

It is important to note shoes should be retired after a certain mileage usually around ~300 but it depends on the shoe model. Ask your running store specialist

2- Pre-Run Exercises & Drills

Drills & exercises such as band work, leg swings, hip openers, A skips, B skips, etc. will help turn your muscles ON so they are prepared for what’s to come and reinforce good form. Getting your muscles warm prior to running will also reduce the risk for acute injuries like a hamstring or calf strain 🤕

Glute Activation Drills: When the glutes aren’t firing and aren’t strong, other muscles in your body will compensate. These compensating muscles (like your hamstrings and quads), and the joints around them (knee, hip, and even ankle joints), take on too much force which can lead to injury

By activating the whole muscle, you are less likely to become a ‘quad dominate runner’. You want to be a balanced runner. When there are imbalances within the body, certain muscles work harder than they should. This can cause overuse or change of natural gait.

3- Warm up & Cool Down:

Similar to pre-run exercises, warming up and cooling down for a few miles before and after hard workouts prepares your body beforehand and aids in the recovery process afterwards. A good warm up starts at an easy effort and builds into a faster pace. We want to allow the body time to gradual warm up before we do harder effort work.

4- Strength Training:

Strength training will help improve your form and help eliminate muscle imbalances in your body. Strength training also ensures your muscles are activated when running, so they can “brace for impact” with each step

• Muscle to mind connection important & strength training helps utilize the full muscle
• Strength Training reduces muscle imbalances that may be present in runners
• Being a strong core can help with your running form and running economy making you more efficient 

5- Nutrition & Sleep:

Nutrition: If you don’t eat enough and/or get in key vitamins & minerals to keep up with your training volume, you can be susceptible to stress fractures by way of low BMI, irregular/absence of periods, and/or low bone mineral density

Sleep: Most adults need at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Athletes who are training hard need even more. If you are not able to get the minimum sleep needed, it will impair your body’s ability to recover. If sleep is being disrupted, consider cutting down on mileage & intensity. If you can’t recover with proper sleep, there is not use in digging yourself into a bigger hole adding more stress from more workouts.

• Sleep produces Human Growth Hormone for recovery
• Nutrition- if you are not eating enough your body cannot repair and sustain itself: women who do not get their period can be susceptible to bone issues.

6- Avoid Overtraining

Easier said than done, right? It can be hard to find the happy medium where you are improving but not wreaking havoc on your body, but working with a coach and listening to your own body will help you find that mileage and training sweet spot! Utilizing the Progressive overload principle can help you avoid overtraining.

Keys to avoiding overtraining & using progressive overload:

• You need to start where your fitness & mileage currently is
• Do not forces paces or train faster than you should for your fitness level
• Do not do big jumps in mileage & use the 10% rule as max mileage increase weekly
• Do not increase your long runs by more than 20-30 min per week & cap at 3 hours
• Keep your easy days truly easy or switch it into cross training if you are very sore

 

7- Check Your Stride:

Do you know what you look like when you run? It is important to be aware of your running form. Some athletes have reoccurring flare ups or injuries because an imbalance with their running stride. There are many factors in the gait that could effect your body. If you struggle with running form getting a gait analysis from a certified physical therapist can help identify problem areas. Once the ares are identified, the PT will prescribe specific exercises to you to correct imbalances. It is very important that you get actionable information after a gait analysis. Knowing your weak points isn’t enough. You must take action to correct imbalances.

Common Issues:

• Wasting energy sideways with arm swings
• Tensing up wasting energy
• Leaning forward vs backwards
• Bounding in the air for too long
• Landing improper

 

8- All The Little Things For Recovery

Athletes often obsess over what they can do to get faster from a workload & stress perspective, but did you know that stress + rest = growth? We need to focus on the rest and recovery portion also. There are many things athletes do to help with the recovery portion of their training

• Foam Rolling
• Rest Days
• Yoga Sessions
• Meditation
• Resting enough between workouts
• Listening to body
• Supplementing if needed
• Epsom Salt Baths
• Cryotherapy
• Massages
• Icing
• CBD oil

The list goes on! Anything that helps with your recovery/relaxing process is very important. In the go-go-go world that we live in, there is not a big focus on recovery, but it is so important.

 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET INJURED?

• REST & take time off
• Do not run through pain
• See a doctor ASAP for diagnosis and treatment
• Ask if you can run or cross training
• Ask for PT exercises
• Use your doctors advise!

Signs of Overtraining: Work Smarter NOT Harder

What is Overtraining?
Overtraining is a term used to describe a state of chronic fatigue resulting from accumulated stress. It occurs when the strain we are placing on our bodies – either through high mileage, fast paces, insufficient recovery, or a combination of factors – continually exceeds the bodies’ ability to recover. It can occur for any number of specific reasons, but the key component in overtraining is insufficient recovery. Overtraining can have serious negative effects not only on race performance but on an athlete’s overall mental health as well. If left unaddressed, overtraining can progress into more serious conditions and so it is important to watch for early signs and to make the necessary adjustments in order to avoid becoming “burned out”.

How to Spot Overtraining
There is no diagnostic test for overtraining. Rather, overtraining syndrome is a collection of symptoms, related to physical stress, which result in decreased performance. Many of the early signs of overtraining – like fatigue, soreness, and irritability – may initially be written off as a cold or a lack of sleep due to a busy work schedule. While occasional soreness and fatigue are a normal part of training, it is when these symptoms become persistent that overtraining must be considered.

Some of the earlier signs to watch for are:
– Increased Resting Heart
– Insomnia and/or Nightmares
– Unexplained Drop in Performance
– A Lack of Motivation or Desire to Run
– Persistent Fatigue
– Depression
– Recurring Illnesses
– Irritability
– Frequent Injury

What To Do If You Are Experiencing Overtraining
Back off. Something you have been doing has not been working. It can be hard to take a step back, especially in the middle of a season, but trying to soldier through signs of overtraining is just piling debt upon debt. This way you’re bound to go bankrupt. The first step is to allow your body the recovery it has been missing. Depending on the severity of your overtraining, you may need to pull way back on your volume, taking anywhere from a week to a month easy or completely off in order for your body to reset. The key is to reduce both volume and intensity, and to focus on proper sleep, nutrition, and hydration. It is important that you listen to your body and allow it to fully recover before you begin to build back up. Taking an extra week upfront will save you significantly more time (and fitness) in the long run than if you rush back and re-stress
your systems before they are ready. You gain nothing by forcing the issue.
Instead, try to identify what the key stressors were in your training.

Was it too much volume?
Was it too many hard efforts in a week? Was it a prolonged caloric deficit?   

Use this down time as an opportunity to reassess your training and pinpoint which factors likely contributed to your overtraining. While you can’t undo past training, you can use it as a learning experience to better understand your bodies’ limits and modify your training accordingly going forward.

How to Help Prevent Overtraining
Burnout in runners is a multi-dimensional issue. While training is one factor that can contribute stress, other factors such as a lack of sleep, trying to lose too much weight during intense training, or even a hectic work schedule can just as easily tip the balance from tolerable to overwhelming. That is why it is crucial that you do the little things.

1.) Keep Your Easy Days EASY: It is on the days in between hard efforts that our bodies
repair themselves and we get the benefits from our hard work. Running too fast on easy
days adds little aerobic benefit to your run, but significantly hinder your bodies’ ability to repair itself from previous efforts. For this reason, it is crucial that your easy recovery
runs are performed at a slow, conversational pace. Similarly, no two runners are the
same. While one runner may be able to do 80mpw with three hard efforts, another may
be better suited at 40mpw with two hard efforts. Each runner’s training should be
adapted to their own unique ability to recover (something that is continually evolving as
you learn more about yourself and/or your athletes).

2.) Perform The Easiest Workout That Still Elicits The Desired Response: Each
workout is designed to target a specific energy system, or “zone”, and the paces given
correlate specific to the zone(s) you intend to work. Run too fast and you are no longer
working that zone. Run too slow and you are not getting enough benefits from your work. The key is to find the balance. The goal for the majority of your workouts should be to run a pace which is just fast enough that it provokes significant developments to that systems but not so fast that you risk unnecessary stress. You want to finish most of your workouts feeling like you could do one more.

3.) Avoid Trying To Cut Weight During Intense Training: Speed sessions and long runs
do a number on your legs. Not only do they require a considerable amount of calories
just to get through in the first place, but they require a fair amount of protein and other
nutrients afterwards to repair and grow. It you limit your nutritional intake while
simultaneously ramping up volume and intensity, you are burning the candle at both
ends and inviting the potential for overtraining syndrome and injury into your running.

 

Why speed workouts are not as important as you think

Nothing boosts a runner’s confidence quite like logging a huge track session. Its flashy, its
technical, and it makes you feel like you’ve accomplished a great deal with one workout. In all honesty, it’s not unreasonable to think “if I want to run faster, I should just run faster in practice, right”?

While speed work can be an important part of your running, it is only one facet in a much larger picture of fitness. Though it serves an important function, there are several reasons why speed work is not as important as your think.

 

#1- You Need Aerobic Fitness 

First and foremost, it makes up a relatively small percentage of your overall fitness. It is the icing on the cake. The peak of the pyramid. Your running is not pulled up by your top speed the same way a mountain is not formed from the peak down. It is pushed up from the bottom, through a strong aerobic base and highly-conditioned lactic threshold. As a distance runner, focusing on 400m speed makes little difference if you don’t have the aerobic capacity to run strong over the entire race distance as well. Aerobic fitness is the summative fitness of multiple metabolic systems or “zones”, with each relying heavily on its related antecedent systems. The better fitness you have in each prior zone, the higher the potential for each subsequent zone becomes, including top-end speed. Sprint work can make an impressive difference, but only if you have built the appropriate aerobic base to support it. It should serve as a way to refine and build on aerobic strength rather than a way of making up for an insufficient base. In other words,
speed should be done in addition to, not in place of.

 

#2- Law of Diminishing Returns

Additionally, it is not beneficial to work speed for more than 30 or 40 days. While athletes doing speed work may see considerable improvement in the first few weeks, for most athletes it only takes 3-4 weeks of focused speed work to maximize the benefits to these systems. Though there is not a hard, fast expiration date on speed, the fact remains the same that you can only work these systems for a relatively short amount of time before you simply stops seeing improvement. Beyond this point, the narrow margin of returns simply do not justify the added stress of the work and trying to force additional speed sessions can lead to chronic fatigue, injury, and burnout.

 

#3- Better Workout Options 

Conversely, high-end aerobic work like long runs, steady states, and
progressive tempos can be done practically year round while continuing to see progress. Even threshold work like tempos and cruise intervals can be done for several months while continuing to see improvement. This type of work builds your aerobic base, improving efficiency, strength, and running economy while pushing the vLT (lactic threshold) up from the bottom. Focusing the majority of your training on building a strong aerobic engine will yield better results than focusing on speed, especially as your race distance increases.

#4- Specificity Matters: Train The Right Systems

The types of runs you do should revolve around the race(s) you intend to run. Each race
distance places unique energy demands on your body, requiring it to use multiple metabolic systems in specific ratios in order to meet the demands of the distance. In other words, each race is going to place a different emphasis on different training zones. This means that our training should reflect the energy demands of our races. The fact of the matter is speed work may not even be relevant to your race distance! The ratio of work we do in our build up to a race should mimic the ratio of energy pathways used in that race, so if 90% of your race is aerobic the vast majority of your work should focus on improving aerobic strength. There is little benefit in spending any focused amount of time working outside that energy system as it accounts for such a small percentage of your race (in other words, a small amount of time). You will shave significantly more time by being able to hold a faster pace aerobically than by trying to kick it in hard the last mile or so. For example, while running repeats at Vo2Max pace or faster would be useful for someone whose focus is mile to 5k, a marathoner would see little to no benefit from this type of work because they simply do not utilize that system during their race. Instead of relying on speed, marathoners rely on a massive aerobic engine and so nearly all of their work should focus on building aerobic strength and efficiency through high-end aerobic work like steady states, tempos, and long runs. Additionally, working systems which have little-to-no benefit to your race takes away time which could otherwise be spent working the more relevant systems.
While speed work can be an important part of your running, it is only one facet in a much larger picture of fitness. Perhaps the best way to explain the role of speed work is this: speed work helps us to squeeze the most out of our training to hit short-term targets while high-end aerobic work gives us the strength to achieve long-term goals.

Law of Diminishing Returns

The FASTER you get, the HARDER it is to keep getting faster❗️

•
👇THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS👇
Athletes beginning a new program will see rapid results right away but as they become fitter and reach their genetic limits, the improvements level off 📊
•
When you are new to running, you don’t have to spend much time at all to see improvements. Your return on your investment (ROI) is very high! 📈 You are getting the most bang for your buck right away, which feels pretty awesome! 💸 This is why you’ll see people drop 30 minutes off their marathon time in one training cycle. They are NEW to it and new to proper training! You won’t, however, see Kipchoge go from a 2:00 hour marathon to a 1:30 marathon 😆
•
As you get further and further into the sport, your ROI decreases 📉, and you will find that the cost of rapid improvement is too high and unsustainable.👇You might:
✅Get injured
✅Not be able to hit workout paces
✅Feel more fatigued than usual
✅Have insomnia
✅Have a higher resting heart rate
•
💥This is why MORE is NOT always better!💥
•
Some people can run 100 miles a week and still improve. Some cannot! 👇This is due to:
✅Genetics 🧬
✅Training age: How long you’ve been running (the longer you’ve been running, the more able your body is to handle higher mileage)
•
❓SO NOW WHAT❓🤔
Find YOUR mileage sweet spot where you continue to make incremental improvements AND you are healthy! 🙌 The beauty in this is that you CAN still make improvements over time if you stay CONSISTENT. If you keep at it, you WILL continue to improve! 💪 You won’t continue to see the leaps and bounds you maybe once did, but👇you WILL get faster if you:
✅Don’t overdo it
✅Don’t try to replicate someone else’s training
✅Recover hard

Assessing Your Strengths & Weaknesses

We all have different strengths and weaknesses as athletes. It is important to assess these to know what areas to improve on and train specific to you as an individual.

 

✅ NATURAL SPEED: These runners were the faster kids in elementary/middle school, tend to ENJOY speed work over threshold work or long runs, and their 1 mile or 5k times predict a faster marathon time than they’ve ever been able to run
.
👍 If this is your STRENGTH:
🔸Focus on hills, threshold work, and long runs to improve your aerobic endurance
.
👎If this is your WEAKNESS:
🔸Focus on interval and speed work outs
🔸Take a season to focus on the 5k with more speed work and less volume
.
✅ DURABILITY: These runners can run miles upon miles, day after day without getting injured or even feeling achy!
.
👍 If this is your STRENGTH:
🔸Runners that are durable are susceptible to BURN OUT! Be DILIGENT about monitoring yourself day to day. Check your resting heart rate in the morning and monitor your sleep. Ensure that your body is still responding well to the work you’re putting in because burn out can be SNEAKY!
.
👎If this is your WEAKNESS:
🔸Schedule more cutback weeks
🔸Add in more cross training to get the aerobic work in without the pounding on your legs
🔸Focus on strength training
.
✅ MENTAL TOUGHNESS: These runners tend to negative split races, recover well after hills during a race, and can maintain good pacing through rough patches in a race
.
👍If this is your STRENGTH:
🔸Use your mental grit to your advantage and take some chances earlier in races! If you know you can close well even when you feel awful, push the pace a little earlier to see if you can get even more out of yourself!
.
👎If this is your WEAKNESS:
🔸Know that you DO have another gear to tap into and you CAN go deeper into the well if your mind allows your body to
🔸Run in any conditions! Barring any unsafe conditions, do your work out when it’s super windy and run in that snow! It will pay dividends on race day
.
✨REMEMBER: You can TRAIN yourself into the runner you want to be! You are NOT stuck where you’re at. With the right training for YOU, you can become the runner you’ve always dreamt of being✨

How Setting Non-Marathon-Specific Goals Can Make You a Better Marathoner in the End

The marathon. The be-all end-all of distance events. 26.2 sweaty miles of burning lungs and tired legs. It is likely the first thing your co-workers ask about when you mention you are a runner, and with good reason! They are, to many, a near inconceivable physical undertaking and should be worn like the badge of honor that they are. It is without a doubt Eliud Kipchoge’s recent sub-2 hour marathon will be remembered as one of the most impressive athletic achievements in history. However, your road to the marathon doesn’t have to be a linear journey. Though the marathon may be the ultimate destination, its okay to take detours for different distances along the way, and may even make you a stronger marathon runner in the end.
Having variety in your racing goals is important for three reasons:
1. It improves potential for faster performances down the road
2. It serves as a necessary mental and physical break from marathon training
3. It provides us with new performance markers by which we can gauge progress.

Run Shorter, Run Faster

The marathon is all about aerobic strength. Holding a moderate pace over a long distance. We aren’t worn down so much by the speed of our pace, but rather by the distance over which we are holding it. Aerobic strength takes time to build. It’s not something that happens overnight, or even over weeks. But it does happen. Every time we lace up we are adding a brick to our aerobic base. It is something that we can continue to build and improve on over the course of our running careers. There is no real expiration date on aerobic fitness. However, the same cannot be said about speed. It’s a fact of life that as we get older, we slow down. We tend to lose some of that gut-busting power we had when we were younger. For some this happens in
their early 30’s and for others, like 5x Olympian and Masters world record holder Bernard Lagat, it may not happen until well into their running careers. But the fact remains the same, at some point it does happen. So shouldn’t it make sense that we train speed while we still can?
As we continue to run and improve our aerobic fitness, the “percent of max” we can hold over the marathon distance increases. So in a “rising tide lifts all boats” sense, the higher our max the faster the potential for all of our other paces should become. Looking at professional marathoners, many are athletes who have transitioned to the roads following successful track careers. Eliud Kipchoge was a 5k world champion while Kenenisia Bekele currently holds the world records for 5000m, 10,000m, and the indoor 2-mile. Dathan Ritzenhein is one of only a handful of Americans to ever break 13:00 for 5k and Galen Rupp had run 8:07 over two miles prior to earning a bronze medal in the 2016 Rio games.

The lactic threshold plays a role in race performance even for distances as far out as the marathon. The faster we can run before accumulating lactic acid, the more ground we can cover before having to worry about muscular fatigue. Taking a cycle to improve our vLT (velocity at lactic threshold) can help with our long- term goals. In other words, the higher our threshold the faster our marathon pace. Now this does not mean we need to hammer track workouts and speed sessions while actively training for a marathon. I would be the first to tell you it doesn’t matter how fast you can run a mile if you haven’t done the necessary aerobic work for the big 26. We can’t train like a 5k runner in the months leading up to a marathon and expect that it will translate evenly over an extra 23.1 miles. Rather, this suggests that varying your training emphasis from time to time can lead to success in future training cycles. While high-end aerobic work (like steady-states and progressive long runs) should be the staple of your marathon prep-work, adding a block focused on “shorter” speed in between marathon cycles can set you up for fast times as you transition towards more marathon-centric training. By scaffolding shorter-race cycles with marathon training blocks, we improve our potential at both distances.

A Change of Pace

Not only can emphasizing speed prep us physically for a better race, but it can serve as an excellent mental and physical break between marathon bouts. Getting ready for the full can sometimes be grueling, and focusing on the marathon year round is even more strenuous. Taking a step back on mileage and running a few shorter races can be a pleasant and exciting way to continue to improve fitness while allowing the body a chance to recover. Managing motivation is just as important as managing stress. A well-balanced racing schedule is like a well-balanced diet. Sure, oatmeal is good for us, but if we ate nothing but oatmeal year round we would certainly be lacking in other areas. Not to mention how bland oatmeal would start to seem after a while. Every now and then you need to throw in something new. Running is no different. Our training needs variety too. Doing the same type of training cycle-after-cycle can
make us very strong in one area but it doesn’t necessarily make us well rounded runners. More importantly, it can begin to feel stale after a while, which may make it difficult to keep that drive going year-round. But a change of pace can keep your running feeling fresh. A shifted-focus can give new ambition to your training and serve as a much needed change of pace. It can be exciting training for a new race or doing different workouts, and conquering a big track session can instill some major confidence. This offers our minds and bodies a chance to recover with lower mileage while still making significant improvements to our overall fitness.

New Ways of Seeing Improvement

Similarly, having a range of goals offers yet another marker by which we can measure our growth. Nothing motivates runners like a new PR, and shifting our focus to different distances can help us achieve these new milestones in our running careers. Being able to say “this is the fastest I have ever been” is a great feeling and something many runners chase year after year. Additionally, shorter races like 5k and 10k take less time to recover from than racing a full 26, which means we can run multiple races in a cycle. It’s hard to know exactly where we are fitness-wise if we only get a chance to race a few times a year. But focusing on shorter distances gives us an opportunity to test our fitness several times over a cycle. A bad race isn’t as crushing when you have two more opportunities to race. Finally, it offers a new way to measure progress when you do finally begin your marathon prepping. For example, if in the build up to a marathon you race a tune-up 10k, it can give you and your coach a much more accurate understanding of what that time means when you can compare it to an all-out performance(s) in which you trained specifically for that distance. A wider range of data paints a bigger picture.

As fall marathon season begins to wind-down and you start thinking about your 2020 race goals, keep in mind the shorter distances. Varying your race goals can improve speed and help to make you a more well-rounded runner. It can serve as both a mental and physical break from the mileage of marathon training, and help to instill confidence and ambition by adding a little more pop to your stride. Just like with volume and intensity, good training goals are about finding the balance that allows you to stay motivated and keep running. If you are someone who finds it hard to lace up after a marathon cycle, adding diversity to your training may help to get you out the door and looking forward to training again. While marathons may be your ultimate
calling, it is okay and even beneficial to try your hand at shorter distances along the way.

Lower VS Higher Mileage

“If you want to run faster, just run more”. If you’re a seasoned runner, you’ve likely heard this or similar advice at some point in your running career, and to a point its true.

The great Gerry Lindgren is rumored to have averaged over 200mpw while continuing to improve. Higher volume does tend to correlate to faster times for long distance races. But this is not a linear line and, even more importantly, it does not apply equally to all athletes. Take Noah Droddy as an example; an elite half-marathoner with a personal best of 61:48, who had averaged around 70mpw prior to a spree of good performances which saw him qualify for the Olympic Trials at multiple distances and nab a second place finish at the USATF 10 Mile Championships in 47:28. Relative to the other elites competing in these fields, Droddy was running significantly less mileage. The same can be said about athletes like 800m American record holder Donovan Brazier who runs less than 35 miles in a week, or 2x NCAA champion Justyn Knight whose peak collegiate mileage was between 55-60mpw.

Finding the perfect balance between stress and recovery is an art form as much as it is a science. Being able to decipher how much volume you can add before it begins to outweigh the body’s ability to repair itself is one of the most important skills a coach can have as it won’t be the same for every athlete.

Managing Stress

Think of stress as a teeter-totter, with one end representing volume and the other representing intensity. As one goes up, the other goes down. In other words, if one end is heavier, then the other must get lighter. However, if you keep adding weight to both sides then the teeter can’t totter and it will eventually break. Your body is no different. As we increase the intensity of our training, through workouts and races, we need to compensate by lowering the volume. If we add too much intensity and too much volume all at the same time, our risk for injury increases. While the general rule stays the same, each athlete will have their own “balancing point”.

Some athletes thrive on higher volume with lower intensity (Gerry Lingren), while others find successon higher intensity but with lower volume (Donavan Brazier). Some athletes find balance in a moderate volume, moderate intensity zone. Too often, runners are in a rush to add volume. They think more volume is the quick trick to getting that BQ. Add volume, collect your golden ticket, done. While it is true that more mileage can correlate to improvements in performance, it is not a hard fast rule and it is never a quick procedure. It is a process of finding the right balance between stress and recovery for your body and, more than anything, discovering the approach that allows you to be consistent cycle after cycle.

 

Finding Consistency

Building fitness is sort of like a game of Chutes and Ladders. Each week of training that we log is a move forward. Slowly we make our way up the board. However, if we get ahead of ourselves we begin to risk injury or, in terms of the game, “landing a slide”. The more we push the intensity and mileage thinking its the ladder shortcut to a PR, the more “chutes” we risk landing on. Take enough chutes and soon you find yourself back at the beginning. For me, lowering my mileage has allowed me to find consistency. It allows me to get in the appropriate volume of threshold and high-end aerobic work necessary for 5k and 10k, while also emphasizing recovery. My weekly volume is high enough that I can safely perform the types of tempos and steady states I need, while still low enough that I can recover on my easy days and enter my workouts fresh and ready to go. Most importantly, it has allowed me to do this month after month without ending up in the doctor’s office. Leaving the ego of high mileage behind and listening to my body has allowed me to stay injury-free, motivated, and able to build off of previous work without setbacks.

In the end, consistency is more important than mileage. Be
honest with yourself, and/or with your coach, so that you can build a program that suits YOUR needs, as it is better to toe the line 10% undertrained than 5% overcooked. A six to eight month window of moderate volume in which you leave most workouts thinking “I could do another rep!” will yield far better results overall than a two month window of high mileage where you finish workouts wondering if you can even do the cool down.

While flashy speed sessions and big weekly totals look great on Strava, ‘likes’ don’t win you races (plus, nothing gets more ‘likes’ than a killer race!). Forget about what your rival is doing. Whatever allows you to get to the starting line healthy with pop in your legs is the best training you can possibly be doing, because it is what will allow you to keep doing it week after week.

 

About the Author:

Coach Julian Manley