Anatomy of Training : New Training, New Hope

In part one of my training anatomy - Doomed to Fail - I detailed my failed marathon training and the mistakes I made.

After my mandatory ITB recovery phase, I vowed I was going to try again and get it right.  So my 2014 training has taken on a very different look and feel. 

I wanted to fix my tendency to just do random runs whenever I felt like it.  I didn't just want to run for the sake of running.  I wanted to know WHY I was running.  What led the experts to develop a training programme the way they have?  Why run intervals?  What are the benefits of hill repeats?  What benefits does a long run provide vs a tempo run?  I wanted understanding!

Training - for anything - is all about adaptation.  By putting different stresses on the body, and energy systems, the body is forced to adapt, so what once was hard becomes easier.  The question now is, what are we trying to adapt, and what sort of stress/stimuli to exert in order to achieve optimal adaptation.  The buzz words are Lactate Threshold, VO2max, Running Economy etc, etc...These are all adaptations to the aerobic engine, which while important, are only a piece of the puzzle.

I'm going to break down my weekly running routine, and try to explain why I am doing a particular workout/run.



I'm not an expert nor do I claim to be 100% correct.  This is more a means of me putting all my thoughts down on "paper" and un-scrambling all the messy words and phrases in my head, and re-enforcing that what I think I am doing is right, and that I'm actually doing what I think I'm doing..  If it helps someone, great.  If something is really wrong, please feel free to comment and I'll do more research and fix it up.

Monday : The only day I spend in the gym.  A 45 minute strength routine on a Monday helps rebuild the broken down muscles from the weekend runs and gets me ready for the running week.  Strength training is so vitally important it deserves its own blog.  Stay tuned for part 3.

Tuesday: Easy run of around the 40-60 minute mark at about marathon pace feel.  By feel I mean I generally take much notice of speed on my watch, rather I go by how I'm feeling.  So sometimes this run is considerably slower than a goal marathon pace, whilst other times it can be slight quicker.  This comes on the back of the weekend work and a day in the gym, so even if I wanted to go hard, my body doesn't really let me.

Benefits of the Easy Run

Recovery - Running easy can speed up the recovery process by flushing out waste in the body generated from long runs and strength training.  This in turns means you can get more benefit from the midweek, higher intensity workouts.

Glycogen Storage Adaptation - When easy running, the body uses glycogen (ie, carbohydrates stored in muscles) as its fuel.  The body reserves what it feels is needed to get through the day.  When running slow, rather than heading straight for carbohydrates, the body taps into this storage, thus, with repeated training the body will adapt and the amount of glycogen stored the body can store is increased.  Even better is to do these easy runs with little to no food (in a fasted state), as the body will dive straight into the glycogen to fuel.

Fat as a Fuel - Similar to the above point, running easy will deplete muscles of their glycogen storage and start using fat as its fuel.  The body generally has enough glycogen to last about 90 minutes, which for endurance events, doesn't even come close to enough.  Fat on the other hand, even the skinniest person has more than enough fat to use as fuel.  So if we can force the body to adapt to use fat as it's fuel, it's an almost endless supply of fuel, which delays the onset of the bonk!

Increasing Mileage, Descreasing Injury Risk - The easy run is a way to up the weekly mileage in a relatively injury risk free way.  The more mileage put in, the stronger all the critical muscles and tendons become.  The muscles adapt to the forces being applied, and in time will allow for greater stresses to be placed on them, enabling longer and quicker runs.  Slow running will also produce more of the slow twitch fibres that can handle extended periods of use before tiring and reducing the risk of injury.

Aerobic Capacity/Oxygen Efficiency - The easy run trains the heart to pump more blood and trains the lungs to deliver more oxygen to muscles that need it.  The body will adapt and become more efficient at delivering the essentials to muscles, meaning you don't need as much oxygen (so you don't get as puffed), and the heart becomes better at delivering blood to the muscles (reducing your heart rate).

Wednesday : I use Wednesday as my "workout" day where I do quicker paces (cruise intervals/threshold workouts) and/or hills.  I try to mix things up on a weekly basis so that training doesn't get stale.  These workouts involve runs like Tempo runs, Threshold Intervals or Hill Repeats.

Benefits of Cruise Intervals Training and Hills

Running Form - Both quick intervals and hill sprints or bounding will help improve running form.  It's practically impossible to sprint up a hill and overstride (try it), while running at a quick interval pace you are unlikely to be heel striking and everything should be working in concert together. 

Hills Increase Strength, Turnover and Lower Injury Risk - Hill bounding or sprinting is great for strengthening run specific muscle groups at a low injury risk.  As it's harder to over stride on hills, leg turnover is also being trained.

Increased Lactate Threshold - At rest and low intensity exercise, the amount of lactate in the bloody stays at a pretty steady level.  The lactate threshold is the point in which lactate is produced quicker than it is used and that steady state becomes saturated with lactate.  In very very simple terms, when lactate is removed, the body uses this as a fuel.  Training at lactate threshold will increase the amount of lactate produced and it also processes this lactate more efficiently (more fuel!)  This in turn keeps the amount of lactate in the blood at a steady level for longer, at higher speeds.  Which, when all added up together means you can run faster for longer.

Thursday: A bit of a "let's wait and see" kind of day.  It's generally a tempo run for around about 40-60 minutes, but if the previous days Cruise Intervals were particularly tough I will use this as an extra easy run.  Tempo runs are slightly quicker than the easy runs, but not as demanding as the cruise intervals/pace runs.  I usually aim for something between 10k and Half Marathon pace as this is my "comfortably hard" pace.  The benefits from the tempo run are pretty much exactly the same as Cruise Interval runs, the only difference being they are run at a slightly slower pace but sustained for longer. 

Friday: Rest day.  Never fail this has to be a day of rest.  Often overlooked, but one of the most important days in my week. 

Benefits of Rest Day

Physiological Adaptation - Most of the actual adaptations happen during rest.  During exercise you tear and breakdown muscles, during rest the muscles repair and become stronger.  Adaptation definitely happens during exercise, but that is more short term adaptation, resting is where the real magic happens.

Injury Prevention - Letting the muscles rest and repair significantly reduces the risk of injury.  So many running injuries are due to overuse, so it's very important to let those overused muscles rest and repair.

Restore Energy - Rest days will refill all those glycogen stores that have been depleted during exercise, giving you more energy to hit the next round of training.

Sanity - Rest days you can do what you want, spend time with family, relax on the couch with a movie, whatever it is that helps you relax.

Saturday : My long run day.  Generally builds up over the weeks, but only by the odd kilometre here or there.  This is where I also introduce longer, my gradual climbs into my week.  I look for climbs that are around 1-2km long and about 3-5% gradient.  I will also look at ending the long runs with a steady climb to really simulate the additional fatigue that longer runs will no doubt produce.  It's without a doubt the most important of the week, and if you are going to cheat and short cut a session, make sure it's not this one!

As the long run is run at a slower pace, you get all the benefits as the easy run.

Benefits of Long Run: 

Experience - Of course when distance running you will be on your feet for an extended period of time, so getting the body used to this is imperative.  It will also build confidence that yes, you can do the distance.

Increased Endurance Limit - Each time the distance is increased, even by only 1km, you are increasing your endurance limit.  Slowly but surely, those 18km runs that were so hard 4 weeks ago are now a walk in the park as your endurance limit has been pushed to 21, 25, 27km.

Increase Muscle Fibres - When the slow twitch fibers become fatigued but you continue running, you will start delving into the pool of fast twitch fibers, but use them as slow.  This increases the amount of fibers available to use.

Increase in Red Blood Cells - During long runs muscles need more oxygen for a greater length of time.  This causes the body to adapt by creating more red blood cells.  The more red blood cells, the better delivery of oxygen to the muscle cells that need it.

Sunday : Recovery run.  This is a very slow run for around 30-40 minutes.  This is not so much to aid recovery, but rather just to run while tired from the previous days long run efforts. 

Benefits of the Recovery Run

Increase endurance fitness - Naturally improvements come when the stimulus is beyond the normal, so in running, the greatest increase in endurance fitness is going to come when you are beyond normal fatigue levels.  The recovery run is done entirely in a fatigued state, so endurance fitness is naturally going to improve.

Recruiting new muscles - As the normal running muscles and fibers are already tired and damaged, the body will try and find relatively relaxed and fresh muscles to do the work.  This means the body is adapting by finding otherwise unutilised muscles to work and figuring out the best pathway to use them.


Of course all of the above is just a portion of good training.  Next up I will talk about the importance of body maintenance, in particular strength training, nutrition and self massage.