Trap 7: Terrible Toos 1 - speed

As endurance athletes, we runners are meant to endure: endure effort, time, fatigue and the elements. Sure, various continuous, fartlek, interval and repetition based training sessions help us improve performance (and feel better), and in various ways for different length races or events. 

Running faster in and for training helps to improve. Yet, tipping the balance towards 'too fast', 'too much too fast' and 'too fast to soon' sets the scales toward the risks out-weighting the benefits: establishing bad training, motivational and technique habits, plateauing, an early peak, race-season frustration, poor results and injury.


The main challenge comes in the freedom that running faster often provides. It also makes us feel good. The early metabolic changes that allow us to run-faster (say, during intervals) from week-to-week outpace the adaptations our muscles, tendons and bones need to make for us to be able to cope with the increase load, stress and shock of running faster. It's not our metabolic machinery that often breaks down, it's the musculoskeletal support and movement systems.

How much, how fast, how often is very much an individual thing. If you're not certain, err on the side of caution.

Be wary the Speed Traps:

·      Too many hard days, with too few easy days and ‘unloading’ weeks.

Get out: Don’t confuse high volume ‘moderate’ training with true hard sessions. 
Prevention: Done properly - specific to your capacities, plan and races – you’ll need the easy days to recover, and lighter unloading weeks to adapt. Work your plan.

·      Too little general preparation or base training per macrocycle.

Get out: hold your nerve – patience, persistence and passion is power.

Prevention: A large proportion of your training time should be spent doing lower intensity training particularly through your general preparation (base and build) phases, even during the race season, and certainly when  recovering from races, ill-health or injury.

·      Too fast too soon during general preparation or base phase, and too much race-specific training too soon - particularly for novice, intermediate and those returning to running after a long lay-off.

Get out: Ensure you establish your base or foundation.

Prevention: Give your body time to adapt before increasing the volume of your more intense work.  There’s no need to rush. Learn from the previous macrocylce/year. Revise your log/diary/journal, and revisit your plan

·      Too much fast (intense) training, and too fast during easy sessions.

Get out: easy sessions are meant to be that, easy. Have the courage to execute them. If your hard/fast sessions are truly that you'll need the easy sessions.

Prevention: Patience and consistent regular training are keys to your ultimate success. Revisit your plan.

·      Executing (work) intervals and sets too fast and too short, and having too much rest between them.

Get out: There’s little to be gained from going much faster than your current 5km (run) time-trial or race speeds - particularly through your preparation phases as they approximate your VO2max, a level you’ll rarely perform above. 

Prevention: In a cyclic manner, aim to build the volume of these intensities from 2 to 8% of your total volume, with 1:1 to 1:0.25 work-rest intervals for, say, 3-5minutes and 30sec-2mins intervals respectively. Of course, these are dependent upon your capacity, experience, future race distance/s and strength & weaknesses. Leg speed ‘sets’ (eg. strides, accelerations) and ‘drills’ for neuromuscular efficiency can be used smartly all-year.

·      Training faster than one’s current level of fitness, in “hope” of some distant grandeur goal.

Get out: Don’t get ahead of yourself. Work in the here and now, with an eye to building to your future

Prevention: Revisit your previous race/year reviews and your plan. Use current and relevant metrics or results. Use current levels of fitness (eg. time-trial or ‘key session’ results) to build your fitness and performance (base).

Athletic intelligence & Pain - What to do?

You've trained.

You've trained well, regularly and consistently. 

Hard at times, and trained smarter more often.

You've listened to your body. You've heard what it's had to say. 

Intelligently, you've worked your way through some changes, a few days off here-and-there, and some shorter and slower sessions, massage, mobility and strength training designed specifically for you.

Yet some persists. You're a little stiffer each morning, and you're taking longer to warm up?

What do you do?

Doing something is key. Exactly what you do really depends upon what you hear. Your athletic intelligence, experience, diligence and pride will impact to.

Your coach and/or health-professional should be your best (first) guides. See them.

 Signs and symptoms associated with acute, unusual and sudden pain and/or your health must be heeded. Stop what you’re doing, and seek guidance from your coach, an experienced and trusted athlete, and see your or health-care professional.

Reduce your overall training load, and intensity for a few days or take some days off for minor changes to your fatigue or energy levels, a cold (above the shoulders), persistent muscles soreness and stiffness. Get some more sleep and eat well. Consider the impact of other loads/stressors too as your body’s ability to adapt to training is dependent upon more than just your training.

Pain, stiffness and swelling that persist or are having a greater impact first thing in the morning, during warm-up or after you cool-down must be heard. These are often debilitating injuries waiting to happen, and could manifest into weeks or months off training, or surgery.

Your true limits:

Remember, successful training is about maximizing your adaptations so that you can perform at higher levels.  It’s not about maximizing training numbers.

Forcing your body at times is a part of hard-training. Smart training, and intelligent athletes don’t try and force more than they can handle. Poor results, fatigue and pain should not be cues to train harder.

Ignoring your body’s signs and symptoms and aimlessly pushing on under the guise of ‘mental toughness’, to rack-up-the-numbers or forge a new training-streak, can cause small, easily remedied problems to become debilitating. Obsession and smarts aren’t the same thing

True, the occasional minor injury is associated with pushing yourself and challenging your limits. Pete Ffitzinger once said, ‘learning to listen to your body and having the confidence and trust in yourself doesn’t imply a lack of toughness, but a willingness to find your true physical limits…injuries aren’t a badge of honor’.

It is rare that you don't hear 'anything'. No news is often good news, and silence often says much.

That said, “avoidance is rarely a path to success”. Avoiding training gets you nowhere, avoiding pain gets you less-where!

Athletic Intelligence & Pain - What to listen for...

Athletic intelligence is about changing , altering or adapting what you do to the context of training and/or competition. Pain is one thing that you either need to manage, or it will end up managing you - particularly in relation to training, and getting better.

Remember not to confuse true pain with Self Imposed Discomfort (SID). Simply knowing 'to listen' doesn't necessarily help. It's good to know what to listen for.

Here are my four key areas for you to listen for:

1) acute, unusual and sudden pain:
· pressure, stabbing or ‘fullness’ pain in the chest, that may radiate into your arms, neck, jaw and face
· sudden lightheadedness, dizziness, headache or vertigo that doesn’t pass quickly
· unusual shortness of breath - without a cough – when resting, or between intervals
· a stab, shot or sudden-searing pain in a muscle or tendon that makes you suddenly change your action, technique or gait; slows you down or makes you limp or stop
· that radiates from your back or neck and down your leg/arm  

2) health:
· a prolonged low-grade fever or a fever that comes-and-goes; or, an ‘overnight’ high fever
· a fever associated with neck stiffness, chills, wet cough, profuse sweating, headaches
· a persistent cough not associated with a cold or flu
· coughing up blood, or green, yellow or reddish-brown mucus
· persistent abnormal or irregular bowel movements and urine not associated with diet related changes

3) fatigue:
Fatigue and temporary muscle weakness are normal when training regularly and performing some hard training, yet heed fatigue…

· not relieved by a few lighter days (50% volume, low intensity), or days off
· that persists over several weeks, and isn’t changed by improved sleep and diet
· associated with significant appetite change with weight gain/loss, energy and mood swings, and loss of motivation to train
· coupled with other symptoms: unusual pulse, shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting, fever, significant muscle weakness
· significantly higher perceived effort or heart-rate at rest or during low intensity efforts
· inability to regularly complete or recover ‘normally’ from moderate or higher intensity sessions
· a persistent loss of technique, concentration and strength/power

4) musculoskeletal:
Some delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and muscle and joint stiffness is normal when increasing or changing the nature of your training load, particularly after a ‘rest’ phase. Yet, be attentive to…

· sudden or acute muscle, tendon or joint pain that gets worse (likely a strain or sprain that will require R.I.C.E.R. and/or medical assessment)
· new or persistent pain, tenderness or swelling around joints, tendons and bones, and shooting nerve pain
· early morning and/or warm-up stiffness that becomes more persistent or painful
· asymmetrical pain – pain in one joint, or muscle group, on one side

Are these what you listen for (in relation to pain)?

Knowing when to listen is a key too...