The Hungry Runner

First of all, an apology. I’ve been a terrible blogger and even though no one is reading this, I still feel guilty about slacking on updates. I’ve still been running and biking and (occasionally) swimming, but I’ve been lazy about blogging.

Anyway, I finally have something to write about. Last night I went to a speed clinic hosted and organized by Philadelphia Runner. At the workshop, there were 4 different sessions, each focusing on a different aspect of how to get faster. It was nice to be surrounded by people in similar situations; most everyone had run several longer races and marathons and were ready to improve their times. The first session for my group was lead by Jesse from Fusion, which is a fitness studio in Philly that emphasizes different types of cross-training. I’ve also heard of Fusion through Jackie, who attended a class last month and was raving about how challenging and awesome it was. He gave us a sheet on the 10 best exercises that runners can do to increase strength:

1. Pistol Squats

2. Suspended Lunges (for a non-TRX version, put your back leg up on a park bench and do lunge)

3. Good Mornings (with free weights or a bar)

4. Planks and Suspended Pikes (for a non-TRX version, do stability ball tuck & pikes: put your feet on a stability ball and pull ball up towards you and hold and repeat)

5. Side Plank Twists

6. Bird Dog crunches

7. V-ups

8. Push-ups

9.Pull-ups

10. Pike push-ups

Some of these exercises I already knew, but Jesse offered a more advanced twist to most of them, like the pike push-ups and the Pistol squats. Some I had never even seen before, like the bird dog crunches and the good mornings. I’m excited to incorporate these into my cross training routine. Right now I do a weights circuit class 1 day a week that uses some of these techniques but I am going to start doing a solo circuit session on the weekend using some of these exercises. I also really want to try out a session at Fusion now :X

The next part of the workshop focused on the different kinds of speed workouts there are. I was hoping for a bit more direction here, but the group leader mostly went over the basics of tempo runs, fartleks, short and long pickups and running hills. I also had an “ah-ha” moment about how to do 800 and 400 meter repeats with out a track. Instead of running on the track, just translate the distance into 1/4 and 1/2  miles and do the repeats like that. I KNOW that 1600 meters = 1 mile, but for some reason I wasn’t breaking that down in my head. I am definitely going to start doing Yasso 800s and hill work, though my hill work is somewhat limited in Philly except for Lemon Hill. I am aiming to have speed work once a week from now until the NYC half-marathon in March as apart of my goal for PRing. I’m also going to really start utilizing the McMillan calculator to figure out my goal paces for speed runs.

After this station, we talked with the several people from Philadelphia Runner about using technology to run smarter and aid recovery. I’m already a huge fan of my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch and can confidently say that getting that watch totally changed my running. It allowed me to actually get feedback on my run and took out the guesswork of how far and how fast I was running. It’s also great for being able to look back at workouts and see where you might have had issues. My watch also came with a heart rate monitor, which I haven’t used as often as I should, especially since I’m still sort of confused on what to do with the heart rate information once I had it. I know several runners I follow on twitter swear by running in heart rate zones and the Philadelphia Runner guys were also big proponents. Basically you find out your max heart rate (roughly 220-your age), which for me is about 189-192. Once you have that number, you plan your workouts around your zones. Easy runs (done 2-3x a week) should fall between 60-75% of your max heart rate, which for me is 138-157bpm. Harder workouts (done 1-2x a week) should be between 85-90% of your max heart rate, which for me is 176-192bpm. Here’s a handy calculator to figure out your zones.

One of the guys shared a telling story about his running history. When he was a freshman in college, he would run with a fellow freshman and smoke him on easy workouts and keep up with him on harder runs. He felt so good that he would try to keep up with the juniors and seniors. However, when race days would come, the other freshman runner would handily beat him at races and he couldn’t figure out why. His coach told him he was running too hard too often and that he needed to take his easy runs EASY to allow his body to recover better. Once he started to take his easy run days easier (running 60-70% of his max heart rate), he found that he could run even faster on his speed days. Essentially I feel like I’ve been doing the same thing lately. Anymore, whenever I go out to run, I shoot for an 8:00-8:30″ pace. It’s gotten so that it’s not extremely difficult but it’s certainly not an “easy” pace for me. When I was wearing my heart rate monitor, I found that I was regularly clocking averages of 171-185,which means I was running every run at 80% of my max, so every run ended up being a speed workout. The Philadelphia Runner guy said eventually I would start to slow down or possibly injure myself if I kept running every work out hard. He said running slower on easy days will be hard at first (I can already see myself struggling with this) but eventually it will make the fast runs and races faster. This is sort of a revelation for me.

My new goal is to wear my heart rate monitor at every run and next week  just run business as usual to see where my body stands and then the week after, adjust my running so that easy days truly stay between 60-70% of my max heart rate. I’m kind of excited to actually allow myself to slow down. My brain has been very mean to me lately, making me feel like if I don’t push every run, I won’t have a shot at PRing in my half next month, but I’m going to try to change that. He also mentioned I may naturally skew higher in terms of heart rate zones, so for truly accurate results, I should try to figure out my own max heart rate using a simple test. More on heart rate training here and here.

Finally, the last part of the clinic was a complimentary evaluation by Excel Physical Therapy to determine if there were any imbalances or weaknesses in your body that may cause you to get injured. For the test, you were evaluated on about 7 simple exercises or stretches and given a score of 1 (low) to 3 (high), then measured out of 21. Joseph was very nice and said I did the best lunge he’d seen that night (woo!). I ended up getting a 19 out of 21 on the tests (16 was passing), so my over-achieving self was pleased. However, he noticed that my left hamstring was much looser than my right hamstring which may have to do with a hip imbalance and that my left arm is more flexible than my right arm (which I knew from yoga class, since I can do this bind with my left arm but not my right). But he said overall I had nothing to worry about and that I was strong and flexible and should keep doing what I’m doing, so hooray!

Overall I had a really great time at the clinic and was it pretty helpful and informative for an hour and a half of small group lectures. I’m happy I went and am tempted to join their Team Philly race training group just to motivate me to actually do these kinds of workouts. I’ll definitely keep you guys update on how integrating speed work goes, and if any of you have tips or suggestions or are starting your own speed work drills into your workouts, I’d love to hear about it!