I’ve been running for a long time; I’ve been reading Runner’s World almost as long (officially since 8th grade – see also: a million years ago). I’ve been a scientist for about half that time. Also, often when I’m running, I think about running. These variables add up to an obsessive and enthusiastic exploration of all things running. What I’ve been thinking about a lot lately are a bunch of little tips and facts that may not be known to new runners, or folks taking up the activity after a break. Running secrets nobody tells you because we’re all trying to look like we know what we’re doing. Herewith, part one in a two-part series. Today we’ll talk about some of the general facts about running that are helpful to remember. In part two we’ll discuss some technical tips that are not necessarily intuitive and can really help you feel great for most of your runs.
Fact #1: Nobody knows what they’re doing. I mean, obviously
some people have trainers, some are elite runners, some are running geeks (guilty
as charged), but this sweet game is an unpredictable ride. Sometimes you do
everything right and you still get injured and sometimes you stop loving it and
sometimes you have too many other things to do with your life. You can be the
best trained and most genetically gifted runner and still have a terrible day.
Or a terrible few years. Everyone is just trying to figure out what works for them.
You are no different in that regard than Desiree Linden or Jim Walmsley. So you
already have something in common with professional runners! Yay you!!
Fact #2: Most everyone thinks everyone else is faster than they are. FONBFE (Fear Of Not Being Fast Enough) is a real and crippling condition. It keeps people from trying a running event or joining a training group. Of course, there are some super speedies out there, and they are glorious. News flash: a lot of those same people are also friendly and supportive of runners who are slower than they are. In general, the running community is a fabulous, welcoming tribe. We have to be, because Americans are way more interested in football. We’re the only ones who care about our sport.
Fact #3: The first 10-20 minutes of all/most runs suck. It
takes the average runner awhile to get warmed up and for your body to remember
that you know how to do this. If you feel like you’re going too slow during the
first mile…slow down. I wish someone would have told me this during my first 15
years of running, because I always started out too fast and I battled side
stitches constantly. It’s ok and totally normal to feel like a zombie at the
start of a run; 95% of your runs, you’ll feel better soon. Just hang in there.
Fact #4: It’s OK to walk! Walking does not make you less of
a runner. No running police officer is going to ride up (or I guess sprint up)
and issue a citation and take away your running license if they see you walking.
People driving by who see you walking will either 1) not even notice or be like
2) wow those are some fly tights. Run/walk intervals are a well-known method to
gradually increase your endurance and lower your risk of injury (more on this
in Part Two).
Fact #5: The hardest part of becoming a runner is working up to 5K (3.1 miles) distance. Also hard, figuring out how far kilometers are because you’re an American. But you’ll get there. Once you’ve built up to 3 miles, the world is yours. It’s way easier to go from 5 miles to 13.1 (half marathon) than it is to go from zero miles to 3 miles. There’s something about building up to that 20-40 minute time frame that is intimidating physically and mentally, and your body is going to hear the sweet siren song of the couch. But you got this. Take a walk break, crack a smile, and remember that you belong here. Nice work!
image: PopMatters
Fact #6: SLOW DOWN. It bears repeating. There are multiple physiological benefits (more on this in Part Two) to slow, easy runs, not to mention the psychological benefit of not hating every step because you can’t breath. If you’re starting out, starting back up, on a run that doesn’t have a specific training focus, or just having a bad day, take a chill pill and decrease your pace. Think you hate running? I’ll bet you a pint it’s because you run too fast for most of your runs. Try slowing down. Still hate running? Go for a run with me and I’ll babble and try to get you to laugh and distract you. Still hate running? Fine, then the IPA is on me. But good on you for trying!
Every time I think about my training goals for 2020, I have to sing “GOALS! GOALS! GOALS!” to the tune of Mötley Crüe’s “Girls Girls Girls”.
Once a hair band devotee, always a hair band devotee, I guess.
image – blogspot.com
RUNNING Well, look who’s here numero uno on the priority list. In 2018 I followed the Hanson’s Marathon Method-Advanced [ https://hansons-running.com/pages/training-plans] training plan religiously, hitting every run and every time requirement in the 18 week plan. My goal was to run a 3:45-3:50 marathon on a significantly downhill course [https://www.runrevel.com/bcm]; my finish time was 3:48:24. It was my 4th road marathon (Portland 1996; NYC 2009; Columbia Gorge 2014) and the first time I went for a time goal rather than just self-pacing to complete the event. I really enjoyed the Hanson’s strategy – run 6 days a week, with one tempo (marathon race pace) run and one speed/strength run each week, and long runs (up to 16 miles) every other week. My body responded well to the workload, and although it was hard to abandon the conventional wisdom of 20-22 mile long runs, it was definitely fun to not have to spend more than 2.5 hours on a long run (in my world, that’s a very reasonable amount of time #skewedperspective).
In 2019 I decided to back off the roads (with the exception of the Boston Marathon) and return to the trails, running three trail 50Ks and my first 50 miler. I kept regular tempo/road marathon pace workouts in for the first six months of the year, then backed off the aggressive pacing to follow The Happy Runner’s “Less Miles More Smiles” [https://trailrunnermag.com/training/training-for-your-first-ultra-over-50k.html] 50 mile training plan, which focuses on speed hill training, working your downhill pacing, and short interval speed work, skills that are highly compatible with trail ultra racing.
And it was a very fun year. But god help me, I missed the drumbeat of the track and the relentless push of road marathon pace and my Saucony Kinvaras. I missed reviewing my training plan for each week and finding peace with the pit in my stomach that signaled fear I could meet my pace targets…and then meeting my pace targets each week…and thinking “oh shit, now I need to meet next week’s pace targets”…and so on. So this year I am working towards running a 3:50 marathon on a flat course (Chicago in October). I truly do not know if I am capable of this, which is part of the vomit-in-my-mouth-a-little fun of setting a goal and then speaking it out loud. Pacing for a trail ultra, or even the really downhill, then slightly rolling, then slightly downhill Revel Big Cottonwood Marathon was not consistent – some miles were much faster than my overall goal pace, a few were slower, and some were right on pace. Chicago is a consistently flat course, which means I will need to hover right around 8:45 pace for almost four hours with no significant variation.
And friends, this is part of what I freaking love about training. It makes no difference in the sweet flow of life if I can do this or not. It won’t make the news or impact my nonexistent sponsorship deal. In the big picture, this time goal is way slower than a lot of people can run and way faster than a lot of people can run. Part of the appeal to me is the fact that it doesn’t really matter outside of the sheer happiness of following a training plan, one of my life’s great joys as a scientist and a running geek and a profound devotee of physiological adaptation. As Alex Hutchinson explores in “Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance” (2018)*, you train your body to sustain a specific effort in order to “attenuate the distress signals that your muscles and heart send back to your brain. The pace will feel easier, so you’ll be able to sustain it for longer” (212). Can I train my body over the next eight months to internalize 8:45 pace to the extent that it is sustainable for three hours and fifty minutes with the genetics my parents gave me? Let’s see!!!
Also, mom and dad, I will blame you if this doesn’t work out. Hugs.
Another part of the appeal is the aspect of embracing a voluntary hardship; so many people in this world don’t get the profound luxury of choosing to suffer physically. I do, and I am so grateful for a healthy body that allows me the privilege to try. There is freedom and power in the ability to make this choice, and I think of every run, even the inevitable crappy ones, as a hymn of gratitude. I have loved ones who live with chronic pain and I see every day the strength it takes to survive, and so I do this because their example carries me.
For the other training geeks in the room (I see you, and the four of us should really get together over beers sometime), I haven’t quite settled on a training plan. My tentative plan is to follow the Hanson’s Method again, because I loved it before. But first I’m going to outline and post-it flag the living shit out of “Advanced Marathoning”** by Pfitzinger & Douglas, and see what good stuff is in there. Stay tuned for my final training plan commitment, which I will personally approach like an NFL team drafting a first string player. I might even put on a suit and make Dan shower me with confetti. Or champagne. That sounds better.
*teaser: book review to follow shortly!
**teaser 2: book review to follow shortly!!
CLIMBING 2020 marks the 10 year anniversary of Dan and I learning to climb. I mark my life in “before climbing” and “after climbing”, because climbing showed me that our perceived limits are just that: artifacts of our perception and nothing more. Before I started alpine and rock climbing I thought it was ALL free-soloing and Everest and definitely not for mortals, even though as an anthropologist I appreciated our arboreal roots and our fabulous shoulder joint range of motion. Climbing has changed my relationship with the outdoor world, my own body, and my spouse in profound and joyous ways. It’s what I do for fun, and for the last couple of years, while I’ve proudly watched Dan progress at climbing, I’ve just kind of putted along without much effort.
And it was a very fun couple of years. But now it’s time to have fun while making some discernible progress, which this year involves three complimentary goals:
more sport lead climbing. Lead climbing is roped climbing, but rather than being tied to a rope that runs up to an anchor and back down to your belayer, as a lead climber you clip the rope to a series of bolts along the route. Your belayer will still catch your fall, but your fall, depending on where the last bolt is and your body position in relation to it along with the slack in the rope, will be bigger (for those non-climbers, this means SCARIER). The short version is that lead climbing requires you to be a stronger, more thoughtful, and more confident climber.
more outdoor climbing. Umm, duh. We moved to central Oregon to be closer to Smith Rock, one of the coolest places to climb in the world.
become a solid gym 5.11 climber. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out in 5.10-land, a welcoming and chill place where I never fall and don’t have to think or work too hard. That’s ok some days, for sure, but it’s time to put in a little more effort.
SKIING I learned how to downhill ski the winter of 2017-2018, and damned if it wasn’t a lot of fun. I swear my husband and our good friend Chris never mentioned this to me before. You’d think they would have. Rude. This, my third season, is all about time on skis, working on speed/flow down the mountain, continuing to develop on intermediate terrain and spending more time on advanced terrain. Last year I was balancing Boston training with ski season, which was frankly overwhelming and made me feel like I wasn’t doing either very well.
Also, I’m taking a skate ski class next month, and am pretty excited. From watching the Winter Olympics, it looks intense and a bit high strung and like maybe you can wear spandex. That checks all my athletic boxes. Stay tuned for a report in a couple weeks on how it went.
STRENGTH I’m probably a pretty stereotypical endurance athlete in that I would rather run for four hours than do twenty minutes of strength work. But I know how crucial strength training is to improved performance, injury prevention, and general life satisfaction. Although I almost always wonder why I signed up for Recharge [ http://www.rechargesport.com/ ] strength classes about 1-2 hours before class time, I never regret my decision once I’m 5 minutes into class (just being honest, the first four minutes I do question my life choices, but by minute five, I’m all in). I work so much harder in class than I would on my own, and the instructors are constantly finding new ways to challenge multiple muscle groups at once and it’s just a great group of people. Where else can you sweat next to elite professional athletes while being taught by an elite professional athlete? It’s inspiring.
I try to get one class in a week, then do another 30-60 minutes of strength work on targeting my core, vastus medialis, and calf muscles, and general mobility work. I try (sometimes not very hard and unfortunately often not successfully) to use the foam roller and stretch after runs. I know recovery work makes you a stronger runner, and since I plan on doing this forever, I am going to try to commit to more discipline and greater consistency in this area. Also if I ever want to perform an even somewhat not pitiful deadlift, I apparently need to have better hamstring flexibility.
I also blame my parents for this inadequacy. Hugs.
LIFE IN GENERAL Continue to practice meditation. Take naps. Eat more vegetables. Be a more patient and loving spouse. Behave and communicate in a way that supports inclusion. Greet strangers with welcome and enthusiastic energy. Give everyone, starting with myself, a little more slack. Maintain my running blog!
In one of my earliest memories, I am riding my banana seat bike while my parents go for a run. They’re still married and I’m too young to be left home alone, so I’m maybe 6 or 7 years old. My dad is running happy and chatty, circling back with his long legs to check on mom and I. My mom is shuffling and glowering a little and definitely not providing much in the way of commentary. It’s the 1970s so they’re both wearing unnecessarily short shorts that have somehow circled back around towards cool all these years later.
A few years later, I’m maybe 10 years old, and now my mom is dragging me out for runs with her. My parents are divorced, but both are still running. I see this is something my mom doesn’t really like and doesn’t think she’s very good at, but it makes her feel strong and fit and so she puts in the miles. The impression this leaves on me is wicked strong: running is what you do. It’s simply what you are, whether you like it or not. It’s something you do for yourself.
And so I run too. Through my teens, through college. Never on a team, sometimes with one of my parents or a friend, but usually on my own. It becomes everything to me, the single most important defining characteristic of who I am. It gives me everything – the love of my life and I became running partners at work, then friends, then life partners. It gives me everything – my health, my sanity, my spiritual time. I love it all, even the tough days. A bad day running is always better than a day without running. Give me the trails, the roads, the track, hell even the treadmill. I’ve done 5 miles back and forth in a hotel hallway because it was the only option. I’ve done a 10 mile tempo run over the only .3 mile of road that was paved and clear of ice and snow in our neighborhood. Apparently I’m pretty good at sharp turns in awkward spaces while running. If someone is aware of an event that optimizes this skill, please let me know.
I wanted to create this blog as a love letter to my first love, and as a way to share my musings on running and training from an average runner – not too fast, not to slow, with a day job and all kinds of conflicting priorities. And a pretty wicked reading habit for training books and running memoirs. This is a place for runners of all paces and distances and terrains. It’s even a place for folks who haven’t yet realized that they are a runner. To paraphrase Nike cofounder Bill Bowerman: “If you have a body, you are a runner”. To paraphrase me: “If you are a Hominid, you are a runner”. I chose this domain title with great deliberation: All The Runners. There are so many of us who care deeply for this activity and work super hard and train and compete in complete obscurity. I see you, everyday runners, and you are glorious. You are badasses. You are celebrated here.
Are you ready to talk about all of the things about running? Let’s do this!
