We examine what might be worse than dehydration — over-hydration.

As the temperatures this summer begin to creep up, runners are bombarded with the message to drink early and drink often when training and racing. However, is it possible that sports drinks companies have overhyped the message about the performance impact of dehydration? Moreover, is it possible that over-hydrating is actually a greater threat to health and performance than dehydration?

According to renowned exercise scientist Dr. Timothy Noakes, this is exactly the case. After critically reexamining the existing research and conducting his own studies, Dr. Noakes has found that runners are more likely to be over-hydrated than dehydrated. More importantly, compared to dehydration, over-hydration is a more serious condition and may have life-threatening complications.

In this article, we’ll examine the signs, symptoms and causes of over-hydration, why dehydration isn’t as dangerous as we fear, and provide research-backed and practical hydration protocols for training and racing.

RELATED: Running 101: Hydration During Running

What Is Over-Hydration?

Over-hydration, scientifically referred to as hyponatremia, is the result of having low blood sodium levels. Despite the marketed hype of dehydration, hyponatremia is actually one of the most common medical complications in long-distance training and racing.

Novice and slower runners who may take four hours or more to finish a marathon and who are drinking mainly water are at extreme risk of hyponatremia.

Slower runners often have an easier time drinking while running since they’re running at a slower pace. In addition, they are more likely to walk through water stops since they are more crowded and the time loss is less significant. As such, they tend to fill up on water quickly and are thus more likely to be at risk for hyponatremia.

The exact mechanism behind hyponatremia is not clear, but it is known to be associated with the over-consumption of hypotonic fluids (like water). It is important to note that hyponatremia can develop from drinking too much fluid before, during, and even after the race. Furthermore, hyponatremia can also develop from over-drinking sports drinks, despite the fact that most contain sodium.

Signs And Symptoms

Although the signs and symptoms of hyponatremia have been described as similar to those of dehydration. Noakes points out that the only true symptom of dehydration is thirst. Symptoms associated with hyponatremia include:

- Disorientation
- Confusion
- Headache
- Muscle weakness
- Nausea and vomiting

If left untreated or misdiagnosed as dehydration, hyponatremia can progress to seizure, brain swelling, pulmonary edema (fluid buildup in the air sacs of the lungs), comatose, cardiorespiratory arrest, or death.

Is Dehydration Really Detrimental To Performance?

The current recommendation for hydration is four to eight ounces of fluid every 15 to 20 minutes of running. However, these recommendations were based on early studies conducted in the 1960’s, which suggested that dehydration determines the body temperature response to exercise and thus, the development of heat-related illnesses.

RELATED: Sports Drinks Vs. Water

However, more recent studies have now shown that dehydration, or rather a reduction in body weight due to exercise, is a normal part of exercise.

A recent meta-analysis of laboratory-based studies examining the impact of dehydration on performance resulted in the following conclusions:

- It was found that a reduction of body weight of 2.2 percent was not associated with a decrease in performance.
- It isn’t dehydration itself that is responsible for any decrease in performance, but rather not drinking in response to thirst.
- Drinking enough to satisfy thirst resulted in a 90 percent performance advantage compared to drinking below thirst and a 63 percent performance advantage over drinking above the thirst response.

The only symptom of dehydration is thirst and often, this thirst becomes so overwhelming that the athlete is compelled to drink when fluid is available.

Furthermore, studies have disproved the claim that a reduction in body weight of less than 2 percent results in impaired performance. For example, a recent study confirmed that Haile Gebrselassie lost 10 percent of his body mass due to dehydration during his world record marathon run in Berlin.

The results of this latest research show, for the first time, that drinking according to thirst is the superior hydration protocol to maximize performance.

Recommendations

The maximum rate at which the intestines can absorb fluid is, on average, about 600 mL (or 20.3 fl oz.) per hour. The kidneys can only excrete fluid at a rate of about 800 mL/hr in males and closer to 600 mL/hr for smaller females. If fluid is ingested above these rates, it will be retained and may cause a number of problems associated with hyponatremia.

Therefore, based on the latest research and findings, hydration for training and racing isn’t as complicated as we’ve tried to make it. Simply drink according to your level of thirst and you’ll be maximizing your performance while also keeping yourself safe.

References:

1. Noakes, T. Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics; 2012.

2. Rosner, MH, Kirven J. Exercise-associated hyponatremia. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2007;2(151-161).

3. Goulet, ED. Effect of exercise-induced dehydration on endurance performance: evaluating the impact of exercise protocols on outcomes using a meta-analytic procedure. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2012.

4. Wyndham CH, Strydom NB. The danger of an inadequate water intake during marathon running. South African Journal of Medicine, 1969; 43(893-896)

The post The Real, And Simple, Truth About Dehydration And Performance appeared first on Competitor.com.

Summer training presents a unique set of challenges.

While it’s true running in the winter presents some serious motivational challenges thanks to short days, cold weather, and icy roads, it’s actually the summer season that negatively impacts training the most. Sure, bright sunshine and beautiful scenery make it much easier to get out the door, but the truth is, heat, humidity, vacation and a lack of sleep all wreak havoc on your training plan.

Since summer is one of the most popular and important training seasons, especially if you’re racing a fall marathon, it’s critical you approach the summer with realistic expectations about your performance and understand the potential pitfalls. In this article, we’ll look at the two most common summer training mistakes and how you can avoid making them this year.

Not Adjusting Workout And Race Times For The Temperature

You will train and race slower in hot weather. This is a physiological fact and it’s critical to keep in mind when planning your workouts and evaluating performances.

Your normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Exercising, even in cold temperatures, naturally raises the core body temperature. At first, this rise in temperature aids performance by increasing blood flow to the working muscles, hence the importance of warming up before hard workouts and races. However, once your internal body temperature gets above 102 degrees, you start to experience a significant drop in performance.

At 102 degrees, your body can no longer effectively cool itself and your body begins to divert blood to the skin to help keep it cool. This decreases the amount of blood available to carry oxygen to your working muscles. As a result, your ability to run fast is diminished considerably.

RELATED: Summer Reading: Best New Running Books

Therefore, you need to be realistic about your race performances and ability to hit workout splits when running in the heat. Many of the runners I consult with get very frustrated when they aren’t able to hit their goal times or when workouts feel harder than they should in the summer. However, it’s impossible to avoid this and it has nothing to do with a lack of fitness. It’s simply a physiological reality.

How To Combat
My advice is to use a temperature calculator, like this one derived from the work of Dr. Jack Daniels, that can help estimate how much your times will be impacted by hot weather. Of course, every runner handles heat individually, but this can be a good gauge for how much to adjust your summer workout and race paces.

Not Enough Recovery

Getting enough recovery during the summer months is also a huge challenge for many runners, and it often results in poor performance and overtraining. I’ve found this recovery deficiency to be a result of a lack of sleep, more activity outside of running, and from fatigue buildup as the body redirects resources from recovery to keeping itself cool.

Lack Of Sleep
To beat the heat, most runners have to hit the streets before the sun comes up. Unfortunately, in the summer this can often mean starting workouts at 5:30 a.m. or earlier. Typically, this earlier wakeup time isn’t offset by earlier bed times. In fact, most runners probably go to bed later in the summer as they enjoy the opportunity to take advantage of the weather.

Moreover, it’s difficult to catch up on sleep during the weekends since you still have to get up and out the door early. In the winter, runners can make up for early weekday mornings by sleeping in and enjoying more pleasant running weather later in the day. Unfortunately, if you’re not out the door by 6 or 7 a.m. in the summer, you’re in for a miserable run. As a result, you never have a chance to catch up.

RELATED: 6 Strategies For Safe Summer Running

Travel And Fun Stuff
The summer is a time for family hikes, trips to the beach and a host of other activities that make the season so enjoyable. However, as I covered in an article a few weeks ago, being active all day or soaking up the sun at the beach will impact your run the next day. While I am not suggesting you avoid having fun this summer, factor in your activities to your workout expectations. If you spend Saturday at the beach or on a great hike, don’t expect to have a great long run Sunday. Manage and adjust your performance expectations.

Fatigue Backup
Recovery between workouts is slowed during the summer months. Unless you happen to spend your entire day in an air conditioned building (and unfortunately, some us may actually do this), your body is going to use resources it would normally use for recovery on keeping itself cool.

As discussed previously, your body will divert blood to the skin to facilitate cooling rather than pumping your muscles full of oxygen and nutrient-rich blood. As a result, recovery is slowed. Think of this process like a traffic jam. All it takes is a small bottleneck or one lane closing to back up traffic on the highway for miles. With recovery, all it takes is a slight reduction to back up the recovery process for days. Therefore, in the summer, running the same number of miles per week is going to feel harder than it does in the spring and fall when the weather is perfect.

How To Combat
My advice is to schedule the occasional down week or build in an additional recovery day during your weekly training. This can help you catch up on sleep, allow you to enjoy a consequence-free hike or day at the beach, and can help avoid overtraining and getting frustrated with what appears to be a lack of progress.

As you prepare to tackle your summer training, keep these factors and physiological principles of running in the heat in mind to avoid frustration and potential overtraining.

To get your Competitor.com Training Plan, click here.

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Adding a race or two at the end of your season can be fun, but you have to do it right.

If you compete long enough, there’s going to come a time when you want to extend your racing season or need to maintain your peak beyond your goal race. Perhaps your awesome performance qualified you for another racing opportunity — like a masters or local championship. Maybe you didn’t run so well and you are looking for another opportunity to capitalize on your fitness. Or, as sometimes happens, weather, family or work prevent you from actually running your goal race.

Regardless of the reason, extending a racing season isn’t easy. You need to find the right balance between recovery from the goal race and a lack of training coming off the taper, all while getting in enough workouts to maintain your fitness. It’s no surprise then that many athletes struggle when trying to lengthen a training cycle.

In this article, we’ll show you how to structure your training to keep performing well beyond your goal race. Specifically, we’ll outline some of the important considerations and most common mistakes runners make when trying to extend their peak.

Extending A 5K Or 10K Season

Most runners don’t appreciate how difficult it can be to extend 5k or 10k fitness because of the cumulative training effect of both the race itself and the demanding speed training. Both can take a toll on the body, leaving runners burned out as the season extends. Here are some helpful guidelines to prevent overtraining:

Get Your Mileage Back Up
When we examine the specific demands of long distance running, we clearly see a heavy reliance on aerobic respiration as a primary energy system. For the 5k and 10k, the aerobic contribution is between 88 and 95 percent.

When extending your racing season, you’re already coming off a taper and a short recovery period after the race. Both of these factors result in a significant mileage drop for one to three weeks. Therefore, it is critical that you bring your mileage back up to pre-taper levels to ensure you maximize your aerobic potential. As long as you keep these runs easy, they won’t reduce your ability to recover.

RELATED: How To Become A Runner

Don’t skimp on the strength work
If you’re following a training plan that progresses from general to specific, you’ve probably focused primarily on 5K and 10K specific workouts over the last few weeks. That’s perfect training for your goal race. However, it likely means that you’ve neglected tempo and other longer, strength-oriented workouts.

Be sure to include at least one tempo or steady-state effort each week to maintain your strength. Don’t fall into the trap of only doing speed work or race specific workouts as you extend your season.

Back off the speed
On a related note, performing intense speed workouts for more than eight consecutive weeks can result in the raising of pH levels. Researchers have found a strong connection between a rise in pH levels and overtraining.

If you’re trying to extend your season by three weeks or more and have already done some serious speed workouts, consider backing off speed work for a week or two and getting back to more strength-based workouts.

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We examine the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Sometimes it’s the simplest or most fundamental elements of training that both coaches and athletes overlook. When you’ve been training and competing for almost your entire life, it can be hard to think back to the basics. However, for many runners, especially those who are just getting started, it’s critical to learn and understand the fundamentals.

One of these basic, yet very important questions is this: What should you be doing during the rest periods between hard repeats? Do you stand around, walk for a bit, or just keep on running?

The answer to the question isn’t as simple as it may seem, which is why I wanted to dedicate an article to the topic.

The manner in which you undertake your rest interval can impact how quickly you recover between repeats. Moreover, strategically manipulating the rest can offer unique training benefits and provide a new, challenging stimulus to stale workouts.

In this article, I’ll outline four different ways you can approach your rest intervals, the benefit and use case for each, and some unique ways you can mix up how you approach rest intervals to add a new stimulus to your training.

Standing Rest

Generally, standing rests are best for when the rest interval is pitifully short, say 30 to 60 seconds. In these cases, you only have a few seconds after you catch your breath before you have to get back to running hard. Standing will allow you to recover as much as possible during your scant rest period.

RELATED: The Importance Of Recovery Intervals

Standing, or more accurately depicted as the hunched-over, hands-on-your-knees, sucking air pose, is not typically a resting position of choice. However, when you’re performing some intense workouts, there aren’t a lot of options available.

You should use the brief time between repeats to take a deep breath, calm your breathing, and mentally pump yourself up for another lap or two around the track.

Unique Use Case
The main drawback to using a standing rest all the time is that it doesn’t efficiently allow blood to flow to the muscles. After about 60 seconds, simply standing around will tighten your muscles and actually make it more difficult to get started again. Knowing this, we can use the standing rest to our advantage.

When training for the marathon, one of the goals is to prepare your mind and legs for that “dead” feeling that typically occurs after 18 or 20 miles. By strategically implementing a standing rest between long tempo intervals, for example 2 x 5 miles or 2 x 6 miles, you can simulate this feeling without having to first run 18 miles. As such, you’re able to prepare your mind and body for how to run through this feeling on race day. This is one of the hallmarks of the Hansons infamous 2×6 mile workout.

Walking Rest

Walking is usually the best option for rest periods between one and three minutes. After the initial fatigue from finishing the previous repeat dissipates, walking slowly will help keep the blood flowing to your muscles without adding any additional aerobic stress.

RELATED: Train To Recover

If you’re still gasping for air as you walk about, put your hands on your head. Staying upright helps open the diaphragm, letting in precious oxygen.

In my opinion, walking is the default rest option and should probably be utilized the most frequently.

The post Speed Workouts: Standing Rest Vs. Jogging Rest appeared first on Competitor.com.

Lactic acid itself isn’t responsible for the muscle fatigue that causes you to do the skeleton dance at the end of a race.

Despite what you might be tempted to believe after scanning the headlines of your favorite running magazines, there’s no one secret workout that will guarantee you set a new personal best at your next race. As experienced runners know, it’s the right mix of workouts and consistency over time that brings long-term and steady results. With a seemingly endless variety of workouts to choose from, picking the most effective workout to accomplish your racing goals takes a little research.

Luckily, coaches and exercise scientists alike understand the specific metabolic demands placed on the body during long distance events. As such, they know what type of workouts will be the most effective for success at each particular race distance. Specifically, coaches and exercise scientists realize the important role of lactate during long distance running — how the body produces it, how the body utilizes it as a source of energy, and how lactate contributes to slowing down.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that most training schedules include a steady diet of threshold runs, particularly in the form of tempo runs or tempo intervals. However, when we take the time to examine exactly how lactate works, both as a fuel source as well as how the body clears it, many coaches have come to realize that straight tempo runs might not be the best way to improve your body’s use of lactate.

RELATED: Six Lies You Were Taught About Lactic Acid

Instead, many coaches and exercise scientists are beginning to understand that the goal of threshold training isn’t to produce less lactate — as has been traditionally thought — but to improve the body’s ability to clear lactate from the blood. In essence, you should be training to improve your lactate clearance rate.

In this article, we’re going to debunk some of the faulty science about lactate that still permeates training theory today so you can better understand how to train more efficiently. More importantly, we’re going to look at how adding lactate clearance workouts into your training schedule can help you improve as a runner, Lastly, we’ll show you some specific lactate clearance workouts you can implement right away.

The post Run Faster By Improving Your Lactate Clearance Rate appeared first on Competitor.com.

Everything from work stressors to the air temperature can affect your workouts.

As a runner, one of the most difficult concepts to understand is the idea that individual workouts do not occur in isolation of one another. The reality is that every workout is influenced by a myriad of factors and, more importantly, a singular workout can impact your upcoming runs for as many as 10 days after it’s finished.

Understanding the concept that training or an individual workout doesn’t occur in a vacuum is essential to staying healthy long-term, avoiding overtraining, and performing optimally. In this article, we’ll explore three common situations where runners typically forget this principle and how it can impact your training progress.

Running Too Hard

Perhaps it’s easiest to start with a situation you’ve no doubt experienced.

You have a VO2 max or speed session scheduled for today and you’re feeling great. You hit the track and crush the workout — running each repeat much faster than your prescribed pace and you still felt strong. Great news, right?

Not so fast (pun intended).

While you no doubt accomplished the objective of the workout and running fast didn’t change the primary energy system you wanted to target, like running too fast on a tempo run would, it’s possible you’re placing more strain and fatigue on your body than anticipated, which could result in injury.

Training would be much simpler if injuries and overtraining appeared as a direct result or immediately after a specific workout. Unfortunately, injuries and overtraining typically occur as the result of many seemingly minor factors. It’s the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” idiom applied to training.

In this specific case, metabolically, running faster was within your ability. However, we know that the structural system (muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones) often lags behind your fitness. As a result, running faster might have stressed muscles in your hips or feet that weren’t strong enough yet to support such intense paces.

Consequently, you’re going to need more recovery. That might mean shortening your next easy run, scheduling an extra day off, or pushing back your next workout. However, if you’re like most runners I know, this won’t happen. While you might get away with ignoring the long-term stress of one workout occasionally, it’s only a matter of time before it catches up with you.

RELATED: If You Run Slow, Who Cares?

Shuffling Workouts

Similarly, you need to be cautious when moving scheduled workouts around to accommodate work, travel or family. While these situations are often unavoidable, it’s important to consider how moving a workout impacts recovery and how you’ll feel during subsequent runs or workouts.

The body operates in a purely physiological environment and it doesn’t recover faster simply because we need to run our long run a day earlier. Likewise, as much as we wish it did, the body doesn’t adhere to our concept of a week. Just because your training week ends on a Sunday, it doesn’t mean you start fresh on Monday. The miles and workouts are still in your legs.

While it’s difficult to provide general advice about the best way to shuffle workouts, there is one piece of advice that will always apply regardless of your situation. It’s better to be cautious and skip a hard workout in favor of rest or an easy day than to cram intense sessions too close together. Training is like making popcorn; it’s better to be slightly undercooked than a little overcooked.

RELATED: How To Train While Traveling

Weather And Other Outside Factors

Finally, it’s important to remember that your training is affected by your entire environment, not just the workouts on your schedule.

Performing yard work after your weekend long run is going to delay your recovery compared to spending the day with your feet kicked up watching track on television. It’s important to keep these outside stressors in mind when planning your recovery or trying to deduce why you feel more tired than expected.

Stressors like yard work or an insane day at the office are easy to identify. However, one factor most runners ignore is the impact of the heat on recovery. As summer approaches, it’s crucial to understand how your recovery is affected by hot weather.

As anyone who has trained in warm weather knows, a hard workout on a hot day means you’re going to have to slow down. Most runners can begrudgingly accept that. Yet, the negative impact of the heat doesn’t exist in the vacuum of that one workout. It affects your recovery for all subsequent runs.

The body recovers by delivering oxygen and nutrients to the muscles through the circulatory system — via blood. In the heat, the body cools itself by sending blood to the skin to be cooled by the air. As a result, there is less blood available to repair the muscles. This process also uses energy that would otherwise be available for recovery. So, even when you’re not running, the body is spending energy to keep you cool as opposed to promoting recovery.

RELATED: Daily Hydration Essentials

Therefore, running a workout in hot weather doesn’t just impact that one run. The delayed recovery impacts your subsequent workouts. This is one of the primary reasons you always feel terrible when training in the summer.

Remember that training doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Your performance during a specific workout is affected by your schedule, the weather, and your previous workouts and runs that week. Furthermore, the fatigue you generate carries over into your subsequent runs. By keeping this bit of training advice in mind, you’ll be more consistent with your workouts and avoid injury and overtraining.

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Chances are pretty good that you’ve experienced at least one of these “injuries.”

Running is difficult enough when you consider the very real threat of prolonged injuries that keep you off the roads for weeks or months at a time. But what do you do about those more frequent — and extremely painful — annoyances like black toenails and cramps that, while not classified as injuries, can be very difficult to run through?

In addition to treatment and prevention, how do you decide whether you can or should run with one of these very painful annoyances?

To make the decision more confusing is that more serious injuries, like Achilles tendonitis and plantar fasciitis, often begin with pain that is very slight and easy to run through. These “smaller annoyances” are often extremely painful from the start but typically don’t last long. You certainly don’t want to take unnecessary days off, especially if complete rest won’t speed up the healing process.

To help you make sense of these smaller, yet very painful “injuries,” I am going to outline the three most common injuries that aren’t really injuries. More importantly, I am going to detail treatment and prevention methods and help you decide when it’s safe to keep training and when it’s not.

The post Dealing With Injuries That Aren’t Really Injuries appeared first on Competitor.com.

Use these three simple but effective nutrition changes to help dig yourself out of a hole.

If you’re a fairly serious runner, you’re bound to go through periods in your training cycle when you over do it. Even elite runners, who have coaches literally monitoring almost every step they take, can fall into the trap of training too hard and pushing their body beyond its limits.

While finding the perfect balance between putting in the necessary miles and allowing for proper recovery is the Holy Grail for all runners, the reality is that many often overstep the tight rope that is optimal training and find themselves bordering on being overtrained and desperate for recovery.

RELATED: What Runners Can Learn From Bodybuilders

If you ever find yourself in this dreaded position, backing off your training isn’t the only solution, nor is it guaranteed to improve the situation. The amount and types of food you put into your body before–and even more importantly, after–your workouts can help the recovery process. On the next few pages are three simple, but effective nutrition changes you can make to help dig yourself out of that ovetraining hole.

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Aerobic development is the primary avenue to long-term success in distance running. This reality has been proven through research and confirmed time and again by elite athletes and the best distances coaches in the world, even as early as the 1960s.

Why is developing your aerobic system so important to running performance?

Most importantly, for races 5K and longer, 90 percent or more of the energy required comes from the aerobic system. However, aerobic training also elicits some critical physiological adaptations.

First, aerobic training sparks your body to create more capillaries, which are the small blood vessels that surround muscle fibers and help deliver oxygen and nutrients to the muscle tissues. Second, aerobic training creates more and denser mitochondria, which break down nutrients into usable energy. Third, the number of myoglobin in the muscle fibers is increased, which help release oxygen to the mitochondria.

Simply speaking, aerobic development allows you to more efficiently deliver oxygen and energy to your muscles, thus allowing you to run significantly faster.

Unfortunately, developing your aerobic system isn’t exactly exciting. Aerobic training consists mainly of slow, easy running at around 65 percent of 5k pace, or about 65 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. To mix it up, you can add a few steady state runs, performed just as your aerobic threshold, but that’s about it. Moreover, even though aerobic training is critical to long-term development, running nothing but slow, easy miles means you ignore other systems, like your speed.

So, how can you stay focused on aerobic development while staying motivated about training and maintain your speed and turnover? Sneak it into your training! In this article, I’ll show you some sneaky ways you can add speed to your plan while still keeping your training focused on the long-term.

RELATED: Is Training Making You Insane?

Tempo Intervals

Tempo runs are a common workout for most runners. They are a great way to improve your ability to reconvert lactate into usable energy. However, because typical tempo run paces take you right to the edge of your lactate threshold, they are typically too fast to be in your aerobic development zone and less experienced runners can only maintain tempo pace for a few miles.

To solve this problem, you can break your tempo run up into shorter intervals with a very short, jogging rest between them. The rest, while short, allows you to run faster without reaching your lactate threshold and it enables you to run a greater volume since you won’t be as stressed.

Some of my favorite tempo interval workouts are 6 x 1 mile at 10 mile to half-marathon pace with a short 45-60 second jog; or 3 x 2 miles at half-marathon pace with a short 90 second to 2 minute jog between reps.

These can be a great way to keep a workout more aerobic focused while still running faster paces and adding variety to your workouts.

Jogging Rest During Speed Workouts

Another helpful way to sneak speed into your training without sacrificing aerobic development is to tightly control the pace and duration of your rest intervals. By jogging at a moderate pace during your rest intervals, you can maintain a mostly high-end aerobic effort while still running paces near 5k or even 3k race pace.

A couple of my favorite workouts are: 12 x 400 meters at 3K pace with 90 seconds jogging rest at 90 seconds slower than marathon pace; or 8 x 800 meters at 5K pace with 2 minutes jogging rest at 90 seconds slower than marathon pace.

It’s important during these workouts not to push the fast portion of the workout too hard. The focus should be on aerobic training with the secondary benefit being turning the legs over. Just because you can run the 400-meter portion of the workout faster doesn’t mean you should.

These types of workouts allow you to turnover your legs, but because you’re keeping the rest both active and at a solid aerobic pace, you can maintain a largely aerobic focus for the workout.

RELATED: Recover To Run Faster

Strides and Hill Sprints

Finally, traditional strides and explosive hill sprints are an effective way to develop and maintain your fast twitch muscle fibers and speed while still keeping your training focus on aerobic development.

After your easy runs, you can include a series of four to six 20-second strides performed roughly at 1-mile race pace. Take a full recovery between each stride. Strides help with improving your running form and neuromuscular recruitment, which can lead to improvements in efficiency as well.

Another tactic is to perform eight to ten 10- to 12-second explosive hill sprints. Choose a hill with a 7 to 8 percent grade; stand at the bottom and, from a standing start, sprint up as fast as you can and visualize yourself exploding up the hill. Walk slowly and gently back down the hill, rest until you are completely recovered, and begin the next repeat.

It is very important when implementing strides and hill sprints to take a full recovery between each sprint. Most runners will need at least two to three minutes. Shortening this recovery time and trying to get “more of a workout” defeats the purpose and reduces the benefits of the session.

Adding these short bursts of speed improves muscle power, efficiency and neuromuscular coordination. However, because they are short, mostly alactic in nature, and utilize a full recovery, they won’t make you tired for your next run.

If you find developing your aerobic system to be too boring to maintain for long training segments, consider sneaking some speed into your training and get the benefits of aerobic development with the joys of running fast.

The post 3 Ways To Add Speed Into Aerobic Training appeared first on Competitor.com.

Follow these tips when training for your 26.2-mile jaunt.

Simply running 26.2 miles is a daunting task, so the thought of trying to race a full marathon as fast as you can seems almost impossible — and probably a little crazy. It’s no surprise then that training for a marathon is as much a mental battle as it as a physical one.

During each workout and long run, most runners can’t help but think to themselves, “there’s no way I could continue running this pace for 26.2 miles.” Many beginners think this is a fear unique to their inexperience, but take it from someone who’s logged upwards of 140 miles per week: If your goal is to race hard and push your limits, marathon pace for 26.2 miles is hard to wrap your head around.

The secret is that you should almost never feel like you could run a full marathon at goal pace in training. If you do, it’s likely your goal is far too easy.

In this article, we’ll delve into exactly why you shouldn’t feel like you could maintain goal pace for 26 miles in training. Hopefully, understanding some of the science and physiological principles behind this fact will give you confidence and help you train intelligently.

Accumulative Fatigue

One of the most important concepts to remember about training is that an individual run or workout does not occur in a vacuum. The stress and tiredness from your previous workouts impacts your performance on a particular day. This accumulation of stress and tiredness is what coaches call accumulative fatigue.

Accumulative fatigue is a critical component of proper marathon training, so it’s not a bad thing. Accumulative fatigue enables you to practice running with low glycogen levels and simulate running on tired legs. In fact, a solid marathon training plan will often specifically try to make you tired before your important workouts and long runs.

The problem many runners face during marathon training is that it’s difficult to quantify accumulative fatigue. Unless you’re extremely sore or tired heading into a workout, it’s something that is easy to forget. Just because you feel fresh heading into a run doesn’t mean your previous training runs have no impact on your upcoming workout. By design, you should be tired.

RELATED: What Is Overtraining?

However, on race day you’ll be fully tapered and rested. Unlike your long runs and workouts, you won’t have a 40-90 mile week in your legs and you won’t have tired yourself out from a killer, long workout just a few days before. While this rested feeling can’t be quantified, it is very significant to how you’ll perform on race day compared to regular workouts.

A helpful trick to help you factor in accumulative fatigue is to think of your workouts and long runs starting at the distance you left off at the previous day. For example, if you ran a total of eight miles on Saturday, with a portion of that being at steady or marathon pace, you’d be starting Sunday’s long run at mile 8. Therefore, the last miles of your 18-mile long run on Sunday would actually be miles 8 through 26.

Glycogen Stores

Related to accumulative fatigue is that training for a marathon continuously depletes your glycogen stores, which means you won’t start every workout or long run fully fueled. As a result, you’re likely to experience the effects of running on low glycogen, which results in decreased physical and mental performance (yes, your brain needs glycogen too).

For example, when your body starts to run low on carbohydrates, it will attempt to use fat as a fuel source. This is good in training, as it will improve your ability to burn fat as a fuel source during the race. From a performance perspective, you can expect to see about 15-percent decrease in performance when running at your aerobic threshold (roughly marathon pace) when burning fat as opposed to glycogen. Obviously, this 15-percent reduction in performance is going to make your workouts harder than they would feel on race day.

On race day, you’ll be fully fueled and your glycogen stores will be at capacity. Not only will you have reduced training in the three to five days before the race, but you’ll have consciously topped off your glycogen stores.

RELATED: Fueling During Long Runs

In addition, you’ll have ample opportunities to refuel during the race. Very few runners take in as many calories during training as they do races. This is mainly due to availability, since you can only carry or stash so much fluid and snacks. Regardless, you’ll likely be taking in more calories during a race than any single training session, thus delaying glycogen depletion.

Adrenaline And Support

Finally, it’s important to recognize the positive impact that adrenaline and competition have on performance. You probably realize that it’s nearly impossible to run a 5k or 1-mile PR in practice (if you have strong PRs at these distances). When racing, you’re able to take your performance to a level that’s impossible to reach on your own. While you can’t put a number on it, adrenaline and competition will make the race distance feel two-thirds of what it really is.

The next time you start thinking about how you couldn’t possibly run another 10 miles at marathon pace during a workout or long run, remember these important concepts of marathon training and relax. Marathon training is supposed to feel this way and if it doesn’t, you’re not preparing yourself properly!

The post Marathon Training: Is Your Goal Pace Too Easy? appeared first on Competitor.com.

Being a “slow” runner is merely a state of mind. Don’t let that affect your running.

When I first started working with age group and recreational runners in 2006, one of the biggest surprises to me was the amount of negative thinking and lack of self-confidence many runners exhibited. Almost every runner that joined the group introduced themselves to me by stating “I’m probably the slowest person you’ve ever coached” or “you probably don’t work with runners as slow as I am.”

It didn’t matter what their personal bests actually were, almost all conversations started in a similar manner.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that not much has changed in the last seven years. Many runners, both new and experienced, hesitate to join local running groups or participate in online communities. When asked why, most respond that they are embarrassed by how slow they are.

I’m here to tell you that you’re not slow and that this negative, self-deprecating thinking is only holding you back from your true potential!

I’ll admit, this article won’t be as grounded in scientific research and specific how-to advice as my usual pieces. However, shifting your mindset about how you perceive yourself is more important than any workout or training run you could ever do.

The Power Of Positive Thinking

From a pure performance perspective, thinking negatively can inhibit you from achieving your potential. While thinking you’re slow may seem harmless, every time you preface a statement with the phrase, “I know I am slow, but …” you condition your mind to believe that you can never be fast.

Countless research studies in sports psychology have proven the power of positive thinking and self-talk. Athletes who go into a workout or race with positive thoughts perform significantly better and more consistently than those who approach workouts and races with a negative attitude.

RELATED: Running With Mental Toughness

Reframing your belief in yourself starts before a workout or race. If you’re negative and lack self-confidence throughout your training, no amount of pre-race self-talk and mental preparation is going to undo weeks or months of self-deprecation. Positive thinking starts with how you frame every aspect of your running.

I understand that it’s hard to change your perception of your running ability, so here is some helpful advice:

Regardless Of Your Speed, Running Is The Same

Here’s a secret about running. The feeling you get after a new PR, the satisfaction from a tough workout well done, and the disappointment from a bad performance all feel the same no matter how fast you are. That’s the beauty of our sport.

There is no difference between the runner who breaks 30 minutes for the 5k for the first time and the one that breaks 16 minutes. Both worked hard, sacrificed to achieve their goal, and experienced the same challenges.

That means all runners can relate to each other, no matter their speed.

I’ve run under 29 minutes for a 10k. I still get nervous about finishing last (in fact, I have the distinguished accomplishment of finishing second-to-last at two consecutive U.S. championships), there’s still a lot I don’t know about training, and I have had more than my fair share of bad workouts, injuries, and poor races.

Therefore, there’s no need to preface any of your questions or thoughts about running with “I am slow.” I’m fast and I face the same challenges and fears. All runners do.

There’s Always Someone Faster

Unless you’re Kenenisa Bekele, Mo Farah or Galen Rupp, chances are there is always going to be someone faster than you. Fast is relative.

I get it. You run 12 or 15 minutes per mile and are embarrassed to call yourself a runner because a lot of people are faster. Here’s a secret: “fast” runners feel the same way.

RELATED: Connect With Other Runners

Former professional runner Ryan Warrenburg recently discussed how he’s hesitant to call himself an “elite” runner. Ryan has run 13:43 for a 5k — I’d call that fast and worthy of elite status. Do you know where his time ranks him in the world? I don’t because it’s way outside the top 500 (sorry, Ryan).

What’s Wrong With Being ‘Slow?’

OK, so I can’t convince you that being “slow” is all a frame of reference. So I’ll ask you, why does being slow even matter?

Runners are perhaps the most welcoming and friendly group of athletes I’ve ever met. No runner I know has a problem slowing down to run with a friend. Think about it. Would you enjoy a run with a friend, even if you had to slow down considerably for them to keep up? I bet you would, and your running group feels the same.

Second, regardless of your pace, you’re doing better than almost 80 percent of Americans. In a study conducted by the CDC, researchers found that less than 20 percent of Americans get the recommended levels of exercise, and more than a quarter of U.S. adults do not devote any time to physical activity.

I hope you can look at some of these statistics and insights from runners who are “fast” and realize speed is merely a state of mind. Once you can reframe your thoughts on your speed and potential, you open yourself up for great things to happen with your training and racing.

The next time you want to join a running club, ask a question to a fellow runner, or want to sign up for a race but get nervous about “being slow,” ask yourself this: “Does it really matter?”

The post If You Run Slow, Who Cares? appeared first on Competitor.com.

You’ll be surprised how much strength work you should be doing in the gym.

In addition to aerobic development, one of the key components to running faster is improving your ability to produce a forceful stride quickly and efficiently. Simply speaking, the more power you can generate with each stride while using a minimal amount of energy, the faster you can run.

Moreover, if you can continue to generate powerful strides without hitting an intensity that is so high you cannot sustain it, you’ll be able to maintain this faster pace for a longer distance.

So how do you increase your ability to produce powerful strides as a runner?

Let’s assume that the highest amount of power you could produce at a full sprint was 500 watts (watts is a measurement of power generated during exercise). At your peak fitness, you can run a 10k at 50 percent of your maximal power. This means your submaximal sustainable power is about 250 watts.

When you make yourself stronger, say by lifting heavy weights at near max effort, you might be able to improve your sprint power from 500 to 600 watts. In doing so, you move your submaximal sustainable power during a 10k from 250 to 300 watts. Given you’re now generating more power with the same effort, you’ll be able to run considerably faster.

So, while lifting heavy for a distance runner may not appear to be sport-specific since it is a completely different energy system, it can be beneficial, as it will help you to work at a higher capacity during a distance race without accumulating enough fatigue to stop your efforts.

Why Not Lift Heavy Weights All The Time?

If after reading the first section you’re wondering why more training schedules don’t include serious amounts of heavy lifting, there are three reasons.

First, power is only one factor when it comes to running performance. Of much greater importance is your aerobic system and your ability to clear lactate. Having a strong, powerful stride will only take you so far if you don’t have the aerobic system to support it.

RELATED: Heavy Lifting For Better Running

Second, while I used a fairly dramatic improvement in the previous example, increasing your sustained watts at submaximal effort isn’t quite that easy. Cyclists who are accustomed to measuring watts will tell you that an improvement in 20 to 50 watts is difficult to obtain. As such, even if you only focused on improving your wattage output as a runner, the improvement wouldn’t be dramatic. This type of training is for the advanced runner looking to squeeze out that extra 5 or 10 percent from their training.

Finally, the difficulty in adding heavy weight training to your training schedule is that it’s very tiring. Like a hard track workout, lifting heavy will leave your muscles sore and tired the next day. The more heavy lifting you do, the less effective you’ll be on workout days. As such, you should follow the hard days hard, easy days easy principle when adding heavy lifting to your training.

Won’t Lifting Heavy Weights Bulk Me Up?

Not surprisingly, many runners are worried that lifting heavy weights will bulk them up. The benefits of adding power to your stride would be negated if it also added weight to your frame. Luckily for runners, it is a myth that heavy weights will cause to bulk up.

Muscle “bulk” is dependent on several variables, which include adequate nutrition (excess calories), an optimal stimulus in the form of specific, heavy training 4-5 times per week, and enough rest from catabolic activities (such as running) so that adaptation may occur. If any of these variables are not in place, “bulk” will not occur.

Specifically, you shouldn’t be lifting heavy more than once or twice per week and the vast majority of your training will be in the form of running. Therefore, the time you spend running will vastly outnumber the time spent lifting heavy. This will also prevent any excess bulk.

Why Lifting Heavy Is Better Than Lifting Lighter

It’s often claimed (since distance running is endurance oriented) that the use of high reps should be incorporated into a runner’s weight training program. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The main idea behind doing high repetitions is that you’ll build more endurance in the muscle. Unfortunately, there are two critical flaws in this logic.

RELATED: Strength Training Circuit

First, recent research has shown that performing repetitions in the 12-20 range does not increase muscular endurance any more than the 6-8 repetition range. Second, you’re already working on your muscular endurance when out on the road and when doing track workouts. Therefore, it would be a waste of time in the gym to continue to work on the same energy system using less specific movements.

Research has shown that the optimal repetition range for strength and power gains is in the 4-6 range. This allows for maximum muscle overload and will recruit the most muscle fibers, leading to increased strength and size. Because rep ranges are shorter, all your mental energy is set on doing just 4-6 repetitions and, therefore, psychological intensity is maximized. This allows you to achieve better muscle overload.

If you’re looking for that final 5 to 10 percent improvement in your running, consider adding one or two sessions per week of heavy, explosive training. My recommended routine includes three sets of single-leg squats, box step-ups, straight leg deadlifts, and hamstring cable pulls. By incorporating this routine, you’ll develop a more powerful stride and improve your efficiency when running at race pace.

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A closer look at two different ways of training for your race.

Is it better to train by minutes or by tracking miles? It’s a question many runners ponder, but like almost everything in running, there isn’t a definitive answer. For some runners, training by time provides a more flexible and adaptable plan. For others, training by mileage offers is a quantitative element necessary to quench their thirst for data.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of each method in the context of important training components and suggest which method might be best for you based on your experience level and training needs.

Run by time

Adhere to the appropriate training effort
Perhaps the greatest benefit to training by minutes rather than by miles is that it’s easier to adhere to the proper training effort of a given run. For example, when training by time, 60 minutes is 60 minutes, so running faster only makes it harder. On the other hand, when you train by distance, there is always the temptation to run faster, either to finish sooner or to pad your ego.

This is important because for many runners, one of the primary causes of injury is progressing at a rate too fast for the structural system to adapt. From a physiological perspective, your aerobic system improves at a faster rate than your tendons, ligaments and muscles. As such, you’re able to run faster without breathing harder, but your body isn’t yet ready to handle that increase in pace. Training by time, rather than miles, can often help you slow down by not having the internal motivation to speed up needlessly.

Further, running faster on easy days is not a sign that you’re getting fitter and it’s not inherently better than running slow. Not only does running faster on easy day negatively impact your ability to recover between hard workouts, but research shows there is a “grey zone” in training (usually between 15 to 60 seconds slower than marathon pace) that does not provide additional aerobic benefit.

Training by minutes is ideal for those runners that can’t seem to slow down on their easy days and who always want to push the pace. Since ego is removed from the equation, you’ll naturally begin to run by feel and the appropriate effort.

RELATED:: Base Training Basics

You’re returning to training or you’re a beginner runner
Sometimes, knowing your exact pace can be demoralizing. For experienced runners returning from downtime or building back up after an injury, the ability to compare previous workouts to current fitness can be a tough pill to swallow. This feeling is often the reason runners avoid downtime after a race or why they push too fast coming back from an injury.

Likewise, many beginner runners are ashamed of their pace. They’re always comparing their speed to that of their peers or some imaginary conception of how fast they think “real runners” run. Not only is this counter-productive, but it can be demoralizing enough to cause beginners to quit.

Running easy days by time and implementing fartlek workouts rather than track intervals will help eliminate these two potential issues and help keep you motivated without pushing beyond your current fitness capabilities.

The post Miles vs. Minutes: Which Is A Better Training Method? appeared first on Competitor.com.

This 12-week half-marathon training program will help you cover 13.1 miles fitter and faster than ever.

Whether you’re a new runner, a savvy veteran or somewhere in between, there is a good chance a half-marathon is your favorite racing distance.

You’re not alone. The half, as we fondly call it, has become the distance du jour worldwide, with over 1.6 million finishers around the globe in 2011. It makes perfect sense when you consider that for beginners, the 13.1-mile distance is a difficult challenge, yet still an achievable goal. Moreover, for the experienced runner, the half-marathon is often a favorite distance because it still tests the limits of endurance, but requires far less training time — and recovery time — than the marathon.

Beginners and advanced runners alike face certain physiological challenges when training for the half-marathon.

Click here for a PDF version of the 12-Week Half-Marathon Training Plan

For beginners, the amount of time spent running is the most important factor in training. Research shows that biological markers of muscle fatigue (aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and myoglobin) increase significantly immediately after a half-marathon and remain elevated for more than 24 hours after the race. Put simply, two hours of running puts a tremendous amount of stress on the muscles in your legs. To prepare for the specific demands of a half-marathon, it’s necessary for newer runners to keep their workout and long run volumes fairly high.

On the flipside, the physiological demands of the half for advanced runners mimic those of the 10K distance. From an energy system standpoint, the half-marathon is 98 percent aerobic and only 2 percent anaerobic. This means experienced runners training to race faster must improve their threshold and develop their ability to clear lactic acid and reconvert it back into usable energy.

The physiological demands of the half-marathon clearly demonstrate that success at racing the 13.1-mile distance involves a blend of stamina and speed endurance. It’s important to progress training in a way that prepares the body to first handle the hard workouts and long miles before targeting the specific physiological demands of the half-marathon distance during the final few weeks of training.

Over the following pages, we’ll break down half-marathon training into three specific phases, identify the purpose of each phase for beginners and advanced runners alike and finally show how it all comes together in a well-rounded training plan.

The post Get Fit Fast! 12-Week Half-Marathon Training Program appeared first on Competitor.com.

Use these tips to squash those fears and anxiety.

If you spend most of your day dreading your next big workout, you’re not alone. Most of the runners I coach, along with myself, have a tendency to fixate on the impending pain and struggle the next workout will bring. Fretting over one or two important workouts in a training segment isn’t a problem — it’s normal and an important part of preparing yourself mentally for race day.

However, when you begin to dread and fixate on every single workout, it can become an emotional drain that causes mental burnout and saps the fun out of running. Moreover, this nervousness and fear can convince you a workout can’t be done before you’ve even tried. You beat yourself before you start.

In this article, we’ll look at two strategies and mental tricks you can implement to help reduce anxiety before workouts. More importantly, we’ll provide a mental road map to help keep you emotionally and mentally fresh throughout your entire training segment.

Learn to compartmentalize your running

The most effective way to overcome worrying about workouts is to compartmentalize your running. Think of it like wrapping your training in a cocoon and separating it from your life outside running.

Compartmentalization is a mental technique taught to me by a sports psychologist I worked with at the Olympic Training Center. I was having trouble not thinking about running all the time. I would spend hours and sometimes a day after a workout analyzing splits and comparing them to previous sessions. Then I’d spend the next few days worrying about the upcoming workout. I’d fret over my ability to hit the splits, fearing the pain I was going to put myself through, and worrying if what I was eating was going to impact my workout. Training became a mental burden.

RELATED: The Importance Of Recovery Runs

Luckily, the sports psychologist taught me how to compartmentalize and training quickly became more enjoyable. I spent an hour before and an hour after each workout thinking about it. I called it my “training zone” time. I didn’t allow myself to think about training or upcoming workouts outside this zone. This hour before the workout provides enough time to get mentally geared up and focused, while an hour after a run provides time to reflect, recover and move on.

Like any change, compartmentalization is not an easy or quick fix. It will take you a few weeks before you stop unintentionally thinking and worrying about the next workout. You’ll find you compartmentalize running easily for a few hours and then have a slip when you get bored or you start planning your day. However, this practice will get easier over time until it becomes second nature. Once I learned to stick within this two-hour window, not only did I start to enjoy running more, but I became more consistent in workouts.

One tip my sports psychologist suggested was to create better routines to take the thinking out of a workout. She had me write down and design my optimal pre-workout meal, my warm-up and anything that helped me perform. Try writing down the elements that help lead you to an excellent workout. This will help you plan your day so you can release the worry of forgetting or over-thinking them. Once these elements are built into your daily routine, you can stop over-thinking the next workout.

Shift your mindset

Fear, nervousness and worry arise from not knowing the outcome of an event. Are you going to be able to hit your target splits? Is the workout going to feel easy or be one of those sessions you have to grind through? If you knew the answers to these questions ahead of time, you’d stop worrying, especially if the outcome was favorable.

To combat this, shift your thinking to those aspects of the workouts within your control. I tell the athletes I coach to focus on the purpose and effort of each workout and to concentrate on achieving that outcome. As such, all they have to worry about is giving their best effort, which is easy to do regardless of how they feel. The goal is to remove the fear and nervousness that comes with needing to hit specific splits and shift their focus to taking a step forward in their training.

RELATED: Overcoming Race Anxiety

Along the same lines, keep your workouts in perspective. No single workout is going to make or ruin a training segment. Every workout is a very small step towards you getting fitter for race day. Sometimes, it’s even the most difficult or bad workouts that advance your fitness and mental preparation the most. If you’re putting in the effort, you’ll still make the gains you need. This simple shift in mindset can help ease your worry.

Develop a mantra or mental cues that help you think positive and bring your focus back to those elements you can control. Whenever you begin to get nervous or start to over-think an upcoming workout, repeat this confidence-boosting mantra to yourself. This will keep you confident and help realign your thinking with the true value of the workout.

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When you only consider the end result, sometimes you can be too intimidated to start.

Progressive training, or gradually improving fitness over the course of many weeks in preparation for a key race, can be a difficult concept for many runners to embrace. All too often, the desired end result becomes the sole focus of the endeavor and runners fail to take into account the necessary steps along the way as well as the challenges and obstacles that may arise over the course of a training cycle.

When I write training schedules, I rarely write more than three or four weeks at a time. Primarily, this is because training almost never goes as planned and it doesn’t make sense to plan for what will certainly change. However, on the occasion that I do need to write a schedule more than a few weeks in advance, I inevitably run into the same problem – athletes get intimidated.

RELATED: Adjusting Your Training For Missed Workouts

When runners examine a training schedule, their eyes inevitably find their way to the last six to eight weeks of training. They see the big workouts, increasing mileage, and tough long runs and hit the panic button. Oftentimes, I get an email that sounds something like this:

“Coach, you’re crazy! I can’t run x miles at y pace – I can barely do that for 3 miles now. Maybe you sent me the wrong schedule.”

I understand the fear these runners face. When you only consider the end result, sometimes you can be too intimidated to start.

Your takeaway: Don’t worry about the workouts, mileage, and long runs in your training schedule that aren’t in the immediate future. Focus on one workout and one week at a time. Each week, you’ll get a little stronger and a little faster and when those intimidating workouts arrive, you’ll be ready to tackle them with confidence.

Results Don’t Happen Every Day

Once new runners get over the feeling that running sucks because it always hurts, training becomes less of a chore, and positive race results help to reinforce that enjoyment. As your weekly mileage rises, workouts become faster and personal bests start dropping seemingly every time you race, running becomes more enjoyable because you’re seeing regular, marked improvement.

Then, almost out of nowhere, hitting personal bests starts to get increasingly more difficult. You’re working harder than you ever have in training, but not seeing the results you expect.

Your takeaway: Don’t measure your progress in daily, weekly, or even monthly blocks. Training adaptations don’t happen that quickly once you’re already fit. Instead, reflect on how far you’ve come in the past year or the past six to eight months. Look back a year and compare your workout paces, long run distances, and weekly mileage to look for signs of progress.

There’s No Skipping Steps

In today’s culture, we’ve been conditioned to want and expect things instantly, and running is no different. In training, we all want to run more miles, run workouts faster, qualify for Boston, set a personal best — and we want to do it now! That mentality, however, and the type of desperate training it fosters, inevitably leads to injury and overtraining.

As runners, we have to start at the beginning, take small steps and gradually progress our training toward future goals. And, of course, we must be willing to take steps back sometimes and adjust if unforeseen obstacles such as injury or illness get in our way.

RELATED: Bouncing Back From A Bad Workout

Your takeaway: You have to start from the beginning, even if the beginning seems so far away from your ultimate goal. For example, if you’re constantly injured, take a step back, start from the beginning, build you aerobic base slowly and let your muscles, tendons and ligaments adapt to the mileage. Likewise, don’t try to skip steps or take shortcuts. If you have a race coming up and you’re not ready, don’t force training you’re not ready to handle. Always take the next logical step in your training. If you do so, you’re guaranteed to reach your goal.

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A proper base training phase is more than just long, easy mileage. 

Base training is not a new concept for most experienced runners, but it is one that’s often misunderstood. Perhaps you’ve read about it in a running magazine, or someone in your running club recently used it as justification for their poor performance.

“Oh, I’m in my base phase,” he explained. “So I don’t have any speed.”

While most runners think they’re well versed in the ways of base training — believing it is a period consisting of just long, easy miles — very few actually understand what it is and how to implement it correctly into their training program due to these long-standing misconceptions. In the last decade or so, however, a new appreciation for how the body adapts and responds to training has emerged that has reinforced some of the original, yet continually misunderstood principles behind base training.

RELATED: The Beauty of the Base Phase

In the following pages we’ll take a historical look at base training and dig deeper into how the concept is understood today. Also, we’ll look at some of the common misconceptions of base training, how these misconceptions came about, and examine solutions to help runners maximize aerobic development in the base phase.

The post The Basics Of Base Training For Runners appeared first on Competitor.com.

Learn how to identify the issue and take the right steps to get back on track.

The anticipated physical torture of marathon training is enough to keep most sane people away from training for the vaunted 26.2 mile distance. However, what most non-marathoners don’t realize is that the mental anguish that accompanies marathon training can often be a more difficult foe than the physical grind of running countless miles.

After a string of rock-solid workouts, just one bad run leaves even the best marathoners shuffling home on their cooldown with their head down in despair. The thought process on these dreaded days is the same whether you’ve run 2:14 or 4:14. “Does this mean I’m not fit? Am I overtraining? Do I need to change something in my training?” are often the thoughts that pass through many a marathoner’s head.

Fear, frustration, and self-doubt. This swirl of emotions can be enough to drive a runner crazy and often stick with you for days after a bad workout — bleeding negative thoughts into subsequent workouts and creating a downward spiral of bad runs.

RELATED: Want to race better? See it before it happens!

So, how do you deal with a bad workout? How do you pull yourself out of the marathon funk in the middle of a training segment, when the mileage is high and the end is not in sight? Let’s take a look at the three most common reasons for having bad workout, how to recognize which one is afflicting you, and how to press reset and get back on the right track.

The post Bouncing Back From A Bad Workout appeared first on Competitor.com.

Put your race in perspective when weather, wind, or terrain throws off the end result. 

As the spring racing season quickly approaches, the fear of another hotter-than-normal stretch of weather is on the minds of many runners. Last year, many of the largest and most prestigious races in the U.S. were crippled by unseasonably warm temperatures.

Who can forget the near-record temperatures at the Boston Marathon that forced nearly 2,000 runners to seek medical attention? Or the Green Bay Marathon, where the race organizers saw so many runners suffering heat-related issues, they closed the race down before it finished. Worse yet, a week later, the Madison Marathon was cancelled just 36 hours before the start of the race due to a record-setting forecast.

RELATED: Should I adjust for heat and humidity?

Perhaps this year will be different, but there’s still a good chance you’ll face less-than-ideal conditions on race day. And, temperatures don’t have to be record-setting to impact your performance. Research shows that for runners who aren’t heat adapted, racing in temperatures at 70 degrees Fahrenheit can reduce performance by as much as five percent. Over the course of a marathon, that small percentage can add up 3 to 5 minutes. Furthermore, heat isn’t the only culprit. Racing against a headwind can also cost you valuable time. Research shows that a “substantial” headwind (i.e. one approximately equal to the pace you are running at) will set you back 12 seconds per mile.

Given the numerous weather and course conditions that can lead to a slower-than-planned-for finishing time, how do you measure your performance when conditions are not optimal? Simply looking at your finishing time isn’t a good indication of how well (or how bad) you ran, so we need some other metrics to take into consideration. Let’s examine a few ways you can analyze your performance when racing in hot, windy, hilly or otherwise difficult conditions.

RELATED: Six Strategies For Safe Summer Running

Using Familiar or Nearby Competitors

Thanks to the Internet and easily searchable results databases, it’s now pretty easy to compare your results to those who finished close to you.

Simply make a list of the 15 to 20 runners who finished just ahead and just behind you. The larger the sample size, the more likely you are to have “accurate” data. Then, search a results database such as athlinks for previous performances of those who finished around you. Find their most recent best performance at the same distance and compare how far off they were from their best.

Keep a list of how much slower each runner ran and you’ll soon start to see an average. This average is a pretty decent indication of how much faster you might have been able to run on a better day. Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s a good approximation.

Use Previous Results

Another easy way to analyze your time is to measure it against previous years’ results. You can do a simple comparison between what you (or a familiar competitor) ran on the same course in better conditions. You can also compare what place your time garnered and what it would have earned you the previous year.

Simply find where you would have placed with the same time in better conditions and calculate the number of positions you lost. Now, subtract that same number of positions from your current place and note the time. This will be a roughly comparable finishing time on an ideal day. This isn’t a fool-proof method, but it’s another simple way to calculate potential performance.

You can narrow your place comparison to age groups and gender as well. The same instructions apply, but comparing performances with other athletes who may have more in common will help make the final figure more accurate.

Calculators and Formulas

The final comparison tool is to use temperature, hill or wind calculators to estimate what you might have run in more ideal conditions. They’re simple to use, but like the previous three methods, they aren’t 100 percent accurate. All calculators use a formula based on researching the “average” runner. If you’re a heat adapted runner, a temperature calculator might not provide an accurate estimate for you. Likewise, the calculators assume conditions are the same throughout the entire race. Even running a point- to-point course like Boston, you’re not going to face the same temperatures, or even the wind hitting you from the same direction, the entire way.

Putting It All Together

On their own, each one of these methods isn’t very accurate. However, when used in conjunction, you can calculate an average comparable performance that will provide a basis for what type of time and performance you would have earned in perfect conditions. Sure, it’s a bit of work to enter names into a results database, compare previous years’ results, and find the right calculators for your “average,” but it can help you feel better about your performance when factors outside of your control affected it.

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Learn how to get over your mental racing hurdles. 

A runner who is scared to race –sounds like an amusing anecdote one might read in a children’s book. If you’ve been in the sport long enough, however, you’ve undoubtedly had a running friend who was scared to race, or you’ve been stricken with racing anxiety yourself.

Pre-race anxiety and nerves are a normal part of training and racing. Whether it be the experienced veteran who’s nervous about running a new PR, or a marathon rookie just worried about surviving the distance, nerves add excitement to a race, which, in turn, helps add to the thrill of racing.

Unfortunately, sometimes runners can sometimes take those nerves too far and develop a paralyzing fear of racing. This might happen after a string of bad races, a long layoff due to injury, or lack of confidence in your fitness and a fear of “embarrassing” yourself. Regardless, when these fears take hold, pre-race anxiety becomes more than just nervous energy; it can derail your performances and suck all the fun out of racing.

RELATED: Four Ways To Dominate Your Next Race

If the fear of racing has stricken you or a running friend, you’re not alone. It’s a common ailment that can strike even the most confident of runners. If you’re dreading your next race or find yourself consistently underperforming because of lack of confidence, here are four surefire remedies to get you back on track.

The post Four Strategies For Overcoming Racing Anxiety appeared first on Competitor.com.