Blog – Page 7 – The Running Rules running and nutrition coaching

Running low on confidence?

By Al

On 7th May 2018

Get your enjoyment back and see your performance improve

Some people say running is all in the head and they are for the most part correct. We all have physical limitations but they are not usually as restrictive as we think they are. The mind controls the body and has a habit of telling us what we can and can’t do.

But sometimes it doesn’t always know what we can achieve because it uses ‘sound reasoning’ based on previous experience. Worse still, it can make us doubt what deep down we know we are capable of. At these times you have to fight back against the voice in your head.

We can probably all recognise the times when the mind has a tendency to play it safe in terms of time or distance. Have you ever said to yourself “I’ll just take it easy today and try and pick it up halfway through” or “I was going to do 7 miles today but I’ll just do 5”?

Don’t get me wrong – there are times when you have to be sensible for instance if you have an injury or are genuinely unwell. But most of the time there is no rational reason to deviate from what we were going to do and it nearly always leads to regret and reducing confidence.

The effects we probably don’t notice resulting from low confidence is in our running form. If you think about a time you were running full of confidence, everything feels easy, it is more like a gliding motion. It feels like you can carry on forever; you’re in the zone.

Contrast that with when things aren’t going well. The head drops so you are hunched over, the legs feel heavy most likely from more excessive heel striking, your cadence drops enough to adversely affect your time and you keep looking at your watch every 200 yards. But unless you are injured or have not fuelled correctly, it’s only not going well because your head is telling you so.

You have to work to actively combat the negativity that can wreck running.

Firstly, forget about time for a week or so and try and get some enjoyment back into your running. Working on your form will help make running feel easier. Imagine you are walking into a room of people you don’t know. You may not be confident but they won’t know if you keep upright have smooth motion and look happy! This is how you should look when running. And don’t nervously check your watch.

Next you can work on speed. This will be made easier by two things; foot form and cadence. When low on confidence it is more likely that you are heel striking (you land predominantly on your heel). This is not easy to change and I don’t recommend a wholesale change overnight as it will take its toll on your calves, however, being aware of this and shifting more onto the balls of your feet, even for a short period of your run will instantly make you a little faster for the same effort. This is because you spend less time in contact with the ground. Increasing or even maintaining your cadence (how many steps you take per minute) will also have a big effect on time.

Once you’ve got some enjoyment back, set realistic goals and train properly with a plan to achieve them. But how do I know what is realistic? It’s a fair question. If you are returning from injury then you need to be cautious and take advice from the medical experts. Try not to think in terms of PBs (personal bests) but of SBs (season bests). I.e. don’t compare this year’s performances to last year’s when you were fully fit just try to improve on times from your injury.

If you are not injured but are struggling with confidence it may also be because you are comparing yourself now to you in previous years or against other people we know that are improving. Comparing ourselves to other people is not useful (unless you are an elite).

Just because our times are similar to someone else’s it doesn’t mean that we are at the same point in our running careers. People who are just starting out will improve much more rapidly and that can be demoralising for anyone they pass. You can’t affect what others do only what you do.

Unfortunately, as we get older we tend to overthink things more but we need to get back to the feeling that kids have when they run. They’re just trying to do the best they can at that point in time. So every once in a while go and do a short run with the aim of just going for it. Leave the preconceptions behind and try and clear your mind. Also leave the watch behind if it helps.

Really going for a 5k with confidence will show where you are at this point in time. Don’t be disheartened if the time is not where you think it should be – this is the base from where you will improve.

Running is all in the mind and so are all of the doubts. Control the doubting mind and you’ll remember why you started running.

Stop your PB envy and start working!

By Al

On 2nd April 2018

In Mental

Hang your head in shame if you’ve ever said or thought any of these things about X <substitute X with name of rival faster runner>.

“I’ll never be as fast as X”.
“X must be naturally gifted as a runner”.
“X never seems to work as hard in training yet always finishes ahead of me”.
“X’s PB is minutes faster than mine”.
“I hate X – in the nicest possible way”.

Ok – X-hating over? Good because I need to lift my head as well to write the rest of this article!

Running at our level is supposed to be fun and not overly competitive – right? Well I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had some of those thoughts in the past. No matter how well you get on with your club mates, siblings, colleagues or whoever else you run with, you want to try and do better than them.

And why not? Running is essentially a solo sport and whilst we want to see those people do well, we are most interested in doing well ourselves.

It’s natural to see the results of others and then dismiss the work they have put in to get where they are. In business, Ramit Sethi calls this the iceberg effect but it applies to sport too.

Let me say again that we are most interested in doing well ourselves. So what are we really saying when we say the things above? We’re not really complaining about how good X is, we’re moaning about how bad we are. We’re really saying this:

“I’ll never be as fast as I want to be”.
“I’m not a naturally gifted runner so I’ll never be any good”.
“I feel like I’m working hard in training but it doesn’t seem to be paying off”.
“I want my PB to be minutes faster than it is”.
“I hate myself – in the worst possible way”.

Right – self-loathing over now? Good, we’ve changed the focus from other people to ourselves but we’re still far too negative. We’re using excuses to mask the real reason we’re not improving as fast as we’d like.

We need our training to be better. Notice I didn’t say “we need to train harder”. Many people’s answer to getting faster is just to train more. “You just need to up the mileage”. That’s simply not true. Whilst you may get some slow improvement from doing that it won’t be nearly as effective as 3-5 varied sessions in a week.

The specifics of these will depend on what you are training for. But essentially the sessions boil down to the same for most things. Long, speed, hills and tempo. These are discussed in more detail in the previous blog.

For now let me turn this on its head and ask you this. What would it feel like if someone said these things about you:

“I’ll never be as fast as you”.
“You must be naturally gifted as a runner”.
“You never seem to work as hard in training yet always finish ahead of me”.
“Your PB is minutes faster than mine”.
“I hate you – in the nicest possible way”.

It would feel pretty good – even if we didn’t say so wouldn’t it? And it is certainly possible. In fact I would go further than that. If you start focusing on improving yourself it will naturally follow.

Recipe for improving your 5/10k times

By Al

On 6th March 2018

In Training

Small improvements in your training can lead to minutes off your 5/10k times. You’re already making the effort to go out for runs during the week so you’re 90% of the way there. The last 10% ingredient is variety.

Weekly Ingredients

1 x long run at ‘easy’ pace for endurance

1 x interval session at ‘target pace’ for speed

1 x tempo run with middle half at ‘threshold pace’ for stamina (speed over distance)

1 x medium run (with hills if possible) at ‘steady pace’

1 x hill repeats session for strength

Preparation of pace

The key here is that every session is different and builds a different dimension to your training. You will notice that the pace of each session is different. This is important because you at least get some training at target pace but don’t burn yourself out going too fast. There are lots of terms for different paces but here is how I like to think of different paces:

Target Pace – This is how fast you will run in your race.
Threshold Pace – 10% slower than target pace
Steady Pace – 20% slower than target pace
Easy Pace – 30% slower than target pace

You can play around with these values as it is not an exact science but another way to think of it is how you feel when running at these paces:

Target Pace – No talking – fully focused on running. Pretty close to your max. A.K.A. ‘Silent Pace’
Threshold Pace – You can utter a few words but not much. Still challenging. A.K.A. ’20 Questions Pace’ (i.e. you can only answer yes or no)
Steady Pace – You’re able to have a conversation but you won’t want to talk the entire time. A.K.A. ‘How do you do? Pace’
Easy Pace – You’re able to chat throughout the run. A.K.A. ‘Conversational Pace’.

Preparation of distance

Another varying factor is distance. For 5k and 10k, it is possible and advantageous to train above the target distance. The long run builds up strength and also psychologically gives a boost of knowing you can run further. Again, there is no exact science but changing km to miles gives an idea of a suitable distance for a long run. i.e. 5 miles for 5k training and 10 miles for 10k training. This is less advisable for longer distances, especially marathons as the fatigue it produces outweighs the benefits.

The interval sessions build up speed over short distances. This allows you to practice the speed you need to run at but allowing your body to recover in between. The jog recovery should be even slower than easy pace, literally just to keep moving.

Typical sessions are:

6 x 3 minutes with 90 seconds jog recovery
8 x 2 minutes with 1 minute jog recovery
Pyramid (1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1) minute intervals with half time recovery

The tempo run is an important ingredient. The distance can be in and around your target distance but a typical session is split as follows:

First mile at steady or easy pace
Middle 1 to 5 miles at threshold pace
Last mile at steady or easy pace

Preparation of terrain

The medium run can be any distance up to your target distance but will be more beneficial if it involves hills. Or instead, you can do hill repeats which involves running up a hill for 60 to 90 seconds and walk or slow jog back down. You can start with just 6 and build up to 16 and this will improve strength. Most races will have some hills in them and if not, running on the flat will be much easier after training on hills.

Result

By varying your pace, terrain and distance through your training program you will develop speed, strength and stamina. A lot of people only focus on distance; by incorporating all three, you will see your 5k and 10k times drop by minutes.

How I broke my 5k 20 minute barrier

By Al

On 5th February 2018

In Training

I started doing the parkrun in 2012 and soon got down to low 20s. However, I hovered just above 20 minutes for several months before finally cracking it. Then I let up and I couldn’t break it again for nearly 3 years. It started to build up as a mental as well as a physical barrier.

I started to wonder whether it had been a fluke on the day, or if getting older was a contributing factor. I saw other people improving and breaking 20 and I didn’t know why I couldn’t do it.

At the start of 2016 I broke 20 minutes another 3 times in 2 months. The last couple felt much more controlled rather than a frantic dash at the start followed by trying not to die.

Most of us have targets, if not to compete with others then at least to better ourselves. Sometimes we might feel like the target is unrealistic and either we get frustrated or worse still, give up.

However, most of the time, our targets are absolutely achievable, but we set ourselves up for disappointment because we don’t do what is required to get there.

Sometimes we don’t know what we need to do, so we blindly prepare and hope for the best. Other times we do know what we should do, but we don’t do it and just hope for inspiration on the day.

I fell into bad habits for months, even years and more recently I’ve been much more structured in my training. I know that by making a few adjustments, you can become more confident, reduce your times and smash your targets.

Avoid ‘Groundhog day’ training

I imagine most people have either seen or heard of the film ‘Groundhog Day’. In the film, Bill Murray wakes up every day to find it is the same day as yesterday.

I used to do the same 5 mile route from work most days (at considerably slower than target 5k pace) and then wonder why my 5k time didn’t improve. However, by changing the types of run or session I was doing, my times started coming down again.

You’ll also hear lots of advice saying – “You must do at least X miles a week”. But you could say – “I’m going to do 50 miles every week” – and then you break it down into 7 miles every day doing the same route and the same pace.

That isn’t going to make you any faster over 5k and worse still, you may get bored and give up on it completely.

I typically now do 4 sessions a week incorporating:

One longer run at a slower pace to build up stamina
One session of speedwork where you will run bits of it at around 5k pace
One tempo run where a good chunk of your run will be slightly slower than 5k pace
One session or run incorporating hills to build up strength

However, even by doing just 2 or 3 of these a week, you will start to see some improvement. If you’re putting in the effort to go for a run anyway you may as well put the extra bit of effort into planning different types of runs or sessions so you get the maximum benefit.

The importance of rest

For some people including me, this is absolutely no problem. I love days when I’m not running, but mainly because I know I’m putting in hard work the rest of the time. For some people though, this is incredibly difficult.

It is easy to think that more running equals better training but if you overdo it then you won’t be able to perform at your best. Your quality of training will reduce and ultimately you may get injured or give up.

You must rest! And if you pick up an injury it is even more important to rest before aggravating it more. Here are the golden rules of rest:

At least one non-running day a week (I prefer two)
If you think you may be injured, rest up rather than running and see how you feel the next day
Don’t try to cram in extra training sessions to make up for ones missed. Accept that you missed it and move on.
Don’t go for your PB every week. This is especially important if you’re a parkrunner. Once a month gives you plenty of opportunity for a PB but means you’re fresh enough to have the best chance of actually doing it.

One word of warning: It is perfectly fine to take time off for injury or other life interventions but if these span more than a few weeks, you need to make an active plan to get back to training. After three weeks, not training will become the norm so you have to reform the habit of training.

I stopped running altogether for a whole year around the birth of our first child and consequently added 4 minutes to my 5k time, which I had to work to get back off when I restarted training.

Plan your race

Your training is going great and you’re getting some valuable rest in too. However, the wheels can still fall off in the race itself.

Here is my original thought plan for doing a 5k:

Start – “run as fast as possible”
1 minute in – “feel wrecked, try not to die”
X minutes later – “finished and alive, just – I am never doing that again”
X + 10 minutes later – “what I didn’t get a PB? When’s the next one?”
Next week – repeat steps 1-4

Can you see what I did wrong? Actually, most of the plan isn’t as crazy as it sounds. I did actually do my first couple of sub 20s by going out as fast as I could and trying to maintain it. But it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience. The crazy bit is just repeating it again and again, especially if it didn’t work or wasn’t very enjoyable.

But at least it was a kind of a plan and better than the following:

Start – “oh I’m running a 5k race today – what time am I going for? What pace does that mean I need to run? How far is 5k anyway? Oh I forgot my watch. I’ll just follow these guys, they look like they know what they’re doing.”

Now let’s not sugar coat it, if you do a PB, there is probably going to be some point during the race that you’ll have to dig deep and get through a physical or mental barrier. There are lots of ways to do this, but you don’t want to be trying to make basic decisions during the race. Here are some things to think about before the race:

How many laps are there in the course?
Are there any hills? If so, where?
Break the race down into separate km or miles. Are you going to run the same pace throughout or start faster or slower than your overall target pace?
Where are you going to hold back and where are you going to push on? Are you going to see how you feel or have an idea before you start?
How close to the front should you start? Think about number of people, relative pace and whether the race is chip timed.

That’s quite a lot of information you already have to be able to make some decisions before the race. For example, if you know there is a big downhill at the start and a big uphill at the end then it’s probably unrealistic to say you will start slower and finish faster.

Pacing yourself during a race is crucial because it can be easy to get carried away following people who are much faster than you and burn yourself out too quickly. I’ve done this several times and not enjoyed the race at all.

Alternatively, it is possible to be too cautious and run too slowly at the start and have too much to make up at the end. Pacing is easier with a GPS watch but you can still do it with a normal stopwatch as long as there are km or mile markers on the course.

I work in miles. Here is a comparison of my mile times for my first sub 20 in 2012 and a more comfortable sub 20 in 2016:

2012: 6:11, 6:27, 6:40, 0:39 = 19:57

2016: 6:28, 6:28, 6:15, 0:35 = 19:46

Firstly, it shows there is more than one way to try and beat your PB and different approaches might work better for different people. I thought the only way I could beat 20 was to run as fast as possible at the start but as you can see from the times above, that adversely affected the time I could run towards the end.

In the second example, I didn’t run as fast at any stage of the race but took 11 seconds off the original time.

I much prefer my latter approach of having enough left after the first two miles to attack the last mile. To me, it feels better to finish stronger. It also says to me that I could be slightly less cautious in the first two miles because I’m able to run faster in the last mile.

There are lots of different options so see what works for you. But know beforehand what you need to do.

Finally, I said before that it is not a good idea to go for a PB every week for rest and recovery reasons. I love parkrun, which is a free 5k timed run every week, because it gives you a chance to test out these pacing strategies.

However, I found that I would regularly “go for a PB” and then halfway round talk myself out of it. I’d say things like “I’m not feeling it today” and “I can have another crack at it next week”.

By restricting yourself to one PB attempt a month, not only do you give your training a chance to kick in and make a difference but you take it more seriously and give it all you’ve got because if you don’t get it, you’ll have to wait another month.

There are lots of ways to improve your 5k time and you will be surprised at how much small changes in training and race preparation can help.

However, rest is just important – after all if it is a PB you are looking for you will need to give everything on the day to get it. Try these techniques starting today and see your times fall within weeks.

New year, new running

By Al

On 1st January 2018

In Habit

It’s the time of year when we make all those promises to ourselves and within days, weeks or if we’re lucky a month or two everything falls apart. We all get caught up in new year; we’ve probably eaten and drunk a bit more than usual over Christmas. It naturally marks a new start and makes us reflect on the previous year and generally we tend to pick out the things we didn’t do so well rather than the things we did.

And then we come up with a whole list of things we want to change. We’re going to eat more healthily, get fit and stop spending all our time on social media. Of course there is nothing wrong with any of this but we set the bar too high and fail very quickly. Then we’re either hard on ourselves or make excuses for why we didn’t succeed.

Great swathing overnight change is almost never going to work so it is easy to be cynical around new year. However, there is no harm in using this time to be a springboard to incremental change that will help us achieve our main goals. To do this we have to hone in on what it is we really want and then pick out one or two things that will actually help get us there.

This is certainly true in running. If you’ve never run before it’s not realistic to start doing six days a week. Try one day a week and see how it goes. If it’s for you, sign up to a couch to 5k program in the spring. Maybe you’re a marathon runner and you want to get your time down. Instead of trying to go on a diet and ‘train harder’ and run more races why not just do one thing like add a strength session to your weekly routine.

If you’re already a runner but want to tackle your first half or full marathon then it may be easier than you think. You don’t have to be running six days a week and first timers can get round with a three day a week program. If you’re only running two or three days a week then this is an ideal way to ease you into achieving something new.

So I’m going to be positive about new year and invite you to think about things differently:

Choose one thing to change/add/improve that will help with your overall goal. Remember that the initial enthusiasm of new year will wear off quickly so it needs to be something manageable that you know you can commit to doing. Most importantly, it needs to be something that matters a lot to you. If it doesn’t then ditch it.
When reflecting on last year pick out one thing that went well and try to keep doing it. This is just as important as changing things in our lives, if not more so, because if we’ve already done something well we know what worked for us and can repeat it.
Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s ok to focus on one or two things and let some things go or put them on the backburner. There may be more that we want to do but there is only a finite amount of time and effort we can give.

Finally, writing these articles is one of the small things I’m adding this year. They will be based on things that have helped improve my running. If there is anything I can help you with please let me know. Have a great new year!