This law is not one of Newton’s original laws but has been incorporated by Noakes. Newton has recorded for posterity his training and the effects it resulted in. Similarly, by recording our training, we have an ideal resource to determine what will work for us. Over a running career, comparison of training logs from previous years will provide an assessment of current fitness and areas to address in future training. Through analysing training logs, the causes of most injuries or poor race performances can be diagnosed and remedial steps introduced to prevent a reoccurrence.
So, what do we need to include in our log?
The date
The time of day
The route run – most runners have a limited number of routes that they use making comparisons easy. Routes over differing terrain will affect the average speed.
The details of the session – how far, how fast, rest intervals etc
Shoes worn – many shoes will be deteriorating prior to showing outward signs of wear. By logging those shoes worn, you will be able to measure how many miles you have done in each. Dependant upon how heavy you are on your shoes, they will need to be replaced every 500-1000 miles.
Weather conditions – poor weather will slow you down
Waking pulse rate – an elevated pulse rate is an indicator of over-training or the onset of illness. A pulse rate that decreases over time indicates improving fitness
Early morning bodyweight/post exercise bodyweight – although it is not too much of an issue in the UK, in areas where the temperature is generally higher, most daily reductions in bodyweight are a good indicator of hydration status.
There are other areas that can additionally be recorded eg how the run felt, effort rating, enjoyment rating, bedtime and hours of sleep. These are good measures to determine the effects of training and can be used to provide an early indication of overtraining.
There are mainly online and computer based training logs as well that will also record and calculate training load and follow and measure heart rates using heart rate monitors. I have known runners who kept a detailed spreadsheet of a multiplicity of variables from their training. If you have the time and the knowledge to do this, it can provide an excellent basis to analyse your training and make the necessary adjustments to maximise performance.
For me, I recently cleared out a cupboard and found some old training diaries lurking at the back. I spent an enjoyable hour reliving various races and feeling very old as I considered my current performance against what I was once capable of!!
Train Smart!
This rule implies that peak racing performance only occurs when a period of high-intensity, low volume training (peaking or sharpening) follows a prolonged build up period consisting of low intensity, high volume training.
The godfather of this approach to training has got to be Arthur Lydiard. Greatest of all the runners coached by Lydiard was the double Olympic champion and multiple world record holder Peter Snell. Although Snell was predominantly an 800m runner, during his base period, he would regularly run 100miles per week. The Lydiard approach would then have the runner adopt a period of hill training before a brief sharpening phase to prepare for the main competitive races of the season.
Peter Snell winning Olympic gold
Following this style of training provides the following benefits:
• It develops robust health
• It conditions the cardiovascular system
• Its slow pace keeps injuries to a minimum
• It fosters a continual slow improvement
• It has a desharpening effect and conserves “adaptation energy”
• It provides strength to run multiple rounds of an event and peak for the final
(adapted from Tom Osler)
So, at the beginning of the base phase, a comfortable pace for our runner might be 7 minute miling. After nine months base building, that comfortable pace will have reduced considerably, say to 5 minute miling. From there, it takes little sharpening to race at 4 minute miling.
When Osler talks about “adaptation energy”, he is referring to that undefined extra that runners get on race day. Osler (and many others) would suggest that this is a finite resource and that if you spend too long speed training, you will burn out and have nothing to draw on come race day.
For many years, this has been the dominant thought in running training circles. However, in recent years, there have been some dissenters. Some coaches would now have runners running hills and speed work in the initial phase of their training as strength work. There is also an argument that although there is a low risk of injury during the base phase of training, this is more than overshadowed by the huge risk of injury when untrained muscles start to do speed work during the sharpening phase. There is a very powerful argument that you never get too far away from speed.
So, where do I stand on all this?
Well, as I have mentioned on several occasions previously, the biggest flaw I see in runners on a regular basis is a lack balance in their training. Many race too often and also run sessions which should be recovery runs as races. I totally understand why this happens and during my running career, I frequently committed similar mistakes.
Why?
For many runners, the thing that keeps them running is turning up and racing. Going out and training is a necessity to enable them to get to the start line in reasonable shape but all the excitement comes from the race. Law 7 looked at whether to race when training for longer races and this law dovetails nicely with that. However, for many runners, the idea of training for nine months to have a six week racing season would be inconceivable!!
My personal view is that most runners would benefit most from adopting undulating or wave periodisation.
What this means is rather than having specific periods devoted to base training, sharpening and racing, you would incorporate all three over a much shorter period. An example would be to spend week one concentrating on base training, week two on tempo training and week three on sharpening with a race at the end of it and week four recovering.
I’ll talk about this in greater detail in a later post.
Until then, train SMART
This is another law that has been included by Noakes although it wasn’t one of the original laws set out by Newton. I remember having a very animated debate in a running forum over exactly this point. I am strongly in favour of what Noakes is saying however unpopular it may be among some members of the running community.
When Newton was running, there was little or no information about how other runners trained. Nowadays, there is a huge amount of information – how accurate it is can be a matter of debate. Recreational runners see the schedules, and more particularly the mileage, that elite runners are covering and think that this is the best way for them to train too.
There are several crucial factors they have disregarded:
• Elite runners have a genetic predisposition to run long and fast – that’s why they are elite
• Elite runners have, in most cases, spent many years building up to running 100+ miles a week
• Elite runners do not have jobs that conflict with their running
• Elite runners can adopt nutritional and recovery strategies to enable them to train longer and harder
I am not saying that it is not possible for a club runner to develop into an elite athlete. I can think of several British examples from a few years ago – Paul Evans, Dave Long, Keith Anderson, but all of them developed late in life, after years of training.
Many runners keep increasing mileage month on month aiming to build up their mileage to whatever point they think will result in a PB (PR for our US friends). Whether this is 50, 70, 90 or 120 miles a week, the likelihood is that if they continue to increase their mileage by 10% a week (as is recommended in many running books) within two years they will be injured. By applying this rule, the runner would only increase mileage once they stopped improving at their current mileage. When this happens, increase mileage by 10% and see what happens. If, after a month at the increased mileage, there is still no benefit in performance and provided there is no injury scare, increase again. Once an increase in performance occurs, maintain that mileage until another plateau is reached before increasing again.
Following this strategy will decrease the amount of time you are injured and increase your running longevity.
Train Smart!
Don’t set yourself a daily schedule; it is far more sensible to run a weekly one, because you can’t tell what the temperature, the weather or your own condition will be on any given day.
You don’t know what the weather will be like on race day. You don’t know how you’ll feel. You don’t know what the temperature will do. If every time you encounter anything inclement, you fail to train then you are depriving yourself of many opportunities to develop mental and physical toughness. There are some runners I know (and I had a tendency towards this too!!) who will grab any excuse to postpone a training session. This is a charter for doing so!!
However, there is also a sensible side to the law. There are runners I know who become so obsessive that they will continue to push on no matter what. This type of runner is probably in the majority – most runner I know have at some time or another ended up injured because they were training when they should have been resting (and that’s a group that I can include myself in too!)
The sensible line is somewhere between the two. When I’m writing a training schedule for a runner, I will usually write the keys sessions for the week in detail and then give general advice about any additional sessions. This gives the runner the flexibility to perform those key sessions on the most suitable day. Part of that flexibility is also to choose when to take a day off.
So, I’ll agree with the general principle that setting daily training in stone can be detrimental, I would also add the caveat that training hard in poor conditions can prepare for racing in difficult conditions and can improve confidence for race day.
Train smart!
The first type of speedwork we’ll look at is threshold training. In the 1980s, Jack Daniels (the world renown exercise physiologist and running coach – not the whisky guy!) introduced the term ‘cruise intervals’ to runner. These, along with tempo runs have become the mainstay of threshold training.
But what do the terms mean?
Threshold training – during running, the muscles obtain fuel from a process called glycolysis. As a bi-product of this process, lactic acid can be formed. When exercising gently enough, the body is able to utilise this lactic acid to help fuel the running effort. However, once you start running harder, the lactic acid can build at a pace that the body is unable to clear from the muscles. The point where the acid build up is occurring at the maximum rate at which the body can clear and use it is known by various different terms most commonly lactate threshold or anaerobic threshold. Threshold training is training at a pace that is designed to improve the body’s threshold ie to increase the speed at which the lactate rises at a pace which the body is unable to use.
Tempo runs – tempo runs are continuous runs at a pace that is designed to boost your lactate threshold. The effort required is the same as one you would use if racing for an hour. So, if you complete a 10k in 60 minutes, your 10k would be your threshold pace. For the Paul Tergats of this world who run a half marathon in 60 minutes, their half marathon pace would be their threshold pace. For most club runners it will be somewhere between 10k pace and 10 mile pace. Daniels would suggest that ideally a tempo run should be 20 minutes long (with additional warm up and cool down). Other coaches would include longer tempo runs for marathon runners eg Pfitzinger & Douglas include an 11k tempo run in Advanced Marathoning.
Cruise intervals – the aim of cruise intervals is to run a longish interval at threshold pace with a short recovery so that the lactate level remains fairly constant throughout the session. By running cruise intervals, a runner could run for longer periods at threshold pace than during a tempo run. An example would be for a runner whose threshold pace is 6 minute miling, a cruise session could be 4 x 1 mile with 60 seconds rest between each interval. This would give the runner 24 minutes at threshold pace – more than our 20 minute tempo run. Another use for cruise intervals is to throw a couple of mile intervals at threshold pace into a weekly long run.
There is an almost unbreakable link between race pace and lactate threshold. Your 10k pace will be very close to 2.5% above your threshold pace and your half marathon pace will be very close to 2.5% below it. Fortunately, lactate threshold responds well to training and can be improved by most runners. Daniels and most coaches would advocate plenty of tempo runs and cruise intervals to boost it.
But are they right???
Watch this space and train smart!!
