I have to confess that I have a bit of an obsession for buying books about running, predominantly about running training. If I were to pick one area that was consistently undervalued, it would be the holism of training. Many runners obsess about how many miles they’ve done without ever consider what happens during the rest of the week when they are not training. Noakes identifies the four main factors that impact performance when training hard:

Eating an appropriate diet
Getting the right amount of sleep
Avoiding physical effort that it not training related
Reducing work stress

A professional runner has systems in place to manage these things. Masseurs and physios help with recovery between sessions, diet is closely analysed and managed and our runner has no other exertion to concentrate on other than training. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us do not have the good fortune (or talent!!) to be in that position.

Some of these areas may be very difficult to manage giving other conditions in your life. For example, as a parent of a young baby you may not be able to get the right amount of sleep. In my day job, I work a rapid rotation shift pattern that means I spend a third of my working life working nights. Even though I have had more years than I care to remember working shifts, I still regularly struggle with my sleep pattern. Until I retire, I will continue to face that. Therefore, I need to consider the holism of training and account for my variations in sleep in my training. So, I concentrate my hardest training efforts on my days off and on those days where I know that I will struggle for sleep, I either train very lightly or take the day off.

Similarly, a person working in a job involving considerable amounts of manual labour will need to manage their energy levels to ensure that their training is having a positive and not negative effect on their overall health and fitness.

Why is this important?

Many running books contain training programmes that are written by coaches who coach runners who are full time athletes or full time students – people who have very little stress to manage beyond their training efforts. For runners with full time job and family responsibilities, the stresses of all of life’s challenges have to be considered in conjunction with the stresses from running and the level of training needs to be modified to prevent overtraining and illness and to maximise performance.

Train Smart.

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!

When you begin training you will find that the longest and most strenuous mental and physical exertions all come at the start…It seems to me that stamina is just as much a mental attribute as a physical one. Make your mind healthy and it will do the rest. If it is not normally healthy, you will never make a decent job of anything.
One of my favourite maxims about training is that the most difficult part of any run is the bit between the sofa and the front door! Mental toughness is, I believe, essential in all forms of running in order to be successful This view is echoed by Noakes and Newton. Noakes devotes an entire section of his book to the mental aspect of the sport. At the elite level, often it is only the mental aspect that separates the medallists from the also-rans. Asafa Powell has held the 100m world record and has run more sub 10 second hundred metre races than any other runner – but on the big occasions he has never performed at that level. Alternatively, Lasse Viren produced very little between Olympics but was twice a double Olympic champion.

For those of us at a less rarified level, the mental aspect of running is often neglected but equally important. From goal-setting to completing events, recreational runners can improve performance through improved mental toughness. Coach Roy Benson, coaching advisor to Running Times, advocates occasional extreme training sessions specifically for the purpose of developing mental toughness. At 18 miles into a marathon, mental toughness is the thing that gets you through. One of the greatest milers ever, Herb Elliott
Was no stranger to training to develop mental toughness. He wrote, “If you emphasize the physical side of training you may become superbly conditioned but mentally not advanced at all. On the other hand, if you concentrate on the mental aspect, it is inevitable that the physical side will follow.”

My favourite thought to remember when struggling in a race is “Pain is temporary, glory is eternal!”

This is another law that is proposed by Noakes but was not one of Newton’s original laws.

- to provide inspiration and support for the athlete
- to provide an objective analysis of when the athlete is doing too much
- knowing the athlete and providing the appropriate mental and physiological stimulus

Of course I am going to strongly support this law. For many recreational runners, it is difficult if not impossible to have a relationship with a coach on an individual basis. The danger then is that the runner picks up bits and pieces from books, magazines, other runners and the Internet and applies ALL of it!!

As I’ve previously posted, my coaching ethos is to train Smart. In the coming months I’ll post detailed guidance of what that looks like in practice.

For all my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving and Train Smart!

Bill Bowerman, legendary US coach

Many men go fishing all their lives not knowing it is not fish they are after –Henry David Thoreau

Specialisation nowadays is a necessity. Modern exponents have raised the standard to such a height that nothing but intensive specialisation can put a fellow anywhere near the top. Before the 1914 to 1918 war, the marathon was considered an event for only the favoured few who had unusual toughness and stamina.
It takes anything from 18 months to 3 years to turn a novice into a first class athlete. You will have to drop the bulk of your present recreations and spend the time in training; anything from 2 to 3 hours a day will have to be set aside. Athletics must be your major engagement for at least two years on end, your business or means of making a livelihood being at all times of secondary importance.

What Newton anticipated has now come to fruition in the ranks of international competitors. It is inconceivable nowadays that anyone other than a full time runner would be able to win a big city marathon or a medal on the world stage.

However, what relevance do his ideas have for the keen amateur?

Specialisation is a key plank of Training Smart – to run your best 10k, you have to train and prepare to run 10k!! While many runners enjoy training and want to race two or three times a month over a variety of distances, they will never achieve their maximum performance until they specialise.

The other key truth for me in what Newton says is that it takes 18 months to 3 years to develop into a first class athlete. Many runners are prepared to do the work, they follow the 10% rule and adjust their training upward. This is a general rule of thumb is that it is safe to increase the amount of mileage run by 10% per week. However, for a runner starting at 30 miles per week and increasing by 10% per week, they would double their mileage in 8 weeks and increase it 4 times over running 120miles per week by week 15 – that is assuming that they were not injured prior to this. Many runners will be incapable of running 100 miles per week. For some, their optimum mileage might be 60 miles per week. It would be far better to take 18 months for our runner to progress to 60 miles per week than 8 weeks!!

Train Smart!