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Five things that you might not know about training plans

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There are lots of benefits of having a training plan. Some are motivation or consistency. Some are improving your speed or your endurance. Or it might just be the nature of accountability of having something on your fridge that tells you today you are running hill sprints.

Ages ago I was reading a thread about intuitive pacing and the advice was that in a marathon you should run how you feel, not to a set pace. Someone jokingly replied if they ran how they felt, they’d be walking. Which is kind of true of a training plan too. For me anyway. By nature I am very lazy and a training plan makes sure I get out and do what I need to do.

1) Variety. A good training plan will have plenty of variety to keep you interested. It will find lots of different ways to achieve your goals so you aren’t doing anything too repetitive but you are still getting the outcomes you need.

2) Fun.  You can build on the things that you do like and find ways around the things that you don’t like. Because let’s face it, you are just not going to be able to do something on a regular basis if you really dislike it.

3) Expectation. Left to my own devices it would be easy to get 5km into an 8km tempo and stop because it was too hard/too hot/I was too tired. It’s very easy for excuses to creep in. But I find having a plan means if it’s written down that’s what I run and it encourages me to never change my mind mid-run.

4) It changes the way you think about exercise. You stop thinking of it as a chore or a punishment and you start think of it as training for you body to be stronger, fitter and more alive.

5) Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun. There aren’t any shortcuts but sometimes it helps to have a map.

 

If you are interested in a training plan or one of our group or one-on-one coaching options you can find them here.

11 Ways to Make Your Way Out of a Running Rut

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As much as I don’t believe in the idea of feeling motivated as necessary for you to get out there and go for a run or get that workout done, it’s true that sometimes you have periods of malaise that last longer than others. It’s great to push through those bad runs or go when you don’t want to for the first little bit but if a few weeks pass and everything feels like a struggle, it’s not very fun is it? And the truth is you rely on those good runs or good workouts to keep you inspired. But what happens when that disappears? And sometimes it does.

1) Change up the route. You might be bored. Running somewhere else can really help to make tings a bit more interesting.

2) Find people who are loving their running. You know who the most inspiring person is, that person who is really passionate and happy about what they are doing. When I’m in a rut, I get great inspiration from people like that, because I know soon that will be me again.

3) Identify the resistance. Sometimes there is a really good reason for your resistance. For example, if you are really not wanting to run intervals or do hill sprints, maybe it’s not that you don’t like speedwork – maybe it’s just that you haven’t been eating the right kind of food and your body is a bit run down.

4) Go anyway. Look we both know that you will probably feel crappy either way. You might as well feel crappy and have gotten out doors.

5) Read a book. People who don’t like to run, like to read about running. True story. Sometimes you can find your joy in the pages of someone else’s journey.

6) Get outside. For me a huge part of my joy of running is just being outdoors and I can get that without running. If I’m feeling run down or like I’m just not up for a run, a walk in the fresh air is just as good.

7) Don’t look at your watch or your app. Can a time turn a good run into a bad run? No it can’t. Ignore it and just enjoy the run.

8) Try something new. Maybe you want to try a dance class or yoga or lift some weights. Don’t wrap your entire self up in one form of exercise. Eventually you will want a bit of variety, or you will be injured and having developed a love of something else will reward you.

9) Set a new goal. If I was just running with no set goal in mind I don’t think I would lose interest but I think I would probably be less consistent. Setting a goal that inspires an equal amount of excitement and fear will get you out the door in no time.

10) Be part of a community of expectation. If you surround yourself with people who are also working towards similar goals, exercise just becomes part of your lifestyle, not something that you decide whether you will do or not.

11) Give yourself a break. Sometimes you need a rest day. Sometimes you need to miss going for a run. And barring injury or illness that’s fine for a week, but after that you better get yourself back out the door.

5 Types of Runs You Can Do Instead of Tempo

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I quite enjoy a good tempo run now, but that wasn’t always the case. I think I used to run tempos at a more flat out kind of pace which is why I hated them so much, now I’m much better at moderating that pace so it’s more sustainable and feels less like dying. But there are times when a continued sustained effort just seems like a whole lot of work and I like to change it up a bit. Here are some runs that you can do (with built in rest periods) which will do the same job that a tempo run does – increasing your speed and getting you nice and comfortable sitting on your anaerobic threshold.

Pyramid

This run is set up with periods of fast running, with 1 minute of recovery running in between.

(3,4,6,8,4,3) 

These are the fast run intervals and in between each you would run 1 minute at a recovery pace.

Progression

400m Progression intervals have fast become my favourite.

400m Sprint, 400m Steady, 400m Fast, 400m Recovery x 5.

I love how this is set up because you get a recovery period between each hard effort

30:20:10

This is also a progression run and it looks like this:

5 x (jog 30 seconds, steady 20 seconds, sprint, 10 seconds), jog for 2 minutes, Repeat x 3

So each of the 30:20:10 makes up a minute, so you do that for five minutes, then you got for 2 minutes as a recovery and then you repeat three more times. It’s shown great results in improving a 5k time.

HIIT

This is a really easy and effective one.

12 x (2:00 Walking, 30 second sprint)

Often when you start longer intervals can be hard to wrap your head around, so this is great to get you started.

5:2

The key to this one is that the 2 minute section is run at a steady pace, not at a recovery pace. So it looks like:

6 x (5:00 Fast, 2:00 Steady)

Great for endurance, because you aren’t getting a real recovery period in it. And making that transition from steady to fast can be quite challenging.

So there you have it! I’m a big fan of finding a type of run that you enjoy for the outcome you need rather than trying to stick out on a workout that you really don’t enjoy. 

Want to redefine your life? Start at rock bottom.

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Oh sure, it feels pretty awful. And if you wind up there because of a severe clinical depression, it can feel vast and lonely and cold. Which is what you want. Or what the disease tells you that you want. You just want to be alone with your disease so the desolation can be whole and perfect and total. So it can swallow you whole and you can disappear into your disease as though you never even existed to start off with. And you can accept what it tells you, that you were made broken. You were made to be lost.

But something happens when you drag yourself out of that. You start to lose the expectations you always had of yourself, and you start to lose the limitations as well. Maybe you weren’t even aware of the limitations. Maybe it started because someone made a joke about you being uncoordinated. Maybe it started because you didn’t want to compete. Maybe it started because you didn’t want to be on show. Maybe you accepted something that wasn’t true, because it was just easier to do so. Maybe one day you just became what other people perceived you to be instead of who you really are.

At rock bottom, you can leave that behind. You don’t have the energy to pretend anymore. You don’t have the energy to smile, because someone wants you to or build up that pretence that creates the image of yourself that everyone else is so complicated. It strips you back.

One day, you are running along a deserted road, looking at the sunrise burning off the fog and it’s only in the feeling of having found yourself that you realise how incredibly lost you were to begin with.

And when all of that happens, you lose that thing. You lose that part of your internal voice that says this is something you can or can’t do. You lose that internal voice that says you are too fat, too old, too uncoordinate, too unathletic to run a half marathon. Because in the grand scheme of things nothing is as hard as rock bottom. Not running, not crossfit, nothing. It doesn’t even scratch the surface of hard.

I had a major disagreement with a box at Crossfit the other day and managed to fall over it. Luckily my shins survived and I just kept going. It would be easy, given my history to use that as some kind of confirmation of my incredibly uncoordinated self, or beat myself up for humiliating myself in public. But the defining moment isn’t stacking it on a box. The defining moment is getting back up and finishing the workout.

When I hit rock bottom I decided I could not stay there. And it seemed impossible. But so does everything, until it’s done.

That’s what rock bottom taught me.

Decide.

Things you learn running an ultra you didn’t train for

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For someone who has an absolute love of training, I certainly sign up and do things that I shouldn’t on a regular basis. Odd. And every time I do I come away with the same thing, while your general training and level of fitness might mean that you can complete an ultra/25km trail run, you probably shouldn’t.

Going into the Kurrawa 2 Duranbah run I knew that my body wasn’t quite there. It needed a period of nice easy kilometres to recover from two road marathons. But being the stubborn person that I am I didn’t listen even when an injury popped up to remind me that I should be recovering, not planning on running a 50km race. But every run is an adventure and it usually throws you a few lessons on the way.

1) You can do almost anything you set your mind to

It was pretty brutal. And I had to dig really deep to find that part of myself that is incapable of giving up but my mental strength on the day was enough to get me over the line.

2) Going 50km alone is a really long way

To be honest I’m not sure that I’d want to run that far on my own again. It’s a really long way and the distance would have been much easier with some company.

3) Running 50km in Queensland Summer is hard, no matter what the weather forecast.

A few people at water stations commented in the last 10km of the run that it wasn’t that hot. It felt pretty hot.

4) If you want to really enjoy the run as well as the achievement of the run, training is important

Specific training. Training that is designed to get you to be peaking at exactly the right time.

5) Should have worn a hydration pack

It all seemed ok. 2.5km between water stations which is what you would expect on most road marathons. But it was tough going towards the end going between water stations and I was drinking about 3 cups of water at each as I went on the return leg. A hydration pack would have been very useful.

6) Runners are really lovely

It was a tough run but you always remember the awesome volunteers and the fellow competitiors who gave you encouragement along the way. I do really love how on the longer distance runs the atmosphere is a lot more laid back, no one is trying to make up a few extra seconds at the water stations.

7) Do have someone at the finish line

This is probably the most important part.