Archives for July 2016

How to write your own training plan

Zoey · July 29, 2016 · Leave a Comment

write your own training plan

Coaches are fantastic and while we are pretty biased on the topic, we think you should have one. But it’s not always affordable for everyone and although there are loads of free resources online, how do you know if you have got a good training plan to work off, or if you’ve got a bit of a lemon?

Before you even get started on the nitty gritty of the plan, here’s what I would look for as basics:

1) Recovery weeks. There should be weeks (usually every 4-6 weeks) where you have a week of only easy-paced running and the time of your sessions would be shorter as well. This is to help your body recover and absorb the benefits of your training.

2) Varied training sessions. You don’t want a training plan that is just going to have you running at the same pace for 12 weeks because you aren’t going to get the best out of your body.

3) No pace requirement for easy or long runs. Even if you are going after an ambitious goal, these runs should be based on effort, not on pace.

The next thing to look for is to see if the plan is targeting the distance you are aiming for:

5km: Run in your anaerobic zone

10km: Run at your anaerobic threshold

Half Marathon: Run at your lactate threshold

Marathon: Run at your aerobic threshold

But keep in mind all of these distances rely heavily on your aerobic fitness. For example a 5k run is about 90% powered by your aerobic system, so you can see how your aerobic fitness only gets more and more important as you build up. For that reason, focus on 80% of your running being in an aerobic zone. It’s also called your easy or comfortable running and you should be able to hold a full conversation at that pace.

Make sure you are specifically training

When you are looking at quality sessions in your training plan you want to make sure that those sessions are targeting the right systems to get your best result.

For example, in marathon training a large part of your quality sessions will be dedicated to steady state running and longer intervals. And classic marathon specific training sessions might be:

4 x 1.6km Intervals with 4:00 Jogging Recoveries

3 x 5km Tempo Intervals with 5:00 Jogging Recoveries

Long Run with 30:00 Tempo Finish.

Whereas in 5km training, you can expect much shorter and much harder intervals. Examples might be:

3km Time Trial

8 x 400m with 100m Jogging Recoveries

Progression Run: 3km Easy, 1km Tempo, 1km Hard

If I’m not planning on running fast, should I do hard sessions?

This is a common question and also one that happens around marathon training. If you are going to be running at a pretty steady state or aerobic level, why do high intensity sessions? And the answer is that high intensity sessions increase your aerobic capacity, so they quite literally make your easy sessions, feel easier. Which is a great thing if you are running a marathon or any distance for that matter!

How to Structure your week

For the most part it’s fine to move sessions around to fit in with your schedule but on either side of a quality session you’d want either an easy run or a rest day, and the same goes for your long run day. This is just to make sure you are getting adequate recovery to get the most of your training.

Happy Training!

I hope this has given you some great ideas on either writing (or finding) a training plan that is going to maximise all the hard work you put into your next event.

The fitness lie everyone wants to believe

Zoey · July 28, 2016 · 3 Comments

All you have to do is moderate your food a bit and do some 20 minute exercises a few times a week and you’ll look like a fitness model, right?

Well, that’s what the fitness and weight loss machine would have you believe. And it’s so tempting to believe it, because wouldn’t that be nice? And convenient?

For starters, fitness models don’t even look like fitness models. And you can read about why not here.

And while the approach to fitness and diet of ‘just watching what you eat’ and ‘keeping active’ may work for the genetically blessed who then sell that approach to everyone else – for most of us it just doesn’t work that way.

Maybe it worked that way for me when I was in my twenties. In my twenties all I had to do was vaguely look at a treadmill and I lost weight. Although in fairness, I often also subsisted on a regime of diet coke and cigarettes, so I was hardly a paragon of health. But man, I could lose kilos fast. As it turns out that was a function of my twenties and not my genetics. Pity. So now any kind of body transformation I want to do has to be a whole lot of hard work.

And truthfully, as I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten harder. I recently got to a point where I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable in my clothes. So I made quite a few changes, quite a lot of sacrifices in the coffee and bread department and I’ve been making (slow) progress.

Not exactly the sexy fitness story that you are used to hearing. But the problem with that lie about how easy it is, and the fact that we all want to believe it – is that we get discouraged and we internalise our results or lack of results as a personal shortcoming rather than accepting that the whole thing is a manufactured lie. Even if it is a really seductive lie.

So I won’t be talking up any rapid/amazing changes where all I did was watch my portions and do some squats while the kids were playing outside.

Only three entire years between these photos.

What I have learned along the way (that is helping me along my progress now is):

Calories aren’t equal. Quality matters. I can’t just stay under a certain level I need to make sure that I’m eating nutrient dense food. Which means lots of vegetables, lots of fruits, lots of protein and minimising food without identifiable nutritional value. Except for Friday. Friday is my cheat day and I eat dumplings and raspberry balsamic white chocolate on Friday.

If I expect to make progress, I have to lift weights. Whether I go low weight, high repetition or high weight, low repetition it doesn’t matter as long as I am lifting to the point of muscle fatigue.

Sleep matters. A recent study found that for people on a training program where they had two groups (one getting decent sleep, and the other getting around 5 hours sleep a night), the well rested people had a result of about 2kg of fat loss, where the sleep deprived people had a result of about 1.2kg of muscle loss, and 0.8kg of fat loss.

There’s no point reaching a goal, if I’m miserable on the way. Yes, I want to feel comfortable in my clothes and I dont’ want to feel sluggish on my runs or in the gym, but I have to be able to make choices were I can enjoy my life too. So my progress is slower than it might be, but it’s more sustainable. And I’m less likely to lose my mind and go on bingefest 2017.

But you know, when you step away from the pretty lies? The real story can be pretty awesome too.

Podcast: Episode 15 – Strategies to Injury Proof Your Running

Zoey · July 27, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Prevention is better than cure! This week, I talk about strategies to injury proof your running.

Some of the resources I talked about are:

Rolling for shin splints

Yoga Warm Up

Stretching for Runners

Some of what I cover includes:

Why resting shin splints doesn’t help your recovery (but neither does running in pain)
The purpose of recovery and sleep in building your fitness
Targeting weaknesses
Stretching, even when you find it really boring

Got any questions about training? Head over to the community group!

Head over to iTunes to listen (and subscribe!)

You can listen and download episodes in Itunes here.

Reading the map inspiration gives you

Zoey · July 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Nature - Mount Cook (1)

In 2004, I visited New Zealand. We spent a bit of time in the North Island, but most of our time in the South Island which I loved. It was probably my first experience of DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) because we did so much hiking, got lost a few times and found our way back eventually.

When we got to Mount Cook, my travelling companion was a bit unwell so she stuck to the hostel room. And besides, she kind of hated the barrenness at the bottom of the mountain. But my reaction was completely the opposite and I went exploring. It was a stark picture at the bottom of the mountain but everything above was spectacular. I hiked a nearby mountain to get a better view of Mount Cook as high as I could up to the point where you would have needed climbing equipment to go further. My legs were a bit like jelly at that point so I was lucky to make it back down in one piece.

I left Mount Cook with a sense of wanting to come back to climb, but not really having any idea of how I would do that or how to train for it and I was convinced when I left New Zealand I would return home and do all sorts of hiking at home because I loved it so much.

But what happened when I got home was nothing. Which is so easy to do. I went back into the habits of what I would normally be doing, things that were well within my comfort zone. I never explored or tried to seek the peacefulness I’d found on top of the mountain. I kind of just accepted that. In hindsight it is miraculous to me that I did, because when I was on that Mountain I was so ready to change my life. But I didn’t. I just went home.

And then seven years passed before running came back into my life. Because I’d missed my moment and seven years seems like a long time but it’s not really. It would be ten years before I re-found my love of mountains. When people talk about wishing they’d found running earlier I kind of think I wouldn’t have had the discipline for it. But I’m not sure if that’s 100 percent true. I think I just struggled in between seeing what I wanted to do and not knowing how to get there and so I just defaulted to the norm. Instead of allowing that slide back into my day to day, I could have paid more attention and followed the path that inspiration was lighting up for me.

I still think about that mountain a lot though. As a place I’d never been, but felt completely at home with. The truth is I probably don’t know how much strength that experience has given me over the years and how much it probably gave me all those pushes forward out of my comfort zone when I did take up running.

So the next time you feel that pull out of your regular life and out of your comfort zone, don’t push it to one side. Let it stay front and centre. Even if that’s uncomfortable. Even if it means you have to change your entire life.

Getting your head into the long run

Zoey · July 21, 2016 · Leave a Comment

In the beginning I think the most exhausting part of running, isn’t one foot in front of the other it’s the never-ending dialogue in your head about when to stop and when to keep going. It seems relentless and endless and it is probably one of the more intimidating parts of taking on long runs as part of your training schedule – because you have to listen to that voice for an extended period of time. And who wants to do that?

But just beyond those nauseatingly boring conversations is the best bit about long runs, the part where you forget that you are running, the part where your mind empties itself of all of your frustrations and stresses and there’s nothing but the rhythm of your feet.

So how do you get from A to B?

1) The first part is simple. And hard.
Don’t pay attention to the voice. It’s there, it’s not going anywhere for now and you can’t really do anything about that, but you don’t have to take it on board. Notice it, sure and then let it go. Decide what you are going to do before you go and don’t accept anything from that internal voice other than what you planned to do (barring injuries or emergencies)

2) This is a bit of a trade secret, only I don’t know why it is!
It’s ok to walk. Everyone walks. In fact, you’ll often find that a strategic walk break will give you a quicker overall pace because you are giving yourself a break before you actually get tired. And once you are actually tired, it’s a bit late for a break. if you get concerned about walking too much – use set run/walk intervals so you are getting the balance right.

Long runs are not the day to push the pace.
Long runs are the day to feel rejuvenated by your running, so don’t be tempted to race your watch for the latest PB. Keep it comfortable and don’t rush it. If you are feeling wiped out or ravenous after a long run, chances are you were running too fast. This is the day to completely take the pressure off yourself, enjoy running and enjoy your walk breaks.

Break it Up
Almost any run I do, I don’t think about the total distance. I think about it a kilometre at a time or I break it up into 4km chunks. Because 4km is easy and mentally I can get on board with running 4km, even if there are a few 4km runs after that.

The voice that says you can’t, can be trained to say you can.

When you are slogging your way through your own tough mental resistance, keep in mind it’s temporary. You prove that voice wrong enough times, it starts to lose its power and it slowly gets replaced with a very different voice. In the meantime, change the way you think about long runs. Think about them as adventures. As opportunities to explore. As time to yourself.

And if that doesn’t work, just think about the coffee and/or wine at the end.