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The 10% rule and other myths about running

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I’ve officially listened to one too many running questions, answered by non-runners.

In this episode of the podcast I’m talking about:
  • The 10% rule. Is it real? Is it helpful? What should you do instead.
  • Can you ever really ‘bank time’ in anything. The old saying is for every 10 seconds you go out too fast, you lose 1 minute in the second half. In my case I think it was about 8 seconds too fast in the first half and I lost about 40 seconds per km in the back half. Which is pretty close and you get the idea, things go very poorly.
  • Fuelling. Why you can’t just do it once or twice in training and why you need more than you think you do.

Interested in coaching?

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Podcast: Episode 135 – Plan, Train and Adapt with Nicole Avery

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Zoey and Nicole at Melbourne Marathon Festival

Marathon training, interrupted

This week, I’m talking marathon training, lockdown, planning and new projects with Nicole Avery from Planning with Kids. You can check out some of Nicole’s marathon training tips,  some ideas for fuelling your training, and here is one of her recipes for a morning protein smoothie. Nicole wanted to run a marathon this year, but 2020 had different ideas! So we talked a bit about the changing landscape of her training this year and how having a personalised plan has helped her.

How planning can give you more time for training, and more time for fun stuff

One of the big questions our awesome crew in Run Club have, is how do you juggle it all – family, work, running? And Nicole talks us through some of her main processes for  putting her planning to work for her so she has more time for marathon training and more quality family time.

Some marathon training talk!

We talk pacing vs effort, how to get your head around hard workouts and not changing what our coach has written.

Introducing Adapt

Nicole has started a new project: Adapt Drinks. Nicole has developed a drink with a focus on relaxation, stress relief and recovery – without any sugar or alcohol additives. The drinks include adaptogenic herbs, which you could take as a supplement – but are now in a drink form to retain that ritual of having a drink. So it’s a great way to get your relaxation or stress relief without all the negatives associated with alcohol. I think it’s such a cool concept, and I promptly contributed to her campaign to get my pre-order sorted! You can pre-order yours here.

Unlock bonus episodes and grab your 52 workouts ebook.

Support me on patreon and get access to a whole range of bonus podcast episodes, and an ebook with 52 running workouts, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas ever again.

For the month of September you can try out Run Club for free for two weeks.

Not sure, but want to check out and see what it’s all about? You can! You can sign up here. Our amazing community includes:
  • Plans from 5km to Marathon from Beginner to Advanced
  • Weekly workouts for when you are in between plans, or just to spice up your week
  • A private facebook community
  • Access to coaches for all your questions
  • And most importantly – the most supportive community you can imagine!
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Podcast: Episode 56 – How to train for a marathon (or anything) when you are time poor

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In this podcast I am talking about a question that came up on Twitter

If you work full time and have family responsibilities can you really train for a marathon?

The answer is yes, but it’s also maybe, and do you want to. But there are some great ways to save yourself time

Split runs – I talk about when to use split runs and if they are just as effective as continuous runs
Help a hangry runner out – how to make sure you always have something nutrient dense to eat
Getting creative with your schedule.

AND most importantly, you need less training than you think you do.

Head over to iTunes to listen (and subscribe! and review!)

You can listen and download episodes in Itunes here.

Finding the limit

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Most people probably don’t know this but I have a back scoliosis that makes the whole left side from my lower back to my knee really weak. The right side is the dominant side and takes over to compensate as much as it can. I have a leg differential that makes most people’s eyes pop. Because of that I have no hip stability to speak of. And most of the time whether it’s in running or strength work I have to work twice as hard for half the result. Because of my stability issues, I’m not overly suited to marathon running. Really, I should probably stick to things under two hours. My body copes relatively well with that.

But I just love the Melbourne Marathon. Melbourne is my favourite city. I love seeing the Spartans on the course. I could give up most marathons but I don’t want to give up Melbourne.

I worked really hard with what I’ve got. I removed a lot of the extra stressors on my body while training. I worked at Pilates on core strength and stability. I worked with my body when both sides of my body were having trouble – the right because it was taking on so much of the load and the left because it was struggling. And honestly, neither side is one hundred percent at this point but they are as good as they can be under the circumstances.

I have two tattoos. One is a phoenix on my weak side because I overcame it and the dis-ease of depression within my mind to run my first half marathon. And the other one is a compass on my right side, because all the strength, purpose and direction comes from my ability to run.

It’s true that with getting to know my body, in order to find the limit of what I can do sometimes I have to push my body too far and then I can take that knowledge and use it to work with my body better. After my injury, I learnt from that and within those constraints I have pushed my body as far as it could possibly go in this training cycle.

tattoo-collage

I probably won’t have the mental strength to do that next year. I will always run Melbourne but this will be my last race for awhile. It was a bit of bad timing really – being solely responsible for Operation Move while attempting this huge thing in my training. But you just keep on keeping on and you get through it.

And here I am at the end of the training. Which for me is where all the achievement and joy is. Those aren’t just words. That’s where all the meaning of the run comes from, in the training. It is always bittersweet when you come to the end of the training cycle. It is an ending, no matter which way you look at it.

There can be a bit of pressure to run a race that exemplifies your training achievement but there are just so many uncontrollable factors there, you can’t really do that. I’ve had an outstanding four months in my running. And I get to show up with that on the day – the rest is out of my hands.

I always set a few goals which is a good idea because if something goes wrong it gives you something to aim for. But really they are just numbers and they don’t matter that much. My only goal is to run strong. Because the things that you remember about a marathon is never the time on the clock.

Tapering. Why is it a thing?!

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I wrote this post when I had 5 more weeks until my first marathon. Which means I was staring down the barrel of a taper. And I’ll be honest I hadn’t done a full taper since my first half marathon a year before that. Because I do not like it. But it’s not negotiable with a marathon. With a half you can get away with a minimal taper, with a marathon? Not so much.

Burning questions that tend to arise on a taper include:

1) Why is everyone in the universe so irritating? And why do I have an urge to kill people?

2) Why do I resemble a human garbage can and why am I eating for a small nation?

3) Would we even really consider 15km to be a ‘long run’?! Really?!

4) Why do I sign up for races? Races are stupid.

5) Why do I suddenly have five million phantom injuries and the plague of death/cold/man flu?

Actual, scientific benefit of the taper

Unfortunately, the fact that I feel like I really want to go for more of a run doesn’t trump the fact that a good taper does the following things:

1) Bolster muscle power

2) Increase muscle glycogen

3) Aid muscle repair

4) Freshen the mind

5) Fine tune the neural network so it is working efficiently

6) Eliminate the risk of overtraining

7) Improve performance by 6-20%

DAMN YOU SCIENCE, DAMN YOU!!