Training Update - Trying Some New Strategies

Most races classify runners as masters when they hit age 40, but I think most runners would agree that masters running really starts somewhere between ages 42-46. If you stay healthy, you can roll through ages 40 and 41 without losing much, and you might even think, hey, this masters business isn't so bad. Some lucky ducks manage to keep rolling a little longer, but eventually there's a shift.

I was no different. I was in the best shape of my life at 38-39, had a brief lull for iron issues at 39-40, and then was running pretty solid at 40-41. Late in 2015, still at age 41, I developed a nasty case of high hamstring tendinopathy, and there ended the honeymoon phase of masters running for me. Two and a half years later, when I was finally able to do something approaching normal training, it was like I was a completely different runner. Now it was mid-2018, I was turning 44 and I had zero fitness.

A frustrating year followed, with some progress and hopeful moments, interspersed with slow racing, poor recovery, minor aches and pains, and hormonal ups and downs (hello perimoenopause!).

All the while I was doing my best to pay attention and learn from the things that weren't going well, and when this last spring/summer season ended with one of my most disappointing races yet, I decided it was time to make some more significant changes.

One of my main goals for the fall season was to only do training that I could recover from. Sounds obvious, but for me that meant dialing things down and keeping them dialed down. Really erring on the side of caution, instead of just thinking about how it would be good to err on the side of caution. The other main goal was to work on strength/pure speed for the first portion of the season, even though taking the time to do that would leave me with a very short regular season.

I'll spoil the ending here and tell you that there was no big triumphant race at the end of the fall season, no magical moment that showed I had finally figured out the secret path to fast running in your mid 40s. In fact, the only race I ran this fall was a bit of a letdown. But I did learn some things, some of which were kind of surprising, and somehow I ended up cautiously optimistic that next year will be better. And so here are the highlights, presented as bullet points in an attempt to keep it concise.

• Started With a Speed Base - Using the workout structures from Pete Magill's speed book, I did 2 workouts a week for 4 weeks. The workouts included drills, strength exercises, plyometrics, and only a little bit of running (although I did run for warmup and cooldown). It turned out to be a fun change of pace, and one of the early workouts was challenging enough that I was sore for 4 or 5 days afterwards. One of the surprising benefits of these workouts was that my easy running days started feeling better. I was just moving better. I felt more comfortable at all speeds, and going out for an easy run become enjoyable in a way that it hadn't been in quite some time.

• Changed the Distribution of Easy Mileage - Previously a normal easy day run had been 6 miles (4 days a week), but this season I bumped that up to 7.5 miles and ended up keeping it there. This wasn't something that I planned on doing ahead of time, but early on I was trying to increase my overall mileage to normal levels while doing the aforementioned speed workouts which had very little running in them, so I started adding a few minutes to each of my easy days each week. I thought I might go back down to 6 mile easy days once I finished the speed workouts, but I found that I really enjoyed the longer runs and also that it made me feel stronger overall. Also, at the time we were going surfing for a couple of hours early on Sunday mornings, which meant I wasn't going to be much use for running that day. I ended up not running at all on Sundays, and the result was that my overall mileage was about the same, just done in 6 days instead of 7.

• Changed up the Track Workouts - I experimented with the "New Interval Training" style of workouts (http://www.newintervaltraining.com/) and found that approach to be a nice change of pace. In keeping with my goal of only doing training I could recover from, I kept the volume of these workouts conservative. I felt like I recovered completely each week, which was terrific! In the future, I will consider small increases in the volume on those.

• Reduced the Intensity of Long Runs - I only do 2 quality days a week, and one of them is my long run, which I usually do as a progression run by feel. I start very slow on those, but often I am going pretty darn hard at the end, especially as the season progresses and I'm gaining fitness. The last time I did one of those where I really hit it hard at the end, I was exhausted for the rest of the day and I felt like I didn't recover the whole next week. So all this season, I let myself progress only to a moderate effort level (aiming for 80% of how hard I might have gone in the old days), and then I made myself hold there. It worked, in that I got some work done, and was fully recovered by Wednesday's track workout. Similar to the track workouts, I was probably a bit too conservative on where I held my effort level, but that was the whole point: to establish some baselines. I already knew what too much was, now I needed an idea of where too little might be.

The thing I didn't do well? Besides race?

I let my prehab strength routine slide. While I had intended to keep doing it once a week, I was also trying to maintain mini versions of the early season strength workouts, and in the end, I didn't make space in my schedule to keep doing my prehab strength on a regular basis. By the end of the season, some mild soreness in my glute/hamstring had become a bit of an issue, so I decided to skip the other chance I had to race, and I promised myself that I would get back on the prehab strength next season.

That's it. Pretty simple and hopefully effective changes.

Going in to a new season, I'm planning a few more adjustments:

• Since my goal races are way off in the summer, I'm going to try a bit longer, more traditional base cycle than I typically do. 
• Adding a short, shakeout run on Sundays (at least until surfing gets going again), and doing my prehab strength routine twice a week.
• Field event Sundays! As soon as I get a few weeks stronger, I'm going to spend a little time on Sundays playing at track and field. By that I mean throwing, jumping and hurdling for fun. If a convenient opportunity arises, I'll hop in some field events at a meet, but really it's just for the enjoyment. Because after spending too much of the last few years frustrated with running, I think it's important to remind myself that I love the sport.