Road Racing and Training Thread. Week Ending May 6 2018

For the drills, I focused on NOT having a LONG back kick. Kick high, then quickly bring that knee up in front. And when the foot lands, it will be directly beneath the center of gravity. Then quickly kick back high. Running in place like that, with ZERO stride length, might be a good way to understand the basic movement for the drills.

When I first began incorporating a more relaxed version of the drill during easy runs, it still felt unnatural and I was convinced it was a lot slower and was using more energy. I was surprised to see that I was actually running faster than my usual heel-striking jaunts.

I am not necessarily advocating that folks change their running form. Just sharing what I did after seeing how severe my heel-striking and overstriding were. Also, I think that modifying more form, and reducing time of ground contact greatly mitigated my severe over-pronating.

This is helpful - I like the idea of those shorter drills mixed in with easy runs and re-visited during long runs. Thanks for the words of encouragement too, I think October will be much better.

I really appreciate everyone's comments! Thanks y'all! It feels good knowing there are other people on the same trajectory.

consistency: Not an expert, but have been reading this Lydiard stuff the past few days so it's fresh...

I've seen repeatedly the idea of NOT killing yourself... doing as much as feels right and bagging the rest... So it's my impression that in a session of Lydiard 400s, if you felt done, you'd be done. Feel free to correct my interpretation...

Still Improving wrote:

There are a one or more of interviews with Jay Dicharry and he talks about a time where there was an attempt to improve runner performance by limiting ground contact time. He went on to say that they all got injured in the process. Just keep that in mind and don't try to modify ground contact time directly. If you improve ground contact time as a result of doing something else then great. Gordon is reading or has read Jay's book and might be able to provide better insight.

Personally, I try to keep up with the core and hip work to avoid injury. Maybe work on that and check your posture. Other than wanting to reduce ground contact time, do you think you have any notable problems in your running form?

Good thoughts, Still Improving.

I used to have near constant shin splints from heel striking. Focusing on leaning forward from the start, like falling into my initial run, has helped improve that tremendously. Checking in on my posture every couple miles has helped too, and shin splits quickly became a thing of the past. My downfall this cycle was introducing speed workouts and increasing mileage at the same time. I've been creating my own workouts, and have had success in the past for my limited skill set (3:04:00 and 1:25:54 in the same cycle), but will be following Hanson's for October.

To answer your question, I don't think there are notable problems in my running form, but it's hard for me to tell. I'm thinking after a six or seven miler next week, I'm going to have my fianace video me over 100m or so. Want to build a touch of fatigue to provide a more accurate picture.

Went back and checked last week's thread. Some good stuff in there, and an impressive stache on Allen!

So much good stuff this week. Note, all that follows is my opinion.

Linear vs non linear - Even though a plan might be linear no one's training is linear for more than 3-6 weeks because the body doesn't adapt linearly, fitness improves in spurts and plateus.

Lydiard - It seems to me like Lydiard was a better 800-5k coach than he was a marathon coach looking at his athletes results. What are you thoughts on this too hot? Did he just have more talented 800-5k athletes, lack of paced & perfect weather marathons, etc?

RE: being a beginner until you run a 2:45 marathon, good thing Snell's PR was 2:45 ;)

Minimizing ground contact time - A drills (marching, skipping & running) really focus on tall posture and putting vertical force into the ground. The cues I've been focusing on during my sprints lately have been run tall and vertical force. Being able to put more vertical force into the ground will both increase stride length & decrease ground contact time.

Back kick - What Allen is talking about isn't a long loping back kick but a fast high heel into the butt. Like when Bekele is running and it seems like he has an elastic band between his heel and his butt. Vertical force helps this too, when you hit the ground hard and fast there is a stretch reflex that pulls the leg back up into position really efficiently, so Bekele actual does have an elastic band between his heel & butt. It's his leg muscles & tendons.

Last year I watched a video of myself running and I realized I wasn't pushing back at the end of the stride as much as I should. My leg didn't go back very much and it seemed like I was mostly pushing upwards.

I started focusing on pushing back and bringing my leg further back, which actually made me overstride less and thus diminished my ground contact time, or at least it seems to me like it did from my perception and fromvideos.

Lately I've been focusing on not swinging my lower leg forwards too much past 90º with the ground just before contact (not reaching with the lower leg), which has also been helping with overstriding less.

I don't do many drills, but I try to focus on things like these for the first mile or 2 of my runs while I'm not too tired, and it's helped a lot.

Consistency - In some of my build periods. . I just try to get in an as many miles as I can without killing myself.. no real plan set in stone. When I feel good on a run I pick it up and progress some.. when do not feel good I go slow . I think there is something to be said for not wearing a watch during these periods and just going by effort.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Consistency - In some of my build periods. . I just try to get in an as many miles as I can without killing myself.. no real plan set in stone. When I feel good on a run I pick it up and progress some.. when do not feel good I go slow . I think there is something to be said for not wearing a watch during these periods and just going by effort.

Agreed...though I admit I would have a hard time breaking myself of my watch habit. I just check mile splits, though, and rarely look at anything else, even in a race. In Saturday's 10k, I looked at just the mile splits when they chimed. In my last marathon, I checked current pace occasionally, in an effort to keep things even.

pewow - I have thought the same thing about Lydiard and his athletes' results. Another reason might perhaps be that, in those early days, there was less focus on the marathon.

Yes! I have been coming across this same thing in the Lydiard readings (both from Lydiard himself and others, like it's all over the Hadd document).

And it is this exact mindset I had all spring during my marathon buildup, which I also thought might have led to some of my, how to say it, lack of ability to really suffer when I needed to suffer. But maybe if I pick my moments to get after it (like some time trials or jumping into the periodic 5k/10k race) will help with some of that.

I definitely try to follow this way of thinking. And usually I don't have a problem slowing down when I want/need to go slow or pushing when I shouldn't push. But I really like my data post run, so I don't think I will be ditching the watch just yet.

However, I did play with the screens last night so I'm only getting running time and no pace feedback at all. Got rid of the auto-lap buzz with each mile, too. Cuz sometimes seeing those times drop towards the end of the run would get a little exciting:) This morning's run was great. I did end up going a teeny bit faster in the end, but I was blissfully unaware of pace. I was just cruising around and feeling good in the nice, warm summer morning.

consistency wrote:

And it is this exact mindset I had all spring during my marathon buildup, which I also thought might have led to some of my, how to say it, lack of ability to really suffer when I needed to suffer. But maybe if I pick my moments to get after it (like some time trials or jumping into the periodic 5k/10k race) will help with some of that.

I prepared my Chicago plan earlier this week, and my focus there was to identify the 6 key workouts that I want to get in during my cycle (three 13 milers at marathon pace, three runs in which I warm up for 2 miles, get 4 miles of cruise intervals in, then go easy for 8-10 miles, then finish up with 3-4 miles of tempo effort followed by a 2-3 mile cool down). I will give all other workouts a good faith effort, but all other workouts are also just gravy at this point.

Ah and a light goes on. I've been grappling with my season plan and have been overlooking this. I'm still a rookie at this scheduling business.... Thanks for posting.

Interestingly there is a local 2-mile race series that leads right up to a competitive local road mile at the end of July. That takes me to 25 weeks from Houston, and a mini-mile-cycle would bridge the gap between marathons quite nicely.

outsiderunner wrote:

... I would have a hard time breaking myself of my watch habit. I just check mile splits, though, and rarely look at anything else, even in a race. In Saturday's 10k, I looked at just the mile splits when they chimed...

Being a non-GPS Luddite, I need to know the exact mile points in order to check pace en route. In races, I rely on accurate mile markers. Sometimes I use the USATF certification maps to verify them before the race. For training runs on familiar loops I generally know the first few and the last few miles points -- a driveway, a hedgerow, etc.

Last year, I did all my threshold runs by feel, without checking splits, and figured average pace afterwards.

For most of my marathons, I either didn't have a watch with split function, or didn't know how to use it. It took some mental mathematics, and remembering my previous split, to keep track of my pace. That becomes increasingly difficult as the marathon progresses!

Now I know how to record and retrieve the splits, but still need to pay attention to the on-course markers.

Thanks, Smoove! This is definitely a good thing to keep in mind. My spring buildup was perhaps ill advised in that I was coming back from injury, so I didn't follow a program and just plugged workouts in based on how I was feeling on any given week. I did progress them in terms of length and intensity, I did hit a couple big ones quite nicely, BUT I didn't know they were going to be out there. And I also didn't know going into them that they were supposed to be a big deal. That feeling changes things for me.

I'm not certain on my future plans right now, but I am leaning towards a mid-October/early November marathon. This go around I will definitely put some key workouts in early and also a tune up race or two.

My college coach worked with me a lot on this. We really focused on a good knee drive, then snapping that heel up to the butt and then through the cycle. So if you think of butt kick drills, you almost want to segment it into 2 phases. First the knee drives up similar to a high knee, then the heel snaps up to the butt, through the cycle, and lands directly beneath the center of gravity. I see a lot of people doing butt kicks without driving the knee, which I think defeats the point. The point isn't just that the heel comes up high during the back kick. You need a good knee drive to carry that forward after that. I've still got room to improve and be more efficient, but this video has a few good angles where I think you can see what I'm getting at (wait until after the pedestrian first 30ish seconds though).

statfanatic wrote:

First the knee drives up similar to a high knee, then the heel snaps up to the butt, through the cycle, and lands directly beneath the center of gravity. I see a lot of people doing butt kicks without driving the knee, which I think defeats the point. The point isn't just that the heel comes up high during the back kick. You need a good knee drive to carry that forward after that.

Nicely described. That's you leading wire to wire in a the video?

Been thinking about this question, though I'm more familiar with the 2nd Edition plans. What you're describing sounds a lot like the Elite Plan from DRF 2E. Did he make a version of that plan for mere mortals in 3E?

Pappy: The effort ranges is one of the aspects of Lydiard training that I love the most. It forces you to check in with your body instead of having to run a pre-determined pace. At the intensities you refer to, there are workouts like 800s at 3/4 effort and 3 200s at full effort near the end of the marathon cycle.

consistency: The time trials shouldn't burn you out. You will be running less mileage in the anaerobic phase and the time trials are controlled efforts.

pewow: Lydiard coached athletes over several decades. The original six were Murray Halberg, Peter Snell, Barry Magee, Bill Baillie, Jeff Julian and Ray Puckett. The last 4 were marathoners. In those days, talented distance runners did not immediately jump to the marathon. Don't forget, however, that Barry Magee won a bronze medal in 1960. In a race where Bikila set the world record, Barry finished only 2 minutes behind (2:17).

If anyone knew how to train for a marathon, it was Lydiard. He influenced the training methodologies of coaches all over the world. In his later years, Lydiard worked with overweight cardiac patients and transformed them into 4-hour marathoners.

"There are champions everywhere. All we need to do is train them properly" - Lydiard

I don't know about the mere mortals part; a lot of the Q sessions are monsters, at least for the higher mileage plans. I'll try to find some time this weekend to read them more thoroughly and summarize. Elsewhere in the book, Daniels writes about the motivation behind the four six-week mesocycles, but I didn't see anything comparable for the structure of the marathon plans.

Also recently found a copy of Running to the Top that I forgot I owned. Yay.