Making the Jump from Mediocre to Respectable

I'm a decade older and have some different equipment from you (notably, a Y chromosome), so who knows if any of my experience applies. That said, "more track workouts & lower overall mileage" is the exact wrong thing for me, per some trials and plenty of error in my 4.5 years and counting.Wasn't improving much after a couple years in the 40-55 MPW range. Last spring did a season of 10k training per Daniels Running Formula at around 60 MPW and got a teensy bit faster. Seemed to respond more to the "reps" - short fast intervals with full recoveries - than the VO2 type intervals which have also done surprisingly little for me in prior years.Upped the mileage considerably to the 80's in the fall, did modest workouts, mostly MP or a bit quicker (close enough to "Hansons marathon plan for the masses" with more miles & two runs most days), and improved the most of any season - 8+ minutes off my half marathon, and that's a distance I'd run often.Sure enough, Daniels' books says:

Once they have reached a reasonable level of fitness, however, many older runners want to test themselves in a race of some kind. This often leads to wanting to run faster, and it is at this time that the idea of quality workouts starts to become a reality. I still think some repetition training can be beneficial, but I have found that there is more enjoyment (and still desirable results) from a program that minimizes intervals and repetitions and focuses more on threshold training as the main quality emphasis.

I'd initially read that to say "most of you older guys don't really care to put in the effort to run the hard workouts in my training plans" and naturally enough thought "screw you, Dr. Daniels, I'll run your 10k training program and show you!" But hey, he seems right in my case. No substitute for mileage either.

To some extent, I think you gotta try some things to find out what works best for you. Though there's plenty of universals and near-universals, one size doesn't seem to fit all. Certainly run as much as time, motivation, and injury threshold allow for starters. Don't spend any of that precious time cross-training unless you'd get hurt running for all of it.

I think you'd be surprised at how "serious" some recreational runners are. There are many out there that just about kill themselves just to qualify for Boston. So, go for it! You nver know how good you could be until you try.

I suggest first thing is make a commitment to make running a priority. Run everyday.

Then, read up. Read all you can to see what you should do to improve. Read Daniels, Pfiitzenger, Beck, Lydiard and of course, this board. Generally, though, the easy answer is RUN MORE in nearly every case.

Good luck!

it might help to provide some of you sports background, an important element...

if you are physically fit and started running at 25 you have at least 12 (maybe more) good years of optimal training.

Your opening premise made it sound like you were forty or something...

I've just made a bit of a leap at the age of 29 from a level that would be considered respectable by most to near elite (taking a minute off my 10k best). Prob not completely applicable to you but there might be something in there.

First, 8-10 hours is enough to do something more than repectable if you get it right. Running everyday (if you don't already) or running twice somedays (if you do) would be a step in the right direction.

Second (echoing some comments above) I found that shifting the emphasis of my training slightly, more towards half marathon or marathon paced efforts for longer has greatly improved my endurance and allowed me to perform better over shorter distances too. We get cut up about race paced reps and race specific training and whilst I still beleive its important you can get 90% of the way there by doing relatively simple (and enjoyable!) work. The specific stuff is the icing on the cake - concentrate on getting the first 90% right first.

My improvements haven't come form training much harder - just differently. It might not work for all but its worked for me. Next challenge is to maintain and then hopefully improve some more! Good luck!

Thanks, all, for the input. In collating the responses, it sounds like the thing to do is to up the weekly mileage significantly (the most I've ever done is 50mpw) and do more tempo pace running, with maybe only one track workout/week.

Now the hard part (in which I'll provide a bit more sports background, as requested): I have a history of IT band and hamstring problems. I ignored the IT band issue as I was building mileage for Boston this year, but once I hit around 45+mpw, the pain was ridiculous (even though I was foam rolling, icing, stretching, doing strengthening exercises, etc.). I had to start pool running for the last month of training, and could only manage one long run, one track workout, and one tempo run per week (everything else in the pool). This worked okay (I assume, since I PR'd at Boston), but is obviously less than ideal, as it forces me to keep the weekly mileage at an unacceptably low level.

Sports injuries never plagued me growing up (through volleyball, basketball, and soccer); it was only when I started taking running more seriously that the pain began. So even though I recognize that there's no substitute for increased weekly mileage, is there any way to maximize "bang for your buck" in the weekly mileage once your body tells you that you can't increase it any more (say, because you keep getting injured)? Even following the 10% rule for increasing mileage, my injury threshold for weekly mileage seems to be ~50mpw, so if there are any solutions to ease one's body into higher mileage injury-free, I'd love to hear them.

What kind of workouts are you doing as part of those 50 MPW? You gotta figure out what does and doesn't work for you; in my case training exclusively in flats + emphasizing half marathon to marathon pace over track intervals seemingly = massive injury factor reduction.

ITBS for me has largely meant wearing the wrong shoes (see

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2112829

for starters); hamstring has meant too much fast stuff for me, like intervals. Your mileage may vary. But 45-50 miles ain't much of a base from which to be doing a lot of tough workouts. Nor much of a base to be doing these long-ass marathon long runs either, I wouldn't be surprised if you're running longer on 45 MPW than I am these days at 80+.

Everyone who hasn't run bigger miles is afraid of 'em - but for many (most?) of us it ain't the miles that injure, it's how you run 'em. I used to get injured repeatedly at 40-50 MPW but no problem whatsoever with double that now. And in fact, having gotten stronger from the higher easy mileage, I can better handle and recover from track workouts. It's just, they still don't give me the bang for the buck as they do for guys half my age.

I'd suggest, when you're ready to ramp your mileage, do so in a total base-building mode - no workouts while ramping up. OK, strides once or twice a week are good... but keep 'em relaxed and be very careful if you've got hamstring trouble. And screw 10%; by now you've got enough years and injury experience to start listening to your body. 10% may be too much this week, too little next week, and the third week you may need to cut back altogether.

If your daily pace slows, take that with amusement and not alarm. It's a clear sign your body's working to absorb the miles - exactly what you want - even though you're not doing workouts. If you feel a little fresher some days, run a little faster. But either keep it really moderate for a good stretch, or quicker for just maybe the last mile of your run. Seriously: if you've got enough energy to be running faster, cash it in for running longer instead.

Only start to fold in workouts once you've plateaued on the miles/hours for some weeks and feel like 70 MPW (or whatever) is a breeze now, totally routine. Hey, if you're struggling with the mileage, how do you expect to be able to run decent workouts and/or avoid injury? Or vice versa for that matter?

And in parallel with all this, keep up your stretching and rolling etc. along with some continued investigation of what does and doesn't work for you, what your body requires and doesn't so much care about. I'm not about to diagnose your ITBS as a shoe problem, but think about (maybe experiment with) shoes too.

And if you haven't enjoyed the pleasure of a post-workout ice bath, you've got a treat waiting! ITB and hamstrings, you say? I don't care how many ice packs you've got or what you do with 'em (hmmm....), a 12 min ice bath soak is the way to throughly chill everything from hip to toe. I suspect they help nip some potential injuries in the bud by preventing swelling from getting started.

to better evalute and give a suitable yet effective answer i'd need to see some pics.

Wow, incredibly thorough! Thanks, Garmin -- you're always reliable :-) To give a bit more info on each point above:

(1) The ~50mpw was: one track workout of shorter intervals (~6.5mi total, including warm-up; longest interval = 1200m, shortest = 400m), one longer track workout (~7mi total; 1-mile or 2-mile repeats), a couple tempo runs (~7 mi each), the weekly long run (adding 1 mile per week, starting taper 2 weeks out), and the rest junk miles. It wasn't until the very end, right before the taper, where the interval and track workouts became unbearably painful; this seems to support your point about lowering intensity of mileage (while upping quantity).

(2) Shoes: I've tried different brands all throughout the ITBS issue, and nothing really seemed to make much of a difference one way or the other. I seem to have somewhat better luck with Asics Gel Nimbus, as I have a wide foot, but I've also had some luck with Brooks Glycerin & Saucony Hurricane (I've also used New Balance, but I can't remember the number). I do my trail running in beefier Adidas shoes (whose model name I can't find), and race in Asics DS Trainers. It sounds (from the thread to which you linked) like you're suggesting that I switch over exclusively to shoes more like the DS Trainer.

(3) Ice baths: I'm no polar bear. I've tried one before, and I couldn't stay in the damn thing for more than about a minute. But yes, it did help somewhat. For what it's worth, swimming has helped tremendously as well; I did a fairly mellow swim workout 3 days after Boston, and though I'm not sure why, it completely eliminated all of my soreness. And that's saying something, since I couldn't even walk down stairs for the first 72 hours afterwards. So swimming might have to do as the ice bath substitute for now.

I entered a local college's XC invitational unattached, and I've got just over a week until the race, so I'm planning on using it as my season opener diagnostic; I'll let you peeps know how it goes! (I've been running all summer, but very low mileage, with aerobic cross training in the water and on the bike.)

Quick followup only because I'm a sucker for pretty girl runners.

(1) That's an insane amount of "quality" in one week for a 50 mpw, 3rd year recreational runner. It may be too much for anyone, or at least 95% of runners. You stop running yourself into the ground with hard days most of the week, you'll have no problems at all with considerably more mileage. And it'll do you more good. PS: eliminate "junk miles" from your vocab unless you say it with a smile. Some of the Japanese elite even consider walking good training according to a popular current thread. Lots of easy miles (along with the right number and type of harder ones) will do you a world of good even if you feel like you're just loafing.

(2) I'm not tellin' nobody what shoes to wear. I'm just sayin', you're wearing some real clodhoppers. Even DS Trainer is a couple steps up from anything I'd wear these days. There's lots of flats threads on the board, and plenty of us who found we got injured less, not more, in flats. Maybe you'd have similar luck if you worked your way down, maybe not. Do you like the feel of running in the lighter shoes, or no big diff?

(3) If swimming helps, swim! I'll just observe with the ice baths, my first couple were tough but they kept getting easier. Eventually yr body learns how much better it's gonna feel afterward, and you develop something of a Pavlovian response so even the initial plunge feels fine. One can always start with just cold tap water and work up to adding ice. I'm a lazy slow dude a week away from being a masters runner, and I've even got Raynaud's; if I can learn to enjoy ice baths, anyone can.

... and not just the Japanese...I have found walking (and cycling) anywhere between 45 - 90 minutes to 1 to be the optimal recovery after speed or distance workout.

Also you can do it for examplegoing to work, school, errands, and it doesn't have to become a specific workout...heck you don't even have to put on your workout set...

[quote]please dont squeeze the garmin wrote:

Some of the Japanese elite even consider walking good training according to a popular current thread. Lots of easy miles (along with the right number and type of harder ones) will do you a world of good even if you feel like you're just loafing.

I'd have to agree with Garmin that the intensity of your week is way high, and probably contributed to your injuries much more than the mileage, particularly given your rather new entrance into the sport. I'd personally recommend slowly adding mileage and backing down to maybe one workout a week and one long run with some harder stuff in it. I have definitely found that I feel stronger and am more capable of achieving in races if I have a number of runs a week that are just darn slow and a couple of hard workouts. For me, the time on my feet is crucial. I've been on reduced/no mileage this summer due to injury and other stress issues and am just working my way back up. I finally crossed back into the 60+ area and am starting to feel better again. It makes a huge difference to me. But I'm doing very little that is intense.

If if helps, I started running when I was nearly 30. I had been active but had not ever run for running's sake. Over the next 4 years, I dropped nearly an hour off of my marathon time (bringing it well under three hours) and a great deal of time off of my half and 10k time. I did that initially on 60 mpw and by now am generally in the 80-100 mpw range when healthy. I feel that my biggest limitations in the area of staying healthy have to do with the fact that I have had a pretty high stress non-running life, and I don't have or make the time to recover and sleep properly. I continue to try and fix this, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Listen to your body, and if it tells you you do well to add in cross-training and swimming, do it. I don't thrive on them, so I don't do them, but I do believe that it is essential to follow the clues thrown out there by your own body - they are the best advise you can take.

Every once in a while someone posts a few gems on this board and, Garmin, I think yours qualify. Really sound advice which identifies practical principles which have worked for me, and also points out a few I hadn't considered. Articulate and mature. This kind of post is probably why I haven't completely given up on the LR message board. Well done!

Aw shucks. I'm mostly just restating some of what JK and wejo and malmo and Nobby & the Lydiardites and runningalan and other folks who actually know what they're talking about have said for years. But thanks!

justsomegirl wrote: I feel that my biggest limitations in the area of staying healthy have to do with the fact that I have had a pretty high stress non-running life, and I don't have or make the time to recover and sleep properly. I continue to try and fix this, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Psssst, justsomegirl. I believe in good nutrition, sleep, and so forth vs. popping pills. But ZMA, ever try ZMA? On the one hand its rep is tainted because its inventor was that BALCO dude; on the other it's just zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B6. Several manufacturers. Vitamin Shoppe house brand is cheap.

The claim is something like, endurance athletes need more of these and are frequently deficient. Subjectively, taking it at bedtime seems to slightly supercharge my sleep. I wake up feeling more refreshed, or earlier, or both.

Once upon a time someone posted here that he felt it made a worthwhile difference when he was running relatively big miles. I tried it on the strength of his testimonial and concur. Maybe a lot less miraculous than some other BALCO products but also a whole lot more legal, cheap, and presumably safe.

Not to heap too much praise on Garmin, but I completely concur with RoE -- thanks for the quality advice. (And you too, jsg; advice from someone of my gender is extremely valuable!)

Now, for building mileage while preventing injury: let's say I want to get up to 70mpw, doing at least 40 of those in flats. What would the ideal build-up to that look like? I'm taking it as a given that I need to listen to my body, build more slowly if things are getting tweaked, etc. But assuming that all goes well, what would be a reasonable, say, 8 week build-up?

Here's my first stab; feel free to comment/alter (I'll assume a starting weekly mileage of 40):

Week 1 (44mpw): M-5(moderate); T-4(slow)x2(AM/PM in flats); W-4(moderate); H-4(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); F-4(moderate); S-10(slow); U-5(slow in flats)

Week 2 (48mpw): M-5(moderate); T-5(slow)x2(AM/PM in flats); W-4(moderate); H-5(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); F-4(moderate); S-10(slow); U-5(slow in flats)

Week 3 (50mpw): M-5(moderate); T-5(slow)x2(AM/PM in flats); W-4(moderate, in flats); H-5(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); F-4(moderate); S-12(slow); U-5(slow in flats)

Week 4 (55mpw): M-6(moderate); T-5(slow)x2(AM/PM in flats); W-6(moderate, in flats); H-5(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); F-6(moderate); S-12(slow); U-5(slow in flats)

Week 5 (59mpw): M-6(moderate); T-6(slow)x2(AM/PM in flats); W-6(moderate, in flats); H-6(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); F-6(moderate); S-12(slow); U-5(slow in flats)

Week 6 (64mpw): M-8(moderate, in flats); T-6(slow)x2(AM in flats/PM not); W-8(moderate, in flats); H-6(slow)x2 (AM in flats/PM not); F-6(moderate, in flats); S-12(slow); U-6(slow in flats)

Week 7 (68mpw): M-8(moderate, in flats); T-6(slow)x2(AM in flats/PM not); W-8(moderate, in flats); H-6(slow)x2 (AM in flats/PM not); F-6(moderate, in flats); S-6(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); U-10(slow)

Week 8 (70mpw): M-8(moderate, in flats); T-6(slow)x2(AM in flats/PM not); W-8(moderate, in flats); H-6(slow)x2 (AM in flats/PM not); F-6(moderate, in flats); S-6(slow)x2 (AM/PM in flats); U-12(slow)

Hopefully others will chime in: your experience might be way different from mine so don't take my word as gospel. For one thing you're younger and have way more of an athletic background than I did... for another you seem even more inclined to push past your limits into breakdown territory, and that's saying something! My take:

- This sounds like it might be in roughly the right ballpark but your body has the final say. If it takes twice that long, so be it. You're gonna be running for years, right, so don't sweat a few weeks or months difference in getting to the next (very rewarding, I promise) level. OTOH don't be afraid to run some extra easy miles here and there if you're feeling up to it.

- Maybe more important than the mileage itself will be your evolution to a mindset where you're listening more to your body and less to a schedule. I think building your mileage like this is one path to get there - you'll *need* to stay more aware of how you're feeling as you push your mileage envelope, so it'll come with the territory.

In the meantime it's not a bad thing to have this kind of schedule as a security blanket if it helps. Just treat it as a very, very rough draft and don't punish yourself if you don't hit your targets in the specified time frame. What you do on October 14 depends a lot more on how you feel that day after the last few weeks of training, than on what the schedule says. Who ya gonna listen to, your body or a piece of paper?

- If you're aggressively increasing your mileage to new lifetime levels and aiming for three "moderate" days in a week, you better really mean very moderate! I still think the better mindset is, get entirely 100% totally comfortable with the volume then fold in the intensity. Put it another way, maybe this is more compelling: trying to incorporate intensity is only going to slow down your ability to ramp up the mileage. And once you have the mileage under your belt, you'll handle the intensity better anyway.

Truly, patience will get you there faster! If there's any "secrets" to distance running, this is at the top of the list. It applies to building mileage, it applies to speedwork. Coaches and elites aren't just covering their asses and being over-cautious ninnies when they stress how important it is to stay relaxed when running short fast speedwork - sure, you want to go as fast as you can without crossing the invisible threshold into tensing up and deteriorating form, and that means pushing yourself; but straining is counterproductive. Turning every workout into a race is counterproductive. Trying to run too fast while ramping your mileage is counterproductive. Getting injured is way counterproductive, much worse than undertraining by 10, 20, even 30 percent!

There, that's everything I know, brain dump complete.

Like you I didn't run races for many years until I reached my later 30's. However, unlike you I had a longer history and better base (10 miles x 3 days per week for 20 years).

Since I had 3 kids and a 45 to 60 hr/wk job, I had to make the most bang for the buck out of the limited time I had to train. This is what I did at each level and the impact on my times:

1. Base mileage year round: 3 run 3 days per week, 10 miles per run. Before I started racing, that is. My tempo pace was around 8:45 to 9:00, if that.

2. In the fall racing season and also spring racing season, I would start doing longer runs (up to 13 or 15) on the weekend. Also, I would do a tempo run once a week over the full distance, and after a few weeks of training 2 out of 3 runs were tempo runs. Plus, I would do one race of 10 miles or longer at least every 3 weeks. The best race pace over half marathon was only 8:00 per mile doing only that.

3. After plateauing on the above program, I started doing 1/2 mile repeats once a week during racing season. On a typical run, warm up distance, then 1/2 mile as fast as I could, but still able to jog for 1 to 2 minutes afterwards, then do another one, then another, up to 5 repeats. Then after 2 weeks I could do a half dozen one mile repeats, with similar recovery jogs in-between. After a year, this program shaved my half marathon pace down to 7:30 pace roughtly.

4. Scratched 10 to 12 miles x 3 days per week (30 to 36mpw), instead upped it year-round so I ran 12 to 15 miles every time I went out, off-season (38 to 42 mpw, generally). Usually 2 twelve milers and a 14 or 15 miler on the weekend. During racing season, I lengthened the weekend Sunday run to 16, 18, 20, 25, depending on race upcoming, and did a shorter run on Friday before the long run which had the 1 mile repeats (up to 9 consecutive repeats at 5K pace). In addition, I did 1/2 mile uphill interval repeats (3 or 4) if the regular intervals needed to be further challenged.

5. Did upper body weights at home 3 session days per week, 15 reps to failure times 3 sets per session. Also, swam 100 laps one day per week.

6. Combining (4.) and (5.), I got my half-marathon pace down to 7:00 min pace and slightly below.

**********************

In conclusion ---

The effect of base mileage cannot be underestimated, as previously stated you need to get this down first.

Second, go long if you don't have the time to go every day.

Third, year round pick one day per week for a tempo run -- fast over the whole long run, but not dying. Just make sure you push it a little the whole way.

Fourth, during your racing season, add in one day per week of 1/2 mile to 1 mile repeat intervals, hard enough so you can barely jog afterwards, but easy enough so you can punch out another one after a 2 minute recovery jog. Put everything you have into them. Work up to being able to do nine 1-mile repeats --- this may not be possible your first year. Start the intervals about 5 weeks before your first race of the season, Then about 10 days before the race, reduce the number of repeats and the intensity. For example, mix into your normal run 0.1 mile or 0.15 mile x 4 or 5 repeats once a week in the last 10 days before the race, nothing harder. Other than that, drop your total mileage the week before the race about 25 percent, and don't do a tempo run less than 5 days before a race.

Awesome -- if you're a woman (which I assume you are), then this sounds really do-able for me. My "starting state" before racing was 9 miles, 3x/week -- not that different from you, though I only had about 3 months of that before jumping cold into my first half marathon. I did pretty well for a rookie with no training (7:44 pace), but changed my routine for marathon training right after that, and ran a HELL of a lot slower 5 months later in my first marathon (4 hours!). More confirming evidence for you and Garmin that there's no substitute for straight up distance.