Question for Malmo regarding "too few tempo runs"

Archimedes wrote:

I hate to sound ignorant, but stress fractures and overuse injuries are fairly common among runners who ramp up their mileage too much, aren't they?

Not that I'm aware of. Source?

run and then count miles; don't count miles and then run

malmo wrote:

Archimedes wrote:

I hate to sound ignorant, but stress fractures and overuse injuries are fairly common among runners who ramp up their mileage too much, aren't they?

Not that I'm aware of. Source?

Different people function differently. An athletic trainer will tell you that injuries are from "too much, too hard, too soon," which is an oversimplification. Some people (like me) get hurt when they increase their mileage too quickly. To be honest, I've had more injures at at 60 miles a week than I've had at 100--and not for lack of weeks at 100! But some people seem to get beat up if they do several weeks of high mileage in a row, and they find that they do better on 3 weeks up/1 down, or by taking an easy day once a week, or once every 10 days, or whatever.

Injuries, like mileage, are a very individual aspect of your training. If you have a long, lazy stride, you're likely to get injured, 10% rule or not. Some people can pound pavement their entire careers, while others need to stick to dirt and grass to stay healthy. The 10% rule is of course completely arbitrary, but it's not a bad idea, per se. It's bridled my enthusiasm a few times, allowing me to escape the cycle of injures you fall into when you get hurt, heal up, then want to go out and start running big miles right away, only to get injured once again.

777 wrote: But some people seem to get beat up if they do several weeks of high mileage in a row, and they find that they do better on 3 weeks up/1 down, or by taking an easy day once a week, or once every 10 days, or whatever.

Which is why I tell people to listen to the feedback your body is giving them. I believe, wrongly, that all runners listen to their body, and if they are feeling beat up naturally they'd back off. That dosn't seem to be the case.

If it's merely fatigue that's getting them from a bump in mileage, that is expected, it usualy goes away after about 3 weeks. If there's no bump in mileage and fatigue is evident, that's usually a sign to back off.

If running is making you feel 'beat up,' that's the same as your body yelling at you with a megaphone. Listen, dammit.

Malmo,

Thank you for your answer's to the questions. Your message is: Let your body dictate the training. Be flexible not obsessive, listen to your body, that is all.

What I did want to know was, when you were being coached - did your coach give you a written schedule that was flexible to your needs or did you have organised practices and you did whatever you felt you could on the other days.

Thanks for taking the time to post

Don't listen to malmo's advice about ramping up mileage. I tried it. I was tired. It was supposed to pass (see Summer of Malmo FAQ).

Before it got a chance to pass I ended up injured. Gee thanks.

I've been through many injuries thinking I could jump back into previous mileage levels, or make new jumps. After all, malmo frequently says that aerobic running is not a stressful activity on the body. Yeah right. My advice is the complete opposite of the "don't play with your food" mantra. Take it slow, take it gradual. In the long run consistency and uninterrupted training is the most important thing.

You're at 60 mpw and want to run 90 mpw? Well you could stop playing with your food and just ramp it up over the course of a few weeks/months. Maybe you'll be OK. If so, good for you.

Or you could ask yourself what's the rush? Distance running is a long term investment. If you're a senior in high school running 60 mpw you don't have to be at 90 mpw as a freshman in college. Better to just increase 10 mpw every year, you could be running 120 mile weeks by the time you're 23.

I'm not as fast as malmo, so take whatever advice you want. But I do know what it means to be frustrated in this sport, and I've had some great progress stalled/reset along the way due to injuries. Take it slow.

If your first thought is that, "if I run more, I will get injured" you've already lost the battle.Injuries are part and parcel of any athlete's life. You don't like it, but you deal with it. Run through it, if possible. Just a bump in the road.

that70sguy wrote:

Run through it, if possible. Just a bump in the road.

Lol, I think this is the problem. Is the best advice "listen to your body" or "run through it if possible"?

If I took a day off every time I felt a small niggle, I'd never train for more 10 days in a row.

On the other hand, every 10th or 20th of these niggles turns into something bigger and then I lose substantial time.

What a sport.

One of the many points you are missing is that if you plan your mileage in 6 days rather than 7 you would be able to take time off for niggles.

Another point is that the 7th off day can be run if you don't feel a niggle. Then the next week you have two days for niggles.

An even bigger point is that if you are running doubles every day, you don't have to take off a complete day just one run for a niggle.

Finally, especially when doubling, I often find that I am more likely to have a niggle develop into a problem when I take off more than 24 hours in a row. It seems that up to about 24 hours I can stay somewhat loose but if I try to take off two runs in a row and miss somewhere near 36 hours every thing seizes up and leads to problems.

98s ijids8 FH: especially when doubling, I often find that I am more likely to have a niggle develop into a problem when I take off more than 24 hours in a row.

Seconded. It's one of the reasons to prefer doubles. When I've run twice a day (leading to more overall mileage, though generally less per run than one run per day) I've been less injury prone, faster in recovery, more able to run through niggles.

errrr wrote:

I hate to sound ignorant, but stress fractures and overuse injuries are fairly common among runners who ramp up their mileage too much, aren't they?

[/quote]

After averaging sixty for ten weeks as a sophomore in college, and running tons of pr's without speedwork, I had some minor injuries, cut the mileage for several weeks, and then ran 91 miles the first week of the spring break trip, and got a stress fracture or stress reaction (hurt a lot to run for a month) in my foot. That could have been from running too much on concrete while bumping the mileage up, or from coming down hard in my first steeple on a paved track in nc at the beginning of the week, or from who knows what, but I have not suffered any such injuries in recent years while doing a lot of 100 mpw's, and often increasing mileage from zero to 70 or 80 and then up to 100 or more. I attribute this both to being accustomed to the mileage and to running a good percentage of my miles off the pavement.

About training by feel, you don't know. A lot depends on what you ask yourself to do, regardless of how you feel. Feeling is vague. When you think you are training hard by yourself, you might work with others a few times and see how much harder you can go. And then you might remember that feeling well enough to train at that level by yourself for months or even years, but then forget it. And on any given day, it might feel very hard to go 8 or 9 minute pace, and then you finish your warmup at the track and you know you have to do your track workout and all of a sudden your body can go sub 5:00 pace for quarters. All this might be accompanied by lots of pr's, or none, health or injury, and you might get a warning sign for the injuries that is entirely different from how hard you are training or how tired you feel (ouch, a twinge, etc.). So, I train by feel rather than a fixed, written plan (Su long run, Tu track work, Th tempo work) in the sense that I will throw in additional progressions or faster runs when the legs and wind feel strong, without usually going all the way with it and thrashing my legs for the next week, but I will also try to hit splits and do track work even when I feel run down, and I had consistent improvement for years from the combination. At this point it seems more like I have forgotten how to run faster (for me, significantly sub six) tempos; I have forgotten what it feels like to do it, and it has shown in the results. So, the interpretation of running by feel will vary widely, and the only way to make a training intensity expression into something like a tautology (run by feel as the only way you can run, according to malmo) would be to say that the only way you can run is at or below your maximum present capabilities. But that is vacuous.

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

About training by feel, you don't know. A lot depends on what you ask yourself to do, regardless of how you feel. Feeling is vague. When you think you are training hard by yourself, you might work with others a few times and see how much harder you can go. .

Training by feel is not vague, it is the most real measurement of effort there is. Anything else is arbitrary. If you can't feel effort in training, how the hell are you going to go right up to the abyss in competition?

Training isn't about seeing how hard you can go, it's all about controlled intensity -- the same controlled intensity that you will be using in a race.

Ever notice the guys whose backs seem to get further and further ahead of you while at the same time your effort is getting harder and harder? Those guys are feeling their Kung Fu. They've been feeling it and rehearsing it for years. So can you.

Run by feel means appreciating the signals you get from your body. If 8 minute pace is a struggle, you probably don't need to do a balls out workout that day. If you get a twinge from your hamstring, scrap the 200's. Etc., basically just don't be an idiot because training hard doesn't mean racing fast.

Do your homework, moron.

Im going to guess wrote:

This would all be very impressive if you had a clue as to what you were talking about.

malmo wrote:

Those guys are feeling their Kung Fu.

...awesome....

twinge in the hamstrings is an injury signal; always pay close attention to direct injury signals. But how hard you run when you don't have direct injury signals allows for an extremely wide range and your feelings cannot tell you what that pace should be. You might be dragging before a workout (hence, feeling seems to say, take it easy), and then you have a great workout and feel exhilarated afterwards, which happens often. Feeling your inner Grasshopper is great and all but that's not differentiating good from bad runners. Shape and talent do almost all of that.

"Feeling your inner Grasshopper is great and all but that's not differentiating good from bad runners. Shape and talent do almost all of that."

What if you are wrong? I know, it has never happened before...

What if the talent factor that you worship is no more than the natural ability to listen to your body better than others?

Malmo isn't trying to get you hurt, deal with it. Get started trying to learn to listen better!

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

twinge in the hamstrings is an injury signal; always pay close attention to direct injury signals. But how hard you run when you don't have direct injury signals allows for an extremely wide range and your feelings cannot tell you what that pace should be. You might be dragging before a workout (hence, feeling seems to say, take it easy), and then you have a great workout and feel exhilarated afterwards, which happens often. Feeling your inner Grasshopper is great and all but that's not differentiating good from bad runners. Shape and talent do almost all of that.

Not true. I've seen a runner who barely broke 20min in the 5k his freshman year crush a state champion and a 9:15 2-miler. Wejo barely broke 4:30 in high school. How? Mileage and smart training.