When did "shakeout run" become a thing

HJ hunter wrote:

Billy Cunningham wrote:

What's with this 'shakeout" run thing?

A term widely used on strava to tag embarassing slow/short efforts like they're part of a bigger plan.

This is more along the lines of what I thought it was, not unlike a runner doing a race as a tempo run for training, usually in hindsight because they had a terrible race.

Also some want to brag that the shakeout run was 'only done at 6 min/mi pace' so it was painful slogging to them but race pace to their friends.

I am with the poster who said it was a run after a race or hard workout , the day after, or next run, just to loosen up an make sure everything is working well.

That’s how I would do it today could be a warmup and then multi -paced good form running, but at such short bouts of gradually faster relaxed running that it was in no way hard.

Slow jogging doesn’t shake anything out. Strava is stupid.

I'm 10 years removed from college, but a shakeout run was always associated with a race. Always short and easy, they are done after travelling to loosen up from sitting in a bus/plane, or the morning of a mid-day race so you don't feel lethargic all day being out of routine.

I've never heard the term used for after a workout or race. That's just a recovery run or easy run.

1 2 3 green wrote:

I'm 10 years removed from college, but a shakeout run was always associated with a race. Always short and easy, they are done after travelling to loosen up from sitting in a bus/plane, or the morning of a mid-day race so you don't feel lethargic all day being out of routine.

I've never heard the term used for after a workout or race. That's just a recovery run or easy run.

This.

I am a collegiate runner currently. We often use "shakeouts" to either refer to a short run the morning before track meets, or sometimes if we do a hard morning workout, we will also do a "shakeout" of 10-20 minutes of running in the evening to get the junk out of our legs from the morning session. So from my experience, it does not just refer to pre race.

I think of a shakeout run as any run that is slow enough to provides almost zero aerobic stimulus (though maybe you can pick it up for just a couple of minutes at the end), and will absolutely not require any recovery time, i.e., you should feel better a few hours after a shakeout than if you didn't do it

I think of the purpose as mostly biomechanical (loosen up the legs), but also somewhat psychological and even gastrointestinal. Short, easy runs also can stimulate a slight bump in growth hormone and, for reasons not understood, can help to lower your resting blood lactate level if it's still chronically elevated in the day or so after a difficult effort (which does happen and is entirely different from the acute increase in blood lactate from hard efforts, which is very quickly reversed after you catch your breath).

As others have noted, there are a number of places where runs like these can fit into your schedule. Immediately post travel is a great time for it, because sitting for a long period can shorten muscles, and sitting on a plane can leave your legs like giant water balloons. Early on race day is good, especially if you're used to morning running and your race isn't till much later. I also like to do 3 miles the evening after a long run or a race. I've found that any effort that's hard and long enough to do real muscle damage is going to leave you much more stiff if you don't get in your active recovery. My theory is that if you don't keep moving, you allow muscles to heal in shortened positions.

I agree that a shakeout is normally not just your easier run of a double, but it depends. When athletes are just starting to double, I usually insist that their secondary run be very easy and short at first. Also, some higher mileage marathoners will make their second run more of a shakeout because they try to more heavily load the other one, whereas middle distance runners might be more likely to do 6/6, both at a decent clip. And although I'm not sure what terminology Kenyans would use, I think that for Kenyans who do the classic three-run schedule, the pre-breakfast run is definitely what we'd call a shakeout

older and grumpier wrote:

The run is not new. The run has been used for years.

The term is new.

Current generation needs a term for everything.

Just like tempo runs. Tempo runs were run for years without being referred to as such. Now there's a word for it.

Young baboons need a word or they can't handle the function.

I ran in the late 70's and early 80's. We used the term for: 1) a run the morning of a afternoon race, 2) a run after traveling. In. both cases the run was the same, about 10 -15 minutes slow run (and you might shake your arms around a bit as well - buy maybe that was just some of use interpreting the "Shake" a little too literally).

older and grumpier wrote:

The run is not new. The run has been used for years.

The term is new.

Current generation needs a term for everything.

Just like tempo runs. Tempo runs were run for years without being referred to as such. Now there's a word for it.

Young baboons need a word or they can't handle the function.

....And old brontosaurs need help figuring out a chip reader.

How on earth are these jurassic creatures able to keep up with a complex word like "shakeout run" if they cant even open their AOL email on the ole' desktop??

Agree, but the main reason is to help clear your digestive tract before a big race.

older and grumpier wrote:

The run is not new. The run has been used for years.

The term is new.

Current generation needs a term for everything.

Just like tempo runs. Tempo runs were run for years without being referred to as such. Now there's a word for it.

Young baboons need a word or they can't handle the function.

Yeah, these young folks and their use of 'language' to 'explain concepts' and 'categorize the world'. Back in my day, we just pointed and grunted -- and we liked it! That was all we had, but it was enough. We never shoulda come down from the trees.