It’s a good question, and here are my thoughts on it.

Gym increases my weight

I’m going to start from the bottom on this one. The “weighing more” comment. As runners we sometimes tend to stay away from the weight room because the thought of carrying our new Mr Universe look-a-like bodies over any distance that we have to run, let alone a 42k or ultra, makes us tired just thinking about it.

Let me put your mind at ease. There is zero chance that you’ll be walking into the gym once or twice a week and walking out looking like you’re carrying watermellons under your arms. You’re a distance runner, not a weight lifter, understand that those who bulk up and specifically aim to build muscle, spend hours on end in the gym. Doing a few weights a week is simply not going to cut it and if you’re thinking you’re picking up weight from gym, chances are it’s probably more from that extra chocolate or “healthy” protein bar you’re sneakily devouring when filling your car with fuel 🙂

Short distance sprinters, 100m and 200m, are a little different. They need to generate huge amounts of power and force in order to generate the highest speed possible in the shortest amount of time. In the 80’s and 90’s you saw this been taken to the extreme with sprinters walking out onto the track looking like they were about to perform an olypmic lift not a sprint.

Sprints coaches have since realised that it’s all good and well to have all this muscle and additional mass, but if you can’t actually carry it over the distance any faster than what you could without it, then it kinda defeats the point. These days, the goal with sprinters is to develop as much strength and power as possible with the least amount of muscle hypertrophy (muscle mass).

Anyway, back to the lean, mean distance runners. Unless you’re a complete gym-junkie and spending almost as much time in the gym as you do on the road, which is highly unlikely, you’re not going to be putting on weight. Of course what you’re doing in the gym matters too. If by some chance, I totally doubt it, you’re spending 10 hours a week in the gym, doing crunches, planks and 5kg weights, you’re not going to be bulking up.

I end up running less

Quick question. How does one become good, or rather, how does one become the best that you can be at a sport? Answer, you spend more time in the gym…..NOT!!

It doesn’t matter what your sport is, be it, running, cricket, AFL, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, etc, etc, in order to become good or the best that you can be at a particular sport, you need to spend time training in that sport. This in coaching terms is known as the Principle of Specificity. In other words, if you want to be great at a sport you need to specialise in that sport, and that means pouring hours of your time and energy into that sport. There are so many elite athletes who could’ve represented their country in a number of sports, but in order for them to become the best in a particular sport they have to ultimatley choose to focus and specialise in the one sport.

When it comes to running, in order to become the best that you can be at running you need to, well, run. This means that we never sacrifice a run or cut a run short just so to get into the gym. There is however an exception to this which I’ll cover a little lower down.

If you’re still, let’s say, 6 months from your big race day, then getting two or 3 gym days, time permitting, into your week is absolutely ok. But, once you hit the main phase, the big build-up phase, and that for a marathon and ultra is usually 8-10 weeks from race day, then you’ll find that you probably need to start cutting back on the gym work a little.

During the build-up phase you’re throwing a lot at the body and you’re expecting it to perform a number of challenging sessions on tried and fatigued legs. It makes sense then to cut back the load and volume you’re throwing into the legs in the gym so that you don’t overload and end up injured. During this phase you would simply use the gym work to keep an element of strength endurance to support what you’re doing on the road.

But does Gym work add value?

Absolutely.

Adding gym work into your weekly training is a good idea for a number of reasons.

1. Gym work will assist in burning off more body fat, although you’re probably going to burn heaps more fat through your running, so I certainly wouldn’t be doing gym for this reason alone, but it will help.
2. Gym work can add an element of strength endurance into your training which afterall is exactly what you’re trying to elicit through the hours and km’s of running training. By way of example, it would look something like this: Lying leg curl: 3 sets x 20 reps per set with 25 secs rest between reps and 5 mins rest between sets with weight at 40% of the maximum you could lift if you were doing a single all out rep.
3. This 3rd and final reason is the most important reason of all for the inclusion of gym, or at least strength work, into your weekly routine. And that is the reduction in injury risk. Here are the combined results and findings of 6 studies which included 7739 participants, aged 12-40 with 177 injuries observed (Reference: Lauersen et al. BJSM 2018)
   1. The programs indicated a whopping 66% with 95% certainty reduction in the risk of injury
   2. The programs were followed for an average of 8 months without any negative effects reported
   3. The program introduced for the shortest amount of time, unsurprisingly, saw the smallest response in injury response, 43%. This shows that there’s no time like the present to get started on the strength work and it’s never too late, 43% is still a lot more than 0%
   4. The results suggest that strength training appears to assist direclty in the prevention of soft tissue injuries of the hamstrings, ACL injuries, and front of knee pain, and showed a reduction in time lost due to injury, in order we recovery quicker.

Let’s wrap this up

Gym work, actually, I hate the term “gym work” it’s way too open ended and could mean anything from doing a few planks to squating 100kg, let’s always refer to what we’re talking about here as stength work.

Strength work has a number of benefits and positives for runners. I would encourage you to start adding strength work to your weekly routine, however, do so in discussion with your coach because what you add, when and where you add it is important so as not to have any negative effects on your running performance. Also, make sure you know how to properly do the exercises you’re doing, we don’t want any tweaked muscles as a result of poor form when lifting a weight or using a machine. If you’re unsure, ask one of the gym staff members to show you how to properly do the exercise.

Then lastly, like anything new added into a program, build up slowly and gradually, no point smashing yourself to pieces on your first gym appearance and then having to walk with straight legs for the next 4 days!!

Happy miles

Ray

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Options, options, options.

Some runners will refer to this as going into a race with a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. In my opinion, this is the worst possible way to approach your race strategy and almost certainly sets you up for disappointment.

So much can go wrong in the last few weeks leading up to a big race. Any distance runner looking to improve and perform will come off a number of peak weeks which have consisted of hard training and pushing limits. This usually means that the immune system is under immense strain as the body desperately tries to repair damaged muscles cells (a role and function of the immune system), which of course leaves the door wide open for illness. So yes, there is a big risk of illness in the last few weeks leading into a race. And if we’ve fallen ill a few times before a race in the past, this can leave us with a horrible sense of anxiety when it comes to our next big event.

Then of course, there’s the self-doubt that creeps in, “have I done enough training?”, “am I ready to run X?”, “so and so has or is still doing ABC, maybe I should be doing that as well.” Months before race date we’re boldly making claims about what time we’re aiming for and what we’re going to achieve. We have no problem putting it out there. But, as D-day draws ever nearer and as self-doubt hovers like a storm cloud over our minds, we find ourselves staring into the seductive eyes of failure. And so, in order to cover our bases we begin to create sub-standard options or plans, which essentially allow us a way out. We create a Plan A, Plan B and sometimes even a Plan C.

The problem is this. In any race where we are chasing a PB, or a new level or a new performance height, there will always come a time in that race where it begins to suck and where it begins to hurt. A point where our minds begin screaming and shouting at us to, “slow down!!”, to “just walk!!”, to “lie down on that green grass in the shade!!!” If at that point, that moment when it really hurts and when every part of us wants to stop, that moment when we have to decide just how much our goal really means to us, if we have a way out at that point, we will take it. If we’ve already given ourselves the option of a Plan B before we’ve even started the race, then at the moment when we have to push through, we’ve already settled for second best and Plan B looks way more inviting and we will settle for it.

The easy way out.

Having more than one plan quickly becomes a self-fulling prophecy of failure and quitting. There’s only one way to race a race and that’s lining up at the start with a realistic and trained for Plan A. Sure, it’s scary, it requires trusting your training, putting everything on the line and going for it! But, the feeling of achieving your Plan A will always be so much more satisfying, so much more motivating than always settling for or giving into Plan B or Plan C. The key however, and I repeat, is that the plan has to be realistic. It doesn’t make sense, for example, going into a marathon with a Plan A of running a 3h30 42k, when your training has realistically only set you up for a 3h50.

Set yourself up.

Whatever your next race may be, look at your training and take into account everything that has happened during that journey. Look at what your predicted race times are over a number of distances and then put together a Plan A that is both within your grasp, but still challenging enough to drive you to new heights.

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My stay here may have been short, but it’s felt like weeks…in a good way. As I wait for my flight I have the opportunity to reflect and think, not only about the past week, but about the past decade.

My coaching education journey has been an incredible experience and one for which I am truly grateful. This journey has taken me to New York, North Carolina, California and Florida. Through it I have been blessed to experience many areas, cities and towns within the US and this alone has had a big impact on my views and thoughts and understanding of people and other cultures.

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Of course, he is right, and this statement is very true. While changing the world is currently not within my grasp, through my education as a coach and my involvement in the lives of the athletes I work with, I would hope that in some small way their lives are changed, enriched and blessed because of my small influence in their lives.

After I had been coaching for some time I decided that it was impossible to be the best possible coach for an athlete without knowledge and sound education. There are just way too many coaches who think they are coaches simply because they were good runners or because they happened into it through teaching or because they had a child who ran. (Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying you cannot become a coach from this angle, I’m saying get yourself educated). My philosophy has always been, any coach can run, but not every runner can coach. I do my own banking, I make internet transfers, I deposit and withdraw funds…and I’m pretty good at it, but, that doesn’t make me a banker.

With this in mind, I approached my local athletics governing body back in South Africa and enquired about education. I wanted to begin a coaching education journey and get the best out of South African athletes. I was left stumped when I was told I was the wrong colour. While this was an initial set back, I tend to be rather stubborn and figured there had to be other ways.

There are always other ways. I happened upon NAASFP, a North American institute and completed an incredibly comprehensive coaching certification. Around that time, I also discovered USATF, the controlling body for Track and Field in USA. I signed up with them and that has led me to this week, the opportunity to attend the IAAF Elite Sprints and Hurdles Academy, an IAAF Level 5 certification and elite coaching diploma.

As I sit here my mind is abuzz with many new thoughts and information passed onto me through the highly esteemed and respected lecturers who lead us through this week; Günter Lange (IAAF), Dr. Ralph Mann, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hartmann (Germany), Dr. Robert Chapman and others. Some of the information and new scientific findings are challenging to some of my approaches as a coach. But, that’s being one of the biggest benefits of education, challenging oneself, beliefs and practises. Being forced out of your comfort zone, being forced to look at things differently and to adopt new methods and approaches, as opposed to doing the same things the same way with the same results. To ask yourself, “why do I do it this way?”

Educating myself as a coach has been fully self-funded, it has cost me a small fortune over the years, but I wouldn’t exchange it for all the money in the world.

So, what now, have I arrived? (I ask that with a smile on my face) You never arrive as a coach! I know this sounds like a cliché, but the truth is that the more you learn and know and understand the more you realise how little you know and understand. And so, this is simply another step in my ongoing coaching education.

My advice to athletes and parents and anyone out there looking for a coach? Look for a coach who is educated and continues to strive for education. This is not a coach who knows it all, in fact, if you find a coach who knows it all, he /she is not educated. Education gives a coach the resources and the knowledge to approach each unique situation and to figure it out with the athlete’s best interests at heart.

My advice to aspiring coaches? Get yourself educated. Of course, experience is important, but you cannot be a great coach by blindly guessing your way through it, actually, I guess you can, but at what cost? Think about it this way. Would you see a doctor who was a doctor learning by experience alone? That doctor might one day be successful, but can you imagine the patient causalities required for that doctor to become great? It’s easy to look at a coach and see his/her top performers, but how many wrecked young talents lie behind that one top athlete? Yes, experience is important, but you can only build experience efficiently and effectively if you have a sound education on which to build and develop.

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At first I thought that it was just a spasm, but after two stops to try and massage the spasm out and an almost unbearable pain I realised this was a little more than a spasm and with more than half the race still be to run I began to wonder I would get back to the start without any cash on me and surrounded by people who predominantly spoke only German. At that point I remember conversing with myself and decided that I had not done all the training and flown halfway across the world to feel pain. I pushed the pain out of my mind and continued running. I eventually managed to cross the finish line in a time of 2h57. The instant I realised it was over my body and mind where flooded with an incredible pain leaving it near impossible for me to walk.

It’s all in the mind

I learnt an invaluable lesson during that marathon about running and pain. We can endure and tolerate far more pain then we think. Of course I’m not talking about running through injuries and doing stupid things like pushing through a marathon with a torn soleus. I’m talking about the pain we are all very familiar with, the pain brought about in those races where we are pushing our own personal boundaries and driving hard to come under that PB, even if it’s by just a few seconds. The person who wants that PB badly enough and is willing to push him or herself through the pain of lactic acid and other metabolic waste build-up, is the one who will ultimately achieve that PB.

Tim Noakes refers to this as the “Central Governor Theory.” The “Central Governor” keeps an eye on all the systems and functions of the body and protects us from physically harming ourselves. This governor however has a built-in early warning system to stop us long before our breaking point. Signals of pain are sent to our brains to slow us down or to stop us so that our bodies can return to a “happy” state or what I prefer to call our comfort zone, scientifically speaking the mind wants to keep the cells of the body in a state of homeostasis.

Unfortunately, there are no PB’s or achieving of full potential in the comfort zone.

Venturing beyond the comfort zone

In order to achieve our best we have go beyond the comfort zone and this is where training comes in. The human body has an amazing capacity to adapt to various stresses it is placed under. Progressive and planned training enables us to place the body under gradual increases in physiological stresses teaching both the mind and the body to deal with and to handle pain.

One of the best ways to deal with pain is to start with the mind. I’m amazed at how I can give a client 10 x 400m repeats to complete, which is usually completed without so much as batting an eyelid, but when I change the session around and give the same client 20 x 200m repeats, which both total 4000m, I start getting panic filled emails questioning whether I gave the correct training to the correct client. Of course once the session has been completed the client realises that they are more than capable of handling the session and the next time round it’s no issue at all.

Of course there are many other ways to teach your body to deal with pain. For example, someone who is planning a desert run will do well to do plenty of training runs in the heat of day and in lots of sand. Stronger and more experienced runners might for example try doing a 20 x 400m repeat session.

I do not however believe that teaching your body and mind to deal with pain requires only hard, muscle-breaking workouts. The workouts which have had the biggest impact in my own training when it comes to running through pain are the ones I’ve stuck to as planned and completed. Getting through a planned 6 x 800m session or a 4 x 1200m session after a long hard day on a hot summer’s afternoon when I’ve wanted nothing other than to collapse on the couch in front of the TV has gone a long way to help me push through moments of doubt and hurt when that PB is slipping from my grasp.

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The body is extremely complex and there are several variables at play every time we put on our running shoes and head out for a training session. So, identifying exactly why we’re getting slower can be a little challenging for us.

Here are 3 of the main reasons I believe runners get slower and slower despite putting in massive amounts of hard work and effort.

1 – Rubbish in, rubbish out.
One of the biggest reasons a runner get slower is poor diet. I often come across runners who make comments along these lines, “I run to eat”, “I love running because I can eat anything I like, I always run it off.”

Nothing can be further from the truth. Yes, we must eat and yes, we must ensure that we’re getting enough fuel into the system to ensure good recover and that we are able to give our best. But, and there’s a big but here, what we shove down our throats has a massive impact on our performance and our training.

The problem with eating rubbish and junk all the time and thinking that we’re losing weight, is that we’re not actually. Because we’re putting rubbish into our systems, this rubbish gets stored as fat and is not used as fuel to power our body. Instead what happens is that we start to store fat and instead of burning fat we begin to burn muscle. So yes, when we get on the scale we are in fact lighter, but by far weaker.

The solution is to keep your diet clean. Eat real and whole foods. No processed or boxed foods, cut out the refined carbs and follow a 90/10% rule if you must. 90% of the time eat healthy and well and allow a 10% cheat time. Unfortunately, most runners follow a 10/90% rule where they eat healthy 10% of the time and eat rubbish for the other 90%.

2 – Doing lots of training, but the wrong type of training.

Well done on training hard and working hard, but if you’re doing lots of the wrong type of training then you’re either going to stagnate or get slower.

From a physiological view point, a marathon is 98% aerobic, 2% anaerobic and 0% alactic. That means that 98% of your training should be focusing on the aerobic engine and not on your anaerobic capacity. So, lots of shorter (200m, 400m, etc) reps is not going to focus on building your aerobic engine. And just a note here, I’m not saying that these types of sessions don’t have their place in a marathoners training, but not in excessive amounts and at the right time in the training year. The 1500m race is made of 84% aerobic, 14% anaerobic and 2% alactic. A 1500m running with have a few more sessions consisting of 400m reps and short reps between 40 and 60m’s, but again, even for the 1500m track runner 84% of training should focus on building the aerobic engine.

The question to ask yourself is this, “What event am I actually training for in my training?” And then, “What session can I change to better suit my main event?”

3 – Same old same old, plodding along.

If you want to run faster, the bottom line is that you’re going to have to, well, run faster. If all you’re doing is that same old pace over the same old distance and never mixing things up or teaching the body to run faster, then you’re going to slow down over time.

This however doesn’t mean that you must now suddenly start increasing your pace on every run and forcing the pace. It means that you need to start including a little quality work in your training schedule which forces you to start running faster for short periods of time.

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“What are you doing?” you ask. ‘Can’t you see?” comes the impatient reply. “I’m sawing down this tree.” “You look exhausted!” you exclaim. “How long have you been at it?” “Over five hours,” he returns, “and I’m beat! This is hard work.” “Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen the saw?” you inquire. “I’m sure it would go a lot faster.” “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw,” the man says emphatically.” “I’m too busy sawing!” – Stephen Covey – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

When it comes to running and your training are you a bit like this man sawing down the tree? Perhaps you want a PB 10, 21, marathon or Ultra and in order to run that PB you know you need to train harder. So that’s exactly what you do. You hit the road, working and pushing yourself harder and harder in desperate search of your goals. But it seems that instead of getting faster you’re getting slower and instead of getting stronger you’re getting injured. Sound familiar?

We already know that rest is important when it comes to running. But I don’t think we believe it. For some reason we feel guilty when we take a rest day. Often runners will say to me, “I have a rest day scheduled on Monday, is it ok if I do some light gym work or swim?” The answer is of course, “No!”. A rest day is exactly that, a rest day. Rest and recovery are the most important ingredients in our training programs and should be considered a training session just like any other hill repeat, interval or long run training session.

There are a number of scientific training principles that lead to improved fitness and performance. Perhaps the most important of these is the principle of OVERLOAD and adaption. The principle of Overload states that in order for training adaption to take place, the intensity of the physical activity must exceed that to which the individual is already conditioned. The body must receive a progressive and systematic overloading. In other words, if we are to become stronger and faster runners which must stress our bodies beyond our current capacity.

When we stress or push our bodies beyond our current capacity we effectively damage the muscles by creating little micro-tears in them. If we do not allow these micro-tears to heal we create further damage which results in decreased performance and injury. The key to the principle of Overload is rest and recovery. Rest and recovery allows the body time to repair these small micro-tears which makes the muscles stronger and moves us past our previous capacity, which equates to faster and improved performances.

The question of course is always, “How much rest do I need?” The answer to this question is a little trickier as each one of us is unique and our bodies are all different. As a rule, regardless of your level of fitness or ability every runner should take at least one day’s full rest a week. A rest day is day in which you do no physical activity. You simply allow the body time to repair the micro-tears in the muscles. For some runners, two days rest is required. If you are just starting out, then include two rest days in your week. If you’re getting on in years then accept the fact that your body is not going to heal itself as quickly as a twenty year old and give your body more time to recover. It will thank you on that race you’ve been planning for months.

The key to rest is to listen to your body. Our bodies are amazing, complex creations and if we pay attention to what our bodies are telling us, then we’ll know when it’s time for an extra rest or two. You will not lose any fitness or forfeit any progress by taking a rest day. You only stand to gain from rest.

So, one full day’s rest a week is mandatory. The second part of rest is what is called Active Recovery. Active Recovery is when we continue to exercise but in such a way that we allow the body to continue its healing process. Active Recovery might be a swimming, bike, gym or aqua jogging session. These sessions allow you to continue building endurance or strength but without using the same muscles day in and day out. Include one or two of these sessions in your weekly training.

Lastly, be careful not to over-stress your body. Running hard sessions every day is a sure way to end up sick or injured because the body has not been allowed time to repair and heal itself. We all know how frustrating it is to be injured or sick. Avoid this frustration by alternating hard sessions with rest, active rest or easy sessions. For example, a hard track session on a Tuesday would be followed by an easy 5 or 8km run on the Wednesday, a hard hill session on a Thursday can be followed by a core workout session in the gym on the Friday and a long run on Sunday followed by a full rest day on the Monday.

Enjoy your training as your work toward your goals for 2017 and remember to take time to sharpen your saw.

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So here are 7 habits of highly effective runners (in no particular order) which can assist you in becoming your best (of course there are many more that can be added to the list):

Highly effective runners:

1.    Take ownership of poor performances and learn from their mistakes.

We all have bad days. We have bad training days and we most certainly have bad race days. The key to becoming a highly effective runner lies in what you do with the bad performance. Do you just carry on and pretend like everything’s ok? Do you just write it off as a bad day at the office? Do you wallow in self-pity and come up with every excuse under the sun as to why you had the bad day? Or do you sit down, weigh up all the variables, examine the experience from a distance and then decide what you can fix and what to write off as simply a bad day?

By taking the time to analyze our poor performances, and even our good performances, we begin to learn a lot about our own body, our personality and our psychological state. When we take the time to look at the variables, things like weather, diet, build-up, outside stress, etc, we are able to identify what we did wrong and what we can improve on next time round.

I encourage you to always sit down within a day or two of a race and to write up a race report of how it went. This would include areas such as: training build-up, nutrition in the weeks before, on the day of and during the event, mental state leading up to, just before and during the event, race strategy and how the event unfolded. In each of these areas ask yourself, “What worked? What didn’t work? What should I change going forward?”

You’ll start to become a highly effective runner when you start to fix your mistakes and capitalize on your strengths.

2.    Follow a structured and well thought out training program.

Unfortunately, most runners have the perception that only certain “levels” of athlete can or should have a coach. This is quite simply not the case. Employing the services of a coach, and the right coach at that, will go a long way in getting you closer and closer to your best.

I have come across a number of runners who know that they should be doing some sort of quality in their training weeks, but actually don’t have a clue as to what type of quality, how much quality or when to do the quality. I have actually heard runners setting off for the track asking each other “so, what do you feel like doing today? 400’s?” Some of these runners are still able to run some pretty impressive times, imagine the times they could actually be running if they had a well thought out and structured program?

Highly effective runners know that the body is an incredible and complex biological machine which has to be well tuned in and amidst countless variables. The correct energy systems for your event need to be effectively developed, threshold limits need to be pushed back, the training must allow time for training adaptations to take place and the body must be allowed to super-compensate. (super-compensation is a physiological process in which the body overcompensates for a particular stress it has been placed under so that it can better handle the same stress again).

To become a highly effective runner, follow a well thought out training program structured specifically for you.

3.    Listen to their body, not their mind.

The mind is an incredibly powerful thing. It can drive us to amazing accomplishments and to achieve things no person ever thought possible. But, it can also bring us to a grinding halt in race such as a marathon that should otherwise see us running a PB.

The brain is continuously monitoring signals received from the CNS and PNS. If the brain detects that the body or parts of the body are being pushed toward a dangerous level, it attempts to slow down or stop the cause of the red flag. Prof Tim Noakes calls this the Central Governor Theory.

Of course, what the science has shown is that these alerts are early warning systems and with training (super-compensation) we are able to push back these early warning systems and push ourselves to new levels. On the plus side it seems humanly impossible to run yourself to death, the brain simply won’t allow it and as a last resort will shut the body down in order to prevent death. Of course that’s assuming that you’re running or racing without any other issues which may be present, such as taking part in a race when you’re sick, etc.

Highly effective runners learn to identify the difference between the mind or brain trying to dictate what they do versus listening to the body. For example, you have a track session planned after work consisting of 6 x 800m repeats. You get to the end of a long work day, it’s 30 degrees outside and all your brain wants to do is dump you on the couch in front of the TV with the air-con billowing out cold air. Highly effective runners know that this is simply the mind trying to deter them, they know that once they start running they’ll start to feel good and they’ll feel even better after the workout and so they head out to train anyway and complete their session despite what the mind is telling them.

On the flip side of that, highly effective runners listen when the body talks. For example, you’ve been under a lot of stress at work, your sleep hasn’t been what it should be and you’ve been hitting a few tough training sessions, you wake up and there’s something inside of you that says “rest”, you’re mind is saying, “come on, get up, I must train”, but that something else is saying, “rest.” This is the body speaking and you become a highly effective runner when you recognize it and listen to it. In most cases, when you ignore the body you end up either injured or sick, and in some cases, you end up both.

4.    Think about what they eat.

There’s an age-old saying which says, “What you put in is what you get out.” This is very true of our eating habits;  garbage in, garbage out. You simply cannot perform at your best when you’re not fueling yourself adequately. And adequate fueling does not equate to volume, it’s not about the amount of food you put in, it’s about the quality of food you put in. Yes, you have to ensure you’re eating enough food, but generally that’s not the problem. The problem is the kind of food we put in.

I don’t however believe that you have to always be over analytically with your food and I do think if you want to eat rubbish from time to time that’s ok, as long as it not the rule. My advice, 1) follow a 90/10 % rule. Eating well 90% of the time and limit junk and rubbish to 10% of the time, 2) eat real food. Stay away from processed and boxed food, eat the full range of fresh meat and different vegetables, especially the greens, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthy lifestyle.

VO2max is directly linked to our weight. VO₂ max is the number of milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body mass per minute. The less weight you carry around the higher your VO2max. If you’re carrying around any excess body weight I encourage you to lose it, you’ll be amazed at the impact that has on your running. Any extra kilogram, is an extra kilogram your body has to waste energy on in order to carry t around with you on a run.

Become a highly effective runner by becoming mindful of what you eat.

5.    Never give up.

Running is not always easy and it’s not always fun. Sometimes, it’s just plan old hard work. There are times when you can feel your running improve, those times are great and it’s easy to remain motivated. But, there are also times when you feel like you’ve hit a plateau or like you’re actually getting worse. This can be related to your training or to something else going wrong, like low iron etc. But, if all of that checks out it’s also pretty normal to go through troughs and “dry” spells in your training. Highly effective runners never give up, they keep on looking and moving forward no matter what.

When you’re in a trough or a plateau try and identify why. If it’s because you’re over training you can fix that. If it’s because your bloods aren’t 100% investigate it. A little while back I had a client who kept complaining about struggling on the run and feeling tired all the time, I checked her training and was more than satisfied that it was not training related and encouraged her to go for blood tests. She put it off saying, “my mind is weak, I need to toughen up” until eventually she gave in and went for the bloods. The result, she had hemochromatosis, in other words, iron overload. She has since been able to focus on getting the health issue sorted out so that she can get her running back on track.

But, once you’ve ruled out any health problems or potential over training, then you simply need to hang in there and keep going. When you don’t feel like it, see point 3, and get up and train anyway. The good news is that this feeling, this plateau, shall pass and you’ll come out the back of it stronger and fitter and ready to push further.

Highly effective runners never give up no matter how hard it gets.

6.    Plan and think about their goals.

There are races almost every weekend, Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes mid-week too. There certainly aren’t any shortages of races.

The problem is not that there are so many races, the problem is that we want to do them all. Now of course we can’t race them all so what we end up doing is simply running the races one after the other to the point where we no longer know what it means to race. I sat with a client over coffee talking about racing a 10km race, she turned round to me and said, “but why would I want to get up at 4am to go and run a 10k when I could run a 10k at home?” That’s when I realized that we don’t see races as races anymore, we see them simply as runs.

Highly effective runners see races as races, they keep the “magic” of the race alive and they choose very carefully what and when they race. We’ve all felt the “magic” of a race, that energy, excitement and adrenaline coursing through the veins of every athlete as they line up waiting for the gun. This “magic” drives us to run faster, pushes us to dig deeper and drags us through our mental barriers. If we end up simply running race after race than we lose the “magic” and races simply become paid-for group runs.

Sit down with the race calendar and identify what your priority A races are for the next 12 months. Then look for priority B races, these are races that you want to use as building races to your priority A races. For example, for a marathon, priority B races might be a few flat, fast 10k’s and a 21k 3-6 weeks before. Lastly, identify a few priority C races, these are races you want to push, but if training or circumstance dictate otherwise you’re happy with dropping them.

You become a highly effective runner when you know what your goals are and you have a clearer picture of how you plan on getting there.

7.    See recovery and rest days as training days.

In order to benefit from training we have to give the body time to repair and recover from the hard training sessions, this works hand in hand with the theory of super-compensation. Recovery and or rest days are just as important, if not more so, than a hard quality session.

Highly effective runners see recovery days and rest days in the same light as training days. They don’t feel guilty, they don’t feel like, “I should be training”, they don’t feel the need to do other forms of training just so they can feel like they did something. They understand and they see the benefit of allowing the body time to recharge.

Become a highly effective runner by ensuring you have enough recovery and rest in your training program.

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Famous last words. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you’re having to deal with an injury.

There’s always a pattern in the way we deal with injuries, at least there is for me. First comes the denial stage. “This is just a niggle, I’m sure if I run through it it’ll go.” Then comes the admittance stage, “damit! I’m injured.” Next is the fall apart stage, “there goes my race” or “there goes running career, wow is me!” Eventually, hopefully, we move onto the “where to from here?” stage and this is a very important stage.

I maintain that injuries are not part of, or at least don’t have to be part of running. In other words there are very few instances where we get injured because of running. 99% of the time we get injured because of things making up the other 23 hours of our day and the 1 hour spent running just has an incredible knack of exploiting those imbalances, weaknesses or tightness’s we’ve picked up.

There is one exception to what I’ve just said, as we get closer and closer to our genetic potential we get less bang for our buck. In other words, we get less return on the hours and effort we pour into our training. When we reach this point, sadly most runners never will, we start to push our boundaries and as a result we start to train on the edge of the cliff where the risk of injury is very high.

Either way, when we end up injured we almost always feel like our worlds are crashing in around us. But, getting injured can have a positive impact on our running.

When we do end up injured, the first and most important question to ask is always, “why did I get injured?” If you cannot answer this question then there is every likelihood that it will reoccur down the line. The answer to this question is not always obvious and requires significant thought and tracing through logbook entries to try and find a clue as to what got it started in the first place.

If we are unable to find the cause then we’re only ever treating the symptoms and that means we’re never really addressing the problem. Once we know the cause we can follow the correct treatment plan and prevent the injury from side-lining us again in the future.

In most cases we end up injured due to a biomechanical or muscular imbalance. Let’s face it, sitting behind a desk for 8 or 9 hours a day is hardly what the human body was designed for. Not only that but we get into motor vehicles and drive wherever we go. All this “inactivity” has major consequences when it comes to hitting the road for an hour or so each day. Running is particularly good at exploiting any imbalances that we may be carrying around.

Prevention is always better than cure so here are a few habits to make part of your training routine:

1. Always keep a training diary and note as much detail as possible for each session
2. Flag any and every niggle you may feel during a run. This may simply be a niggle or a “growing pain”, but flag it anyway. If it’s an injury beginning to rear its ugly head than you’ll start to see a pattern and can take steps to nip it in the bud before it becomes a major issue
3. Never push through a training session when the body is shouting “REST!!!!”
4. Keep strength work as part of your training week. Focus on the major areas: core, glutes, calfs, hamstrings and quads
5. If a niggle does turn to an injury get it treated immediately. Don’t waste time trying to wait it out, get it looked at and treated ASAP

I hope some of this helps you firstly prevent injury and secondly keep you sane during injury. Remember, regardless of how you feel, injury is not an act of God. God is not trying to punish you. There is however a very good reason for it, take the time to think back and identify the problem and then get your mind set on recovery.

Ray

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In order to complete a multi-stage event you will have to come face-to-face with all your doubts and fears and learn to tap into a deep inner strength you don’t even know is there. Ranulph Fiennes, a world renowned adventurer and holder of several world records says of long distance running and extreme adventures, “To discover a place where individuals take themselves to the extreme frontiers of the environment and their own physical capacity for endurance, is both inspiring and exciting.”

Be an inspiration

Very few human beings can sit and watch others pushing themselves to their very limits, without being inspired or motivated to demand greatness of themselves. There’s a very good chance that you’re looking to attempt a multi-stage race because you have been inspired by someone else who took on a challenge bigger than themselves. In their book, “Extreme Running,” Kym McConnell and Dave Horsley give two main reasons for taking on an extreme challenge saying, “one is the almost spiritual nature of this type of quest. The second is the desire to succeed, to conquer, to overcome a seemingly impossible physical and mental challenge.”

Regardless of the reason, I believe that inside every trail runner lurks an “ultra-beast,” fast asleep and often in deep hibernation. It’s awoken by the slightest sniff of adventure and desire to take on a seemly impossible challenge. When it begins to stir you’ll feel an itch, a nagging desire to take on any and every adventure. If it sounds impossible, insurmountable and downright nuts, chances are you’ll be dying to sign up.

So how do you scratch that itch? How do you take on a multi-stage event and ensure that you cross that elusive finish line days later? Trail ultra-marathon runner Daniel Rowland, winner of the Desert and Jungle multi-stage races, in an interview with Trail Talk SA gives four tips for mutli-stage racing. As a trail runner and running coach I expand on his tips below.

1. Include race specific training in your preparation

Multi-stage racing is very different to a single-stage event. Not only are you expecting your body to perform day-in and day-out, but you’re also throwing biomechanical changes into the mix. Single-stage events often require a very light or small hydration pack if anything, weighing roughly between 1 and 1.5kg. Multi-stage events on the other hand are often self-sufficient events where you are required to carry everything you’ll need for the day and sometimes for the entire event. This means that your pack will weigh anything from 3 to 15kg. Running biomechanics change dramatically with the weight of your pack. Including a few training runs with your pack at expected race weight will ensure that your muscles have adapted to your new running form on race day. Also make sure that include a few blocks of consecutive long runs. Weekends are great for this kind of training as well as double training sessions in a single day. For example, a typical peak training weekend might look at follows: Friday: am – 10km, pm – 20km; Sat: 30km; Sun: 30km.

2. Consider your equipment carefully

This is by far one of the most important aspects of multi-stage events. Finding yourself midway into a six day event with a broken strap or severe chaffing is either going to put an early end to your event or make it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to finish. You’d very quickly learn the error of your ways if you tried to knock a nail into a piece of wood with a candle. In the same way, you don’t line up at the start of a big adventure race with the wrong equipment. Make sure you have the correct shoes for the terrain you’ll be running on. Try on various hydration packs and with the assistance of an experienced sales person find a match for your body and shape. Get your hands on a shirt that’s not going to chafe and ride up your back with the movement of your pack.

3. Practice a recovery routine

With each passing day during the race you accumulate more and more mental and physical fatigue. In the build up to your event, make sure that you have experimented with and found a recovery strategy that works for you. This might be drinking a specific recovery shake, eating a certain meal or wearing compression tights. Everyone responds differently to different recovery methods and it’s important that you have established in advance what works for you and what doesn’t.

4. Pace yourself based on the entire length of the event

A multi-stage event is neither won nor lost in the first couple of stages. The winner is the runner who goes the full distance and slows down the least over the duration of the event. As you line up at the start of your adventure you will be bubbling with excitement and expectation and your inclination will be to go out too quickly on day one. Racing and pushing too hard on day one will leave you struggling to complete day three or four, which is often the longest stage of the event. Instead of standing at the start line getting all worked up, rather set out for a very easy warm up jog. This doesn’t need to be very long and 10 to 15 minutes is more than enough. You will find that this short easy jog gets your body ready for the day ahead and more importantly, settles your nerves and reduces pre-race anxieties.

What are you waiting for?

Multi-stage and extreme running is a fairly new and continually growing sports genre. There are a number of resources and runners’ race reports available to assist you in selecting an event. Trail Magazine, Trail Runner’s Guide and the internet provide endless resources on the many challenges available. My recommendation is to build up slowly and gradually to the point where you can take on your bucket list event with confidence. Start with a few shorter and smaller single stage events. Once you’re confident on the trails and have allowed your muscles time to adapt to the different movements you can then begin to move up to a two or three day multi-stage event and ultimately tackle the “big one.”

Day six, 5:35pm. With a new bounce in my step and a lightness in spirit I increase my pace at the sight of the finish line in the distance. It’s hard to believe that six days has come and gone. It’s hard to believe that what seemed impossible when I first signed up for this challenge months ago, it now, done. As the finish line gets bigger and bigger with each step I realise that I finish this challenge a different person to the one I was some 250km back. Life looks different. Nothing seems impossible and as I stride out on the hard beach sand my mind is already thinking ahead to the next challenge on my bucket list….

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