Coach’s Corner | 3 Tips to Help Take Your Running to the Next Level
by Chase Parnell — November 7, 2019
Welcome to the first installment of Coach’s Corner, where I’m going to attempt to impart some of the knowledge I’ve learned and earned after almost three decades of running. There has been a lot of trial and error over the years, and frankly, I tend to shy away from giving a lot of advice because I wasn’t an exercise physiology major and I don’t have a ton of coaching experience other than a few years as an assistant high school cross country and track coach. But you know what, after some reflection, I need to give myself a little more credit! I know this sport pretty damn well and I’ve probably run over 40,000 miles in my lifetime. And what do you think I spend most of my time thinking about while running? Running! So what I lack in technical understanding, I make up for in experience based on a whole lot of trial and error.
Okay, let’s get into it.
-1- Capitalize on the days you’re feeling good.
A big mistake I’ve made in the past is sticking too closely to a specific plan. I’d be following some generic “12-week marathon training program” I found online or a pre-fabbed “advanced 50k training plan”, and then I’d follow it 100% with no deviations. I wish the body was that cooperative and responded well to blind faith. You have a plan, you stick to it, and you have to crush it, right? Well, not necessarily.
The problem is that I wasn’t capitalizing on the days my body was actually feeling good. The plan would say: “Monday: 5 miles easy, 6 by 100 meter strides” or something like that. So on Monday, I’d head out and do just that regardless of how I was feeling. Even if I was feeling super amped, I’d follow my plan and try to reserve that energy for the tempo or interval session that I had lined up for the following day. I could feel the energy in my legs, I’d be mentally psyched and full of adrenaline but, again, I’d metronomically stick to my plan. The issue is that maybe I’d head out the next day and not have that same energized feeling. Maybe I didn’t sleep well or happened to have a particularly stressful day at work and I arrive at my workout totally zapped and unable to effectively hit it hard. Had I responded to the opportunity the day before, and took advantage of my body feeling good, I would have gotten a much greater benefit from the workout.
Our bodies are pretty sophisticated and if we listen to them, we can better optimize them. Any good coach knows this and provides lots of room for adjustment based on a variety of factors.
So this is what I do now and what I believe you should do also. Allow some space for adjusting your run to accommodate how you’re feeling on that particular day. If, as in the example above, Monday is your 5 mile easy day, and Tuesday or Wednesday was supposed to be a 45 minute tempo run or interval workout, don’t be afraid to hop right into that workout on Monday if you’re actually jazzed to do the work and are feeling good.
Keeping a flexible running schedule and having the confidence to respond to your body and switch things up can pay huge dividends.
So go ahead, if you’re feeling good, capitalize on that energy and let it rip!
-2- Rest days aren’t required, down days are.
I don’t know about you but I feel GOOD on the days I run. I like waking up and running every day and if I don’t I tend to feel sluggish and even a bit anxious like I have pent up energy that needs to be released. Note: this doesn’t apply for me after a race. I relish those post-race days off, but when I’m in training mode, I don’t like to take days off so I typically don’t.
I think it’s important to know that you don’t need to force yourself to take days off completely just because you hear that’s what you’re supposed to do. I heard once that Kenyans religiously take one day off per week so for whatever reason I thought I had to do that too.
As a bit of an aside, I think this concept of overtraining syndrome (OTS) has become a bit of a buzz-word where very normal fatigue can suddenly become a self-diagnosis of OTS. To be clear, I think OTS is prevalent amongst the more “elite” side of the sport and can be an issue for non-elites as well, but I believe most of us have more capacity than we utilize in training. Running every day is not flirting with OTS, so long as you are adequately recovering by utilizing easy days.
Your body needs down time to recover and strengthen. If you don’t recover, your body will not respond to your training, but who says you need to take a full day off? When I need a down day, I go out for, say, 4-7 miles and just run super slow. I have no problem running 1-2 minutes slower per mile that I would on a normal run. I’m running but I’m still recovering simultaneously. I believe those extremely easy days take very little toll on your body, they keep you in the flow of daily training, and even have a beneficial “flush” quality than a day of complete inactivity might not have.
Finally, life is going to throw things at you that will require you to take full days off anyways. You might get a suspicious tweak in your foot that requires a day or two off, you might get a cold, you might drink to much the night before a planned run, you might forget to change your clocks on day light savings, whatever it is, you’re going to have to take days off. For me, let those be your complete days off. But if all is well, don’t be afraid to plan on running with each new day if that’s what you want to do. That perspective has really helped me stay in the zone and reach levels of fitness that I might otherwise not have attained.
-3- Get a pair of really light shoes.
This one is a bit of a mental hack. Right now, I’m running in my 6th or 7th pair of Hoka Torrents in a row. They are an awesome all-around trail shoe that I can run in for anything from an easy 30 minute road outing to an intense 100 mile race. I’ll probably run in the Torrent until I get suspicious that they’ve grown a mind of their own and are conspiring my demise via a career ending injury. Paranoid much?
Anyways, a trick I’ve used over the years is I will typically have a pair of significantly lighter shoes to pull from the closet when I’m really struggling to get out the door. I like the Saucony Kinvara, which I’ve ran a lot of road marathons in. It’s super light and cushy and when my body or mind is feeling heavy, I lace them up and trick myself into feeling good. They are a nice carrot to get me out the door and might even get me excited to go run when I’m not feeling it at all. But only use them when you’re desperate, otherwise, they’ll lose their effect. It’s sort of like when you get into an accident and your insurance covers a rental car. The rental may not be a nicer car than the one you own, but it’s typically clean, the ride and feel is different, and you find yourself enjoying your commute. That’s the power of having a light snappy shoe in the repertoire to pull out on special occasions.
Okay, that’s it for this installment of Coach’s Corner. What’d you think? Valuable? Would it be worth providing this type of content on a regular basis? In these early stages of Treeline Journal, we are definitely trying to respond to the wishes of our readership to make this site the best it can be. Feedback is appreciated!
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All good points! The other one (not that you asked) that I advise folks is to look at a race season as, well, exactly that. With races now available all year, I think the easiest way to burnout is to constantly be training at 80-85%. You race an early season race, a spring race or two, then you hit the summer and you hit peak race season. Are you really ready anymore? I like to really focus in on a 3-4 month period in the year to race in. That way you will be hungry for the training. This doesn’t mean that you don’t run the rest of the year. But don’t stress about trading runs for backcountry skiing, lifting weights, bike rides. You won’t be losing much fitness and you’ll building a stronger, more balanced body that will keep you stoked for running into the future.
Great point Rod. Yes, burn-out is one of the worst places to find yourself. We all have our own specific formulas for balancing optimal training while keeping the fire lit. You’ve been a guy who typically shuts it down late in the fall, runs most days but nothing excessive throughout the winter, then ramps back up in the early spring again. That’s a good model! You’ve been insanely consistent with that over the years. Without opening a can of worms, I think there’s a reason why most pro marathoners race only two majors a year. If you’re doing it right, and your goal is the run your absolute best race, you really do need those big periodized blocks to adequately prepare and recover. I don’t mind a longer racing season, like 6-9 months, so that you have adequate time between races to really ramp up and recover in between. But hey, if your goal is to just race a lot and have fun, do it. Just talking about optimizing performance. Good stuff Rod.
Thanks for the lightweight shoe tip. I think I might try that!