Runner, Protect Thyself!

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

Did you know that the annual injury rate among runners is an astounding 80% or thereabouts, more than in any other sport?  That means you could pick 100 runners completely at random and feel reasonably certain that over the course of a year they would suffer roughly 80 mishaps of greater or lesser severity. 

Perhaps as disturbing is the fact that the prevalence of injuries in our sport has remained a relative constant over at least the past decade.  This has been true despite significant advances in the design and construction of running’s most important piece of equipment – the running shoe – and despite comparable improvements in other products such as orthotic inserts, knee straps and braces, self-massage tools, and sports tape.  Conclusion #1, therefore, is that the “right” shoes and equipment are simply not enough to keep us out of harm’s way.

As well, an increasing percentage of injuries occur or get worse after medical intervention.  The reason is that doctors, chiropractors and therapists frequently focus on the symptoms of an injury rather than the cause -- or they misdiagnose the problem in the first place.  Conclusion #2, therefore, is that the specialist we visit can potentially do more harm than good.  

Underlying this depressing scenario is what I’d call the “law of unintended consequences.”  The shoe manufacturers spend millions to incorporate motion control, stability or additional cushioning features into their products.  They do it all with the best of motives.  But in the end what they seem to accomplish, more than anything else, is to shield us from our own shortcomings.

If our basic problem is poor biomechanics, for instance, and that problem is not addressed, it will sooner or later manifest itself in an injury.  The progression over time can often take on a certain inevitability if and as we become increasingly serious about our running and demand more from our bodies.  We start with the best shoes we can find for our feet, then later we add orthotics, then we resort to physical therapy, and, finally, in a worst case, we undergo surgery.   And the progression is speeded up along the way if a well-meaning medical professional masks the root of the problem by prescribing an anti-inflammatory and rest – or by telling us we have a pulled muscle when in fact we have a stress fracture.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I’ve had two serious injuries over the past several years, both of which were originally misdiagnosed by medical professionals.  I  was told in the first instance that I had a groin strain and, as a result, underwent physical therapy and exercise in the weeks leading up to the 2007 Niagara Falls International Marathon.  As it turned out, I actually had a hernia condition and wound up crossing the finish line of that race in excruciating pain, while holding my swollen stomach in my right hand.  I underwent surgery two weeks later.

In the second instance, I went to a doctor with pain in my left foot.  The diagnosis was a stretched tendon in the foot and, once again, physical therapy and exercise were prescribed. Unfortunately, the tendon was not stretched; it was ruptured – which meant that the therapy and exercise were only worsening the condition.  Here again I required surgery and, as a consequence, missed an opportunity to participate in the 2009 World Masters Games in Sydney, Australia and to run in the Boston Marathon the following year.    

Timothy Noakes, author of the seminal book on our sport, called “Lore of Running,” states simply and succinctly that we should never seek treatment for a running-related injury from a medical professional who himself is not a runner.  And Runner’s World magazine has offered a “runner’s checklist” for determining whether a particular specialist is the best person to solve our running problem.  Here are some of the questions that the magazine suggests we ask him or her:  Do you have a specialty in Sports Medicine?  Do you run?  What should we bring to the appointment?  (The “correct” answer would include our training log and running shoes.)  And, finally, how much time will you spend with me?  (Expect it to be at least 30 minutes.)

Let’s cut to the quick here.  We must recognize, first and foremost, that we and no one else are the first line of defence against injury.  And this means, among other things, that we should appreciate that stress and recovery are the yin and yang principles of effective training, ensure that our running form is as good as it can be, engage in strength training on a regular basis, and respond promptly to any unusual aches or pain that might signal the onset of injury. If, despite such precautions, we still wind up a part of an 80% injury statistic, then at least we won’t have to second-guess ourselves.

Coach Stephen

Goal Setting Done Right

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

In running as in life, success is often nothing more or less than an ongoing process of setting and achieving ever more challenging goals.  And the key to making that process as effective as it can be lies in how we structure in our mind’s eye the aims and aspirations that are important to us.  We should think of the acronym SMART and thereby increase significantly our chances of achieving objectives by making them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-based.

How about this as an example of a Specific goal:  I will qualify for Boston 2015 when I run the Goodlife Toronto Marathon on May 4^, 2014.  We should appreciate that a goal like that is more powerful and will provide more motivation and direction than something as amorphous as merely telling ourself that someday, God willing, we will make it to Boston.  Count on it, whenever we refer to a goal with one or another variation of the words, “One of these days, I’m going to....” we can be pretty sure that it will remain permanently out of reach.  The fact is, unless a goal comes packaged in a plan and a heavy layer of commitment, it remains just an unrealized dream.

Measurable – After we’ve set a specific goal with a precise end date, we must begin tracking our progress toward achieving it.  John L. Parker Jr., who wrote a 30-year-old book called Once a Runner – a book that’s become a cult classic and sold recently on eBay for $300 --has made the following observation:  “When you‘re a runner in training – and you’re doing it right --you are constantly in the process of ascending; you are better today than you were yesterday, and you will be better still tomorrow, next week and the weeks after that.”   Recording that progress on our computer or Day-Timer means that we can actually see how our body is improving in endurance and speed over time.  That knowledge and the satisfaction it brings are supreme motivators, and when there’s enough motivation to run, there will always be enough time to run.  Equally significant, measuring our progress gives us the confidence we need to succeed.  Once we begin closing in on whatever goal we’ve set for ourself, a hope will gradually transform itself into an expectation.  Then our race will become simply a celebration of our training.

Achievable -- We must believe in our ability to reach the summit of whatever mountain we’re trying to climb -- which is just another way of saying we must believe in ourself.  Here it’s important to note that becoming a steadily better runner is rarely, if ever, a matter of DNA, natural talent or innate ability.   Rather, it’s simply a case of how much time we’re willing to devote to a form of training called “deliberate practice.”  This is a term coined by psychologists to describe a goal-oriented, results-driven approach that involves a constant monitoring of progress over weeks, months and years, coupled with appropriate adjustments.  So perhaps for one of the few times in our life, we should focus on our potential rather than our limitations.  Then the only questions we have to ask ourself are: How badly do I want this, and how long and hard am I prepared to work to achieve it?  And if an 82-year-old runner named Ed Whitlock, from Milton, Ontario, is still able to run a 3:41 marathon, who’s to say what our limitations are?     

Relevant -- Now we come to the matter of establishing priorities, of putting first things first.  How important is running to us?  Is it important enough to cut seriously into our couch-sitting time, or get us up a half-hour earlier than usual on some mornings, or otherwise persuade us to consistently carve out the time necessary to log the weekly mileage that our training demands?  If the answers to such questions are yes, yes and yes, then nothing’s impossible and the impossible’s nothing as far as we and running are concerned.  Always when we’re running on a regular basis, and especially when we’re preparing for a specific race, we find ourself making choices.  At one extreme, we may simply opt to put running on the back shelf of our mind – at least temporarily -- and allow our target race to stand as a symbol for another of the countless objectives we’ve set over the years and failed to achieve.  At the other extreme, we’ll run that race, finish it in a time that makes us proud, and experience one of the most memorable days of our sporting life.  And if those special moments in time aren’t enough to convince you to stick with running as a permanent part of an active lifestyle, consider the growing body of research establishing that runners live longer than non-runners, enjoy a better quality of life, and do a more effective job of fending off Alzheimer’s.  Now there’s a triple-win that’s hard to beat.  Appreciate that and you’ll understand why it’s been said that we don’t stop running because we get old; rather, we get old because we stop running.

Time-based – We should always put a deadline on the achievement of whatever significant goal we may have set for ourself.  If we make that date sacrosanct in our mind, it will keep us moving in the right direction at a speed that spells progress and avoids injury.

That’s all for now, people.  Stay well and, above all, keep moving. 

Coach Stephen

Running a Gamut of Subjects

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been writing a series of short pieces on running for one of Canada’s daily newspapers, The National Post.  These pieces were done for inclusion in a weekly column called Each Coach, which is devoted to answering questions submitted by runners on whatever topics are of interest to them.

Here are some samples of the questions asked and the answers I provided, covering the following topics (in alphabetical order): Biomechanics, Foot Pain, Motivation and Nutrition.....

Question:  I completed the 15K Midsummer’s Night Run on Saturday in a 1:26:41 Personal Best and also coach running clinics.  I am primarily interested in better running technique, both for performance and injury prevention.  What do you recommend?

Answer:  Like most recreational runners, you’re probably extending your stride beyond your body’s center of gravity and striking the ground heel-first when you pick up speed.  This creates a braking effect and thus slows you down.  It also increases the force felt by your legs and knees, thereby putting you in harm’s way.  To maintain a midsole foot strike as you ratchet up your pace, focus on keeping your stride length short and generating speed from a more rapid leg turnover.  Right now, in all likelihood, your feet are striking the ground less than 170 times per minute.  The optimum number for elite runners is about 180 times. Match that and most of your concerns about biomechanics will disappear.

 Q: On my last run, the ball of my right foot started to hurt.  Any ideas on what would cause this?  I currently run about 90K a week.

A: The pain you describe is not uncommon among serious runners like yourself.  Its cause is repetitive stress on the affected area, often but not always following a sudden increase in training intensity.  Proper footwear can make all the difference.  You don’t necessarily have to change shoes so long as the ones you have provide sufficient room in the toe box to accommodate the swelling in your feet that’s caused by running.  But if your shoes are relatively light-weight with a minimum amount of cushioning in the forefoot area, you should consider store-bought insoles that provide extra cushioning just below the balls of the feet.  A last resort (because of their expense) would be custom orthotics.

Q:  How can I motivate myself to run in the mornings? I find it very difficult to get out of bed an hour earlier than my normal wake-up time for a run, but once I'm up and at it, I love it!  Any suggestions on how to avoid hitting the snooze button?

A: Use your imagination, and appreciate that self-motivation is all about winning the mind game. The night before your morning run, get your thoughts in order the same way you might lay out your running gear.  Don’t think about how you’ll feel when the alarm goes off.  Instead, imagine how you'll feel after completing your run, achieving your training objectives for the day, and moving a step closer to a Personal Best in your next race.  As you yourself have written, once you’re “up and at it,” you love it.  Focus on that single emotion as you drift off to sleep, and recapture it as soon as your feet hit the bedroom floor the next morning.  Who knows?  You may even wonder whether you should have gotten up a little earlier so you could have run a little longer.  

Q:  I ran a PB marathon (3:13:59), but it was really tough.  Basically I bonked right around 30-32K due to what my guess is a lack of nutrition (could only stomach 2 gels, had really bad stitches and eventually nausea).  I want to run a sub 3:10 marathon in New York, but am worried I might encounter the same problems.  How do you eat enough without getting GI distress during a race?

A: Determining an effective nutrition strategy for a marathon is a matter of testing and practice.  The objective is to be able to consume 40 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour – conveniently, quickly, and without the stomach distress you describe.  You can do that with a combination of energy bars or gels, sports drinks and, of course, everyday food items.  Here are some examples, each of which provides about 30 grams of the nutrient: a single packet of Power Bar gel, 500mL of Gatorade, a medium-sized banana, a granola bar, four Fig Newton’s, a quarter-cup of dates, and a handful of raisins.   Test yourself to find the mix of carb sources (as well as water) that works for you.   Specifically, make it your business to practice with different combinations on your long distance training runs until you’re satisfied that you’ve found the one that suits you best.

That’s all for now, people.  Stay well and keep moving.

Coach Stephen

Hill-Bent on Improvement

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

Hill Repeats are an integral part of most run-related training programs – and with good reason.  When done right and at least once a week for several consecutive weeks, they help improve all three components of effective running: endurance, stamina and speed. 

Like speedwork, a basic objective in doing Repeats is to increase VO2 max – that is, the amount of oxygen your body is capable of absorbing when under severe stress.  They are also designed to convince your brain that you can run through pain and maintain pace even when you’re in serious oxygen debt and your heart is pounding away at extremely high levels.   

Here is what’s involved:

Find a decent site – Look for a hill that ideally is 400 to 600 meters long, with a grade of 6 to 8%.  The shorter the distance within that range, the steeper the grade should be – and vice-versa.

Start with a proper warm up – Always run at a comfortable, conversational pace for one or two kilometres prior to your first Hill Repeat.  The purpose is to get your body ready for the unaccustomed strain of what’s to come, and, more specifically, to raise your heart rate to approximately 120 beats per minute – which, for most runners, is around 70% of Maximum Heart Rate (MHR).

Keep Effort Strong and Consistent – Do all your hill ascents as fast as you can and try to maintain the same pace with each repeat.  Allow yourself, however, to slow down as the hill steepens and speed up as it flattens out, all the while maintaining the same expenditure of effort.  En route you should be reaching levels of exertion that make it impossible to converse (at least a “9” on a perceived exertion scale of one to 10).   In terms of heart rate, this means that you’re in an anaerobic training zone of 90 to 100% of MHR.  This sharp elevation in heart rate, in fact, is the main purpose of the entire exercise.

Don’t Stop – Continue moving until you finish at least a complete circuit of each Hill Repeat.  When you reach the crest of the hill, immediately turn around and start jogging back down.  Your aim, on reaching the bottom of the hill, is to have your heart rate return to the aforementioned level of 120 bpm or thereabouts – which, as noted, is where it was (or should have been) when you completed your initial warm-up and began your first uphill run.  Rest only if you feel your heart rate has not yet dropped back to that level.  For those without a monitor, start back up the hill when you feel sufficiently rested to complete the run to the top at the same speed as your previous climb.

Compete Only with Yourself – Do the warm-up and cool-down runs to and from the hill site with any running partners you may have, but never forget that the Hill Repeats themselves are not a race.  Rather, they are a quality individual workout.  Attack and conquer the hill at your own speed; forget about trying to keep up with (or slowing down for) someone else.  But know that if along the way you’re not feeling some degree of lactic burn in your lungs and legs, then you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough to achieve the increase in VO2 max that is the desired end result of the training effort.

And Also...

Less important than the foregoing points, but nevertheless worth remembering, are the following:

Take Note of your Stride – As you make your way up the hill, you will naturally assume a shorter stride length that will have the mid-soles of your feet striking the ground directly beneath your body.  This, of course, is precisely the stride action that you should try to replicate on flat terrain.

Maintain Correct Form – Lean forward as far as you can without falling on your face.  But don’t bend at the waist.  Keep your body aligned from heel to head, with back straight, chest up, and hips in.  Bear in mind, as well, that your arms are always in rhythm with your legs; so when your leg turnover starts to slow down near the hill’s crest (as it invariably will), you should pump your arms faster to maintain turnover speed.  This latter point can make the difference between continuing to run and stopping.

Visualize a Flat Plane – The conventional wisdom is to gaze upward as you run, parallel to the surface of the hill.  This helps psychologically because it makes the grade appear less steep than it actually is.  However, if you’re near exhaustion, it also helps to look down every now and then, just to convince your brain that you’re still able to put one foot in front of the other.

Coach Stephen

The Need for Speedwork in Distance Running

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

To understand why speedwork – consisting of short, intense runs measured in meters -- should become an integral part of a training program for a race as long as a  marathon, you have to wrap your mind around an almost counter-intuitive thought.  Sure, they will help you run faster in your goal race, but that’s arguably not their primary purpose.  Perhaps more importantly, interval workouts will also serve to increase your VO2 max and improve your running economy,

With regard to the first of these benefits, U.S. coach Joe Rubio has written: “Short, high quality intervals significantly improve the heart’s ability to move energy-sustaining oxygen via the blood stream throughout the body, resulting in greater potential for improvement, and that’s the main reason you should do them, regardless of your target race distance.” 

And Greg McMillan, another American coach, highlighted the second key benefit of speedwork when he wrote that it helps you master the smooth, fluid motion of front-of-the-pack runners as they seemingly glide over a road’s surface. “As a result,” he said, “intervals effectively improve your running economy (the amount of oxygen consumed at a given pace), and improved running economy is very important in an endurance race.”  He then explained further:  “Think of it as getting better gas mileage – you can go longer before running out of gas.” 

In essence, then, speedwork provides physical gains that converge from two different directions.  It both increases the amount of oxygen that your body can absorb and at the same time reduces your body’s need for that oxygen.  The result is a win-win situation across the board.

Still another purpose of speed intervals is to duplicate your actual race experience by making you feel the same level of discomfort that you will feel in the final stages of the marathon or half-marathon that you plan to run.  The rationale behind this seemingly masochistic effort to court pain has to do with teaching your brain that you can run anaerobically for extended periods without putting yourself in harm’s way – and that you can recruit your fast-twitch muscle fibres in doing do.  In this latter sense, intervals parallel the work that long distance runs do in recruiting your slow-twitch muscle fibres. 

Like all aspects of training, however, speed intervals must be done right if they’re to have maximum impact.  To begin with, you must run each interval much faster than whatever your projected pace may be in your goal race – about 60 to 90 seconds per kilometer faster, in fact.  And under no circumstances (short of injury) should you slow down until you’ve completed the interval and are into a recovery phase.  Then you can simply jog easily or even walk in order to be able to take on the next interval at the same pace as the one before.

It’s essential that you maintain proper form and accelerate leg turnover, rather than over-stride, during the workout.  And, finally, use the intervals to practice techniques of concentration that will prove invaluable in the later stages of your goal race (repeating a favourite mantra, figuratively tying yourself to a runner in front of you, focusing on reaching a landmark up ahead, cadence counting your steps, etc.).

That’s all for now, people.  Stay well and keep moving.

Coach Stephen

Winning the Mind Game

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

None of us enjoys being wrong.  So if we truly believe we can never run a four-hour marathon, win in our age group or qualify for Boston, our mind will instinctively seek to confirm such negative thinking and thereby reinforce our doubts.  We’ll blur the line between “can’t” and “won’t,” between being truly unable to accomplish something and simply being unwilling to make the effort to do so.

Becoming a better runner is always a mix of polar opposites -- joy and disappointment, pleasure and pain, breakthroughs and setbacks.  Dwelling on the dark side means that, sooner rather than later, we’ll walk away from our potential and surrender any chance of closing the gap between what we are today as runners and what we could be tomorrow. 

It is imperative, therefore, that we find ways to eliminate the negatives in our thinking and replace them with a positive mental attitude. The process is simple.  We start by writing down whatever concerns and doubts we might have about our running.  Then we strike from the list any that have little or no apparent validity –  such as there’s no way I’ll ever be able to run a decent marathon; every time I push myself too hard, I get injured; I can’t find the time to do three training runs a week.  Finally, for those concerns and doubts that remain, we develop an approach to overcome them – consistently running out of gas after completing 14 or 15 kilometers in training dictates that we review and improve our nutrition and hydration strategy; worries about re-injuring ourselves after recovering from shin splints or a hamstring pull mean that we begin each workout cautiously, warm up thoroughly, and back off our pace at the first sign of discomfort; concerns about a calf pain that just won’t go away mean that we stop running for three or four days, engage in some serious cross training and strengthening exercises in the meantime, and see a sports medicine professional if the pain is still there when we try to run again.

Bottom line, the mind-strengthening process starts with belief in ourselves.  Beyond that, there are an additional seven techniques, or tools, that we can use to develop a mindset that will make all the difference to our future as runners.....

Commit to Meaningful Goals – In preparing mentally for success in running, it helps

immeasurably to latch on to well-defined goals that, over time,  are increasingly ambitious in nature, reasonable yet challenging for you at any given point in time, and important enough to be given a priority somewhere below family and job but well above Internet surfing, TV viewing, and relaxing over a latte’ at your local Starbucks.  As well, if you keep your eye primarily on improving your performance as a runner and are willing to commit yourself to a results-driven form of training called “deliberate practice,” there is literally no end to what you might be able to accomplish.

Know that It’s not Just Exercise -- The mind-strengthening process also involves an understanding of the critical difference between training and exercise.  Walking the dog is exercise.  So is strolling on a treadmill or splashing around in a pool with you nieces and nephews.  It’s not training.    When you train, you run when you’re supposed to, barring injury or a serious scheduling conflict, not when the weather’s nice or the spirit moves you.  No kidding.  No excuses.

Pay the Price of Improvement – You toughen the mind by making the tough decisions – several times a week and countless times during the training cycle.  The alarm goes off at 6 a.m.  Are you getting up to run a scheduled 6K before getting ready for work?  Or are you pressing the snooze button and going back to sleep?  You’ve got a long distance run in the a.m. tomorrow but you’re at a party tonight.  Do you have another drink and stay another half-hour, or do you leave now because you know you’ve had enough?  You’re in the midst of a tempo run and feeling the pain of a pace you’re trying to maintain.  Do you run through it, or simply slow down?  You’ve got a 16K on tap for this morning, but it’s raining cats and dogs and shows no sign of letting up.  Do you run or re-schedule?  And so it goes.  The more you opt to do what you know is right rather than easy, the stronger your mindset becomes and the better prepared mentally (as well as physically) you become in your effort to achieve whatever your goals may be.

Write it Down – After every training session, record the results – distance, time, pace per kilometer, and anything else about the run that’s worth remembering.  Make week-to-week comparisons.  See the progress that effective training brings.  Feel your motivation and confidence growing as you move closer toward achieving whatever you’re looking for in your next race.

Know Why a Workout’s Important – In any effective training program, every run has a specific purpose.  You barrel up hills to improve VO2 max; you do tempo workouts to raise lactate threshold, and you run long distances at a controlled pace to make your body more efficient at metabolizing fat for energy.  Appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish and you’ll be more likely to bring your “A” game to every one of your training sessions – and that will translate into an over-arching confidence in your running ability and potential.

Focus on the Controllables -- Conserve mental energy and don’t sweat the stuff you can’t do anything about.  During the final week or days before an important race, prepare for -- but don’t agonize over -- the possibility of bad weather, the hills on the course, the long lines at the Port-A-Potties and hydration stations, the crowd of runners at the start line, etc., etc.   It might help, by the way, if you periodically recited to yourself the opening lines of the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Use your Imagination – Take your next major objective and visualize in your mind’s eye what it will be like when, not if,  you achieve it.  By way of example, write down in bold, black digits on an 8” X 10” sheet of blank paper the finishing time you’re projecting for yourself in your next race.  Then post the sheet on your refrigerator door, bathroom mirror or kitchen bulletin board – anyplace where you’ll see it every day.  And every time you see it, visualize one or another aspect of your Race Day.  See yourself in your mind’s eye standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a

couple of thousand other runners; hear the horn sound; visualize yourself running along the course, experiencing pain for the first time and running through it without pause; imagine yourself crossing the finish line with the overhead clock flashing the precise time you had set as your goal.  Sound silly?  If you think so, you couldn’t be more wrong.  Scientists have established with PET scans that the brain “sees” events in similar ways, whether they are real and actually taking place or are simply being imagined.  That’s why visualization has become the most effective mental technique available to convince the subconscious that a given objective is within your reach.  And, of course, it could hardly be easier to use.

Learn to Cope with Pain – What happens in that moment when you start to really suffer while running?  This is something the performance-minded among you have already experienced in training and in races.  At that point, fitness means very little.  How your mind handles the pain is all that matters.  Your first step should be to stop dwelling on the hurt and shift your attention to something you can control.  Focus first, for example, on your running form.  Stop bending at the waist and looking down at the ground.  Then check your breathing pattern and try to synchronize it with your stride cadence.  Or, more simply, breathe in for three seconds and out for three seconds.  Soon you’ll be so focused on form, cadence and breathing that you will have forgotten about the pain.  Again, it may sound like a superficial mind game, but it works.

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There you have it, people – seven tools to develop mental strength and self-confidence.  Use them liberally and they’ll make you a better runner on Race Days and for as long as the sport remains a part of your life.

Coach Stephen

Obey the Rules, Reap the Benefits

Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:

Check the pulse of your training, if you would, and ask yourself a few simple questions: Are you wearing the right shoes (you’re probably not if you bought them anywhere but at a specialty running store)?  Are you eating well (lots of complex carbohydrates – fruits, vegetables and whole grains)?  Are you doing your running at a controlled, conversational pace (instead of ending each workout at the edge of exhaustion)?  If your answers are yes, yes and yes, you’ve already started building a protective wall against injuries.  Now finish the job by following the eight rules of injury prevention listed below.  Doing so will get you to your goal race healthy, fit, and ready to perform at your best.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

The easiest way to get injured is to try to do too much.  Everyone has an injury threshold.  That threshold may be measured in kilometres per week, pace per workout, frequency of training sessions, or a combination of all three.  And just because you may not have reached your threshold yet doesn’t mean it’s not there.   That’s why, in the final analysis, the principle of rest and recovery must be an integral part of any training program.  Muscles, joints and soft tissue need time to mend and grow stronger after a hard workout so they can handle the demands of an even more challenging bout of training going forward.  Rushing that process short-circuits the cycle of breakdown and build-up, and puts the body at risk.   That’s why you should limit your hard workouts (such as Long Distance and Tempo runs, Hill Repeats and Speed Intervals) to three a week and cap your increase in total mileage at 10% from one week to the next. 

Listen when Your Body Talks

Usually, injuries suffered by runners are neither abrupt nor dramatic.  They signal their approach with aches, soreness and pain that’s unlike anything you may have felt before.  If and when that pain reaches a point where it increases in intensity as you run or forces you to change your gait, you should take a few days off, resort to the “RICE” treatment (see below), and engage in cross training activities like swimming or cycling.  The idea is to continue to strengthen your heart and lungs while giving your skeletal system a break.  After three or four days, resume your run-related workouts if you’re able, but at a slower pace than before.  Then, during the balance of a ten-day period, try to gradually ease back into the demands of your regular training.  Obviously, if the pain continues or just gets worse after that, a visit to a sports medicine professional would be appropriate.

Function follows Form

In a recent email about biomechanics (entitled “The Right Way to Run”), the point was made that a shorter stride, more rapid leg turnover and midsole strike can have a dramatic and beneficial impact on your energy efficiency and thus maximize performance by greatly improving your running economy.  Such changes in running form can also help you avoid injury.  The shorter the stride, the lighter the impact on landing – which means less wear and tear on your working muscles.  And the flatter foot strike that naturally results from a reduced stride length virtually eliminates the skeletal misalignment caused by excess pronation (i.e., inward rotation of the foot).  It was once thought that changing your stride was as difficult as changing your fingerprints, but recent research has disproven that view.  You can kick-start the process by shaving 10% off your normal stride length and increasing leg turnover accordingly during a portion of each of your workouts.  Then you could gradually expand the effort from there, until the shorter stride became a natural part of your biomechanics in all your training sessions.  A positive result would prove to be a win-win all around in terms of injury avoidance and performance improvement.

Get Hip to Effective Stretching

Evidence is mounting that most below-the-waist injuries (to the Achilles tendon, knee, hamstrings, etc.) can be attributed to weak hip stabilization muscles.  So act proactively to strengthen your hip abductors and adductors as well as glutes by engaging in what’s called dynamic stretching both before and after a run.  The effect over time will be to increase leg stability all the way down to the ankle. 

On point here are warm up exercises that target the muscles used for running – leg pendulum swings, walking lunges and the like.    Then you should add a few minutes of jogging, first with an exaggerated knee life and then while kicking your heels up to touch your buttocks.  [For detailed descriptions of dynamic stretches, google runnersworld.com/ADynamicRoutine.]

By the way, if you’re going to do any traditional static stretching at all, do it independently of your running and focus on the hamstring and calf muscles.  Because these muscle groups tend to tighten with consistent running, conventional stretching can be applied to increase their flexibility and range of motion, thereby making them less injury-prone than they would otherwise be.

RICE Is More than Just a Food

The acronym, RICE, is familiar to all veteran runners.  It stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation – and it’s the preferred option for the immediate treatment of muscle and joint pain.  The process promotes healing by easing the pain, reducing any swelling, and protecting damaged tissue.  Most importantly, it prevents minor aches and soreness from escalating into a major injury.  The sooner and more frequently you apply RICE, the better.  You should first do it when you return home after the hard workout that gave rise to the pain initially.  The treatment itself could hardly be simpler.  Just fill a Ziploc bag with ice cubes and water, wrap it around the affected area with a belt or, preferably, an Ace compression bandage, and prop the injured extremity on a pillow while lying down.  The ice should be applied for 20 minutes, removed for 10, and then applied again for 20 more minutes.  Repeat the process the next evening while taking a day of complete rest in your training.  Then continue with the icing for as many days as necessary until the pain dissipates or disappears -- or until you decide it’s time to visit a sports doctor.

Cross Training with a Purpose

I believe in cross training, and with good reason.  It provides an opportunity for active recovery on days between the hard workouts prescribed in our clinic program, and it keeps your body balanced by maintaining the strength and elasticity of key muscle groups that are of secondary importance in endurance running.   The simple truth is that your muscles, joints and connective tissues grow weary from the cumulative impact of thousands of foot strikes over the course of a week.   So they welcome the relief of non-weight bearing activities such as swimming, cycling, elliptical training, and rowing.  All of these offer a much-needed measure of injury protection while improving your aerobic fitness – a pairing of goals that is critical to any training effort.  There is also a very important place for cross training during any post-injury recovery period.  In fact, cross training is a much better bet than complete rest if you want to perform well on Race Day.

Of Surface Importance

You live in a city, so the world in which you run is made up largely of asphalt and concrete.  These are far from ideal surfaces when your feet are pounding away at a rate of 160 to 180 times a minute and creating impact forces equal to three times your body weight.   Is it any wonder that lower-extremity injuries are more common among runners in urban areas than in the countryside?

No one is suggesting that you move to the sticks so that you can more comfortably feed your running habit.  But you can take simple precautions.  On your visits to relatives in smaller communities or rural areas, look to run more on dirt trails or bike paths   And if you have access to a gym, consider doing your solo runs during the week on the soft mat of a treadmill.  Finally, when you are running your usual routes on concrete sidewalks or asphalt pathways, think about moving onto any adjacent dirt or grass.  The key is to find soft and level surfaces.  Your knees, calves, shins and feet will thank you for it.

...And Last but Not Least

There are several sources of discomfort that can make the training experience more difficult than it has to be.  Heading the list are probably foot blisters and skin chafing.  You can avoid the first by making sure your shoes are the right size and also allow for some expansion of the feet during long-distance workouts.  Another way to combat blisters is by wearing non-cotton, double-layered socks.   As for chafing, which can be a special problem in cold and wet weather, the preferred treatment is with a skin lubricant called Body Glide – a product that’s available at Running Room and most specialty stores selling athletic wear.

Coach Stephen