Source: Flickr (hardloperhans)

What can be done to improve your running? Many things involve significant effort and investment: interval workouts, tempo workouts, high(er) mileage, better nutrion, and recruiting a coach.

Sometimes we just look for something simple and easily understood to improve ourselves. If that’s you, here’s what you should consider.

1. Consistency

If there was only one thing you could pick to become a better runner, pick this! Running consistency is crucial.

How do you achieve running consistency? Run more often. Instead of running 8 miles 3 days a week, try running 4 miles 6 times a week.

We start to lose our fitness after 2 days off from running. It only gets worse each subsequent day you take off.

Instead of battling regression of progress with runs, provide your body with a steady stream of runs from which it can recover and steadily improve.

Think of it like this: if you were trying to fill a large container of water, one bucket at a time, would you rather have a big heavy bucket, but there is a hole in the container — or would you prefer a smaller bucket and a container which doesn’t leak?

I’ll take the smaller bucket. Easier trips and no waste!

If you’re already consistent with your running schedule, you still have room for improvement. Run doubles (running twice a day) if you can, even if one run is just 2 miles. This gives your body twice as many opportunities per day to heal.

2. Recovery

Recovery Food. After a run, you should plan to consume carbohydrates and protein as soon as possible, ideally within 30-45 minutes. Muscles rely on carbs for fuel. They rely on protein w/the carbs to stimulate faster glycogen replacement and optimize muscular repair.

You can get very specific with that grams of carbs and protein you should consume based on your weight and effort, however it’s best to start simple. If you’re not used to eating after a run, start by just having a healthy snack after the run which you know has carbs and protein in it.

If you want to dig deeper into nutrion, check out Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook. This is a comprehensive guide on sports and food.

Recovery Duration. If you’re beating your body up through quality workouts, you need to ensure proper recovery time between the quality bouts.

If you still feel sore or tired going into a scheduled “hard” workout, make it an easy day. You may not gain anything by forcing yourself through a mediocre workout but you risk quite a bit.

Take an extra easy day and let your body rebuild — after all, you get better at running when you heal, not when you break down.

3. Strides, added at the end of an easy run

Pick it up ( 1 mile to 5k pace) at the end of an easy run by running 4-8 quick strides, 30-45 seconds each. Make sure you jog easily between each stride to recovery fully.

Strides help keep the fast twitch fibers recruited even when you’re in a regimen of running easy every day. Strides also improve your running efficiency and form by stretching out your stride length.

As you run, focus on turning your legs over quickly (do not overstride), feeling relaxed (don’t clench your whole body like you’re going to impact a brick wall), and standing tall (you shouldn’t be hunched over).

4. 180 Steps Per Minute

Keep your stride rate at approximately 180 steps per minute. This is a simple method to determine if you are turning over your legs too slowly.

Regardless of how fast or slow you are running, you should be taking approximately 180 steps per minute. It is your stride length that should change, not the number of steps you’re taking for a given set of time.

To check, keep track of how many times your right foot hits the ground in a 30 second period and multiply it by two. If you’re not in the 85-90 range your leg turnover is too slow and you should improve it.

5. Mix up the surfaces you run on.

If you usually pound the pavement, find your way to a trail, if for only part of your run.

Do you insist on always seeing the forest surrounding you while you run? Try running on the roads to your favorite trail spot.

Your body adapts well to a single types of terrain. Changing up the terrain can improve your strength and flexibility while reducing the chance of getting injured (as long as you step over that tree root!)

What simple advice do you have for others to improve their running?

Source: flickr - beatkueng

There are defeats more triumphant than victories.

~Michel de Montaigne

There are many things you just won’t learn until you’ve gone and screwed up. This is why it’s so important to experiment and determine what works well for you.

It’s also prudent to remember that as time passes, what once worked well for you may no longer fit the bill. What better way to experiment than to make mistakes?

(1) Overtrain. Push yourself point the past of no return. Run too often, too far, and too fast to see what happens to you. Maybe nothing will happen and you’ll have learned something, or more likely you’ll understand what it’s like to overtrain.

Notice your desire to get out and run is dampened. Feel your muscles in a constant state of flux. Experience the nagging injury that you never let heal.  Your joints, bones, and limbs hurt. You keep getting sick. 

If you push yourself too far, you’ll begin to understand where your line is, and what it feels like as you cross it. With that knowledge you will be better prepared to respond to future tussles with that overtraining line.

(2) Push through the pain. When you feel a sharp pain, keep running, see if you can push through the pain. Maybe you’ll be able to, or more likely you’ll pull up limp with an injury.

If you’ve hurt yourself running before, you’ll do everything in your power to stop that from happening again. Perspective on the pain will help guide your actions.

Understanding your pain, specifically what type of pain your experiencing is crucial to running. Knowing when to pack it in and when to push through will keep you healthier and more injury free.

(3) Give up. You’re 2/3 of  the way through a tempo run and it hurts, you want to stop.

Quit, stop running, give up and walk.

See what happens to your mind when you give up. Do you feel guilty for your actions? Do you feel like you’ve cheated yourself out of a quality experience?

How does your body feel after you’ve stopped? Do you think you could have kept going or were you really at the point where you would have simply thrown up on yourself?

Perspective on giving in will make you stronger when the feeling arises again. You’ll remember what it’s like to give up and fight it.

(4) Use what works for others. You’re reading advice here, and most likely elsewhere on the web, in books, from elites, from your buddy, and perhaps many other places.

Everyone has a story about drills, workouts, food, race tactics, etc. which have brought them superb results. Copy them exactly and expect the same results — after all they did it and it worked.

Get baffled when you don’t get the same effect. Why is that? Why was someone else able to do something which had no effect for you? Was it because you’re a different person than they are?

(5) Race over your head. Try to run a marathon on very little training. Or a half marathon.

Sure you’ve only ever run a 5k at a local race, but how much longer is a half marathon anyway? Just sign up for a race, do what you can, and get your butt on the starting line for the run.

You’ll be surprised what your body is capable of.

If you can’t convince yourself to go that crazy, then go out hard in a local 5k — faster than you’d think sane and hang on. You’ll most likely wish you went slower, but what if you finish? What if you learn you’re capable of more than your expectations?

Go ahead and fail already.

Your fear of failure may be the biggest opponent you’ll face on your road to learning to run well. Don’t be afraid to flame out, as long as you learn. You may just stumble on something which truly resonates with you.

Now is a great time to become more of an expert on you.

I realize that anything written by McDougall comes with a ridiculous amount of hype but I think he may be bringing something very worthwhile to the table with his observations.

The goal of the exercise is to improve your form to a more evolution-tested method which will reduce injuries. Great running strides (no pun intended) are made through consistency. The only way to have the opportunity to run consistently is to minimize time spent injured.

There’s also a website up already with the HundredUp challenge if you’re into that sort of thing. It includes helpful information on the major and minor methods directly from the horse’s mouth.

Check out the video example of the exercise:

Have you done exercises like this already? Have you seen any benefit?

The 100-Up Exercise

By W.G. George, 1908 (from hundredup.com)

“…let me impress upon the student the necessity of maintaining perfect form in every practice, be it in the preliminary or the exercise proper. Directly the correct form is lost the exercise should stop. Beginners should start the exercise slowly and on no account strain or over-exert themselves. Hurried or injudicious training, or fast work while the system is unprepared for it, induces breakdown and failure. On the other hand, slow, well considered, steady practice is never injurious, while breakdowns are practically unknown among those who start their training slowly and who gradually increase distance, time or pace as the heart, lungs and the muscular system throughout grow accustomed to the extra strain and revel in it.”

Good advice from a century ago. As implied in the text above, George outlined two levels of the exercise, which he called “Minor” and “Major”. Here is the key text of the “minor” exercise:

“Draw two parallel lines along the ground, 18 inches long and 8 inches apart.
Place one foot on the middle of each line. Stand flat-footed, the feet lying perfectly straight on the lines. The arms should be held naturally, loosely, and except for a slight forward inclination, nearly straight.

“Now raise one knee to the height of the hip, and bring the foot back and down again to its original position, touch the line lightly with the ball of the foot and repeat with the other leg. Continue raising and lowering the legs alternately. The main thing to remember is correct action. See that the knees are brought up at each stride to the level of the hip if possible, or as near as possible to the point as can be managed … and that the body maintains its correct perpendicular.

The exercise at first sight looks so easy of accomplishment that one might well think it possible to go a thousand up. This is the result of not raising the knees to the prescribed height — the main point of the exercise — or of ‘galloping’ through a short-timed movement in incorrect form. Get a friend to watch at your practice and to correct any shortcomings in your leg action or poise of the body and you will find the difference. Correct form once attained, the exercise may be increased in severity by gradually working from 10 to 20, 30 to 40 and so on to the ’100-up’ at each session, and by speeding up the pace.”

I’ve tried both approaches a number of times and have found that I feel cooler and more comfortable sans shirt. There’s something about running with a wet shirt on that makes me feel heavy.

A cotton shirt, or other non-wicking shirt would obviously be atrocious, but if you’re using a normal wicking shirt the heat is still a burden.

The biggest objections I’ve found while researching the topic stem from whether people look disgusting who do it. Who cares what people look like while they’re out running? Is it their job to present something you’ll find beautiful?

There is little published research on the subject I can locate. Searches turn up only subjective accounts, like this one from letsrun:

Both actually say that a t-shirt is not enough to significantly raise core temperature over running shirtless, even in hot humid conditions. It does however greatly affect the comfort of the individual from their work.

 

The athlete/subject feels cooler but the core temp is not the same. In fact, one did mention that depending on the severity of the sunshine, a white shirt can actually contribute to lower body temperature over running shirtless.

 

Now, interestingly, both mentioned that some of the new wicking clothing actually does work to slightly, but significantly, maintain a lower core temperature while exerting in hot environments.

 

They work better than cotton shirts, and they work better than being shirtless (even though the shirtless stuff is not published yet).

Advantages of running shirtless

1. Feel the breeze pass over your body.
2. No chance of nipple chaffing on those long runs.
3. Less clothing – means less to carry, less to remember, and less to wash.
4. Get an even tan, if that’s your bag.
5. It feels cooler, and in your mind, that’s all that matter.

Disadvantages of running shirtless

1. Severe skin damage unless you cover up.
2. Lack of self-confidence if you’re not comfortable showing your skin.
3. Bugs. Your body is a human windshield with all that sweat.

This type of question probably applies more to men than women, and it’s surely subjective, but what do you think?

1. Don’t jar your body by landing on the heels.
2. Running should be a fun and beautiful dance.
3. Suffering isn’t everything.

Skip to 4:38 if it doesn’t go there automatically when you press play.

As an aside, it has been a long time since I’ve written anything. I plan to rectify that in the upcoming months and post on a more consistent basis.