Training
Frequency Matters More than Intensity. For Workouts & Happiness
How hard do we need to go in a workout? Do we need to push the bounds of fatigue, get our athletes to experience a new level of discomfort, ‘shock’ the system with a new stimulus? It’s a question I ponder often. One we could answer by diving into the world of stress and adaptation,…
Read MoreHow difficult should your hard workouts be?
When I was competing in high school, my teammates knew the drill; always have a trash can nearby. It didn’t matter whether it was a small race or a hard workout; chances were I was going to throw up afterwards. It simply occurred, regardless of any modifications in my diet or drinking habits. As a…
Read MoreThe 5 Rules of Training
Rule #1: The boring stuff is your foundation We have a temptation to want to skip to the ‘cool, sexy’ stuff. It’s boring to do endless easy runs or to spend hours working on the starting position in the sprints. But the ‘boring’ work serves as our foundation. We need to have a firm understanding…
Read MoreAfter a breakthrough, you should back off, not press forward
20 x 400 meters. Working from 61 all the way down to 50.1. That’s 50.1 for his 20th 400m, and he went through the first 200m in 23 high. This mind-blowing workout comes from the log of Alan Webb. It was during his American Record (3:46-mile) season and occurred 2 weeks before he traveled…
Read MoreOvertraining: Three Strategies to Reset Your Body
Overtraining is one of those nebulous catch-all terms that coaches and athletes fear like the plague. After all, with highly competitive and slightly obsessive compulsive runners the issue is not in in prodding them to do more work, but instead in holding them back just enough to keep them from reaching into this unwanted zone…
Read MoreHow difficult should your hard workouts be??
How difficult should your hard workouts be?? When I was competing in high school, my teammates knew the drill; always have a trash can nearby. It didn’t matter whether it was a small race or a hard workout; chances were I was going to throw up afterwards. It simply occurred, regardless of any modifications in…
Read MoreUncertainty: Why You Need to Add it to Your Workouts
When we venture down to our local track and prepare for our evening interval workout, we know what the workout is going to be down to how many intervals we are going to run, how fast, and how much recovery we will take. Furthermore, even if we have a coach, we have some control over…
Read MoreThe Simple Principle of Training
There’s a simple message that I learned from a grad school professor, Charlie Casserly, about coaching. Learn a lot but then simplify. People often use the old coaching adage of “keep it simple stupid,” to mean that too much information is bad. That you shouldn’t complicate the act of coaching. There’s a crucial mistake in…
Read MoreThe Simple Principle of Training: Build, Maintain, Connect
Training is Simple: Are you Building, Maintaining, or Connecting? That car you have sitting in your garage is a complicated piece of machinery. If you aren’t a “car guy” you couldn’t even imagine how to build one from the ground up. It’s a task reserved for those who have honed their skills and craft, having…
Read MoreThe East African vs. American Mindset to Running: Volume or Quality
If you are a runner, you know the scene. You and your friends make it back to the parking lot, look down at your watch and it says 8.96 miles. Inevitably someone starts doing mini circles around the car until that number flips over to 9.00. It’s crazy, illogical, and makes little sense. I’ve…
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