One of the biggest mistakes we all make is training too hard. That’s counter-intuitive, right? Slackers don’t win… Go hard or go home… Blood, sweat & tears (in that order) makes you a winner… All the mantras drilled into us by second rate US sports movies. Well, fact check… it’s rubbish!
Balance
Now I’m not advocating you lace your trainers up then sit on the sofa watching re-runs of Chariots of Fire every time you have a run scheduled or spend your interval session leaning on the rail at the track watching everyone else put the effort in, but… There’s a balance needed. There’s a place for that killer interval session, brutal hills or a knee trembling tempo run, but they need to be spaced out, complemented with nice easy runs, rest and recovery.
I see it quite often when recreational runners start to train for a particular event. They’ve been ticking along running socially perhaps two or three times a week and maybe throwing in a track session or a slightly harder midweek run every now and again. Perhaps one in five of their runs is ‘hard’. Then they decide to be a bit more structured in their training. They read a blog online or download a generic training program promising to be ‘the ultimate half marathon plan’ or something and off they go. Suddenly they’re doing hills AND track AND a tempo run AND they’re running faster on their long run on Sunday*. All the runs they’ve added to their schedule are hard runs and some of the easier runs have been replaced too. Before you know it, 4 (or more!) out of 5 runs are ‘hard’. That takes its toll on the body and injury is likely just round the corner.
*Other days are available for your LSR
Easy Running
The legendary running coach Arthur Lydiard proposed the idea that the greatest volume of a runner’s training should be done at an easy pace. He also advocated very high volumes, which can be equally punishing for many and have been shown to have diminishing returns, but more of that in another post. This idea was picked up by Dr Stephen Seiler who’s study into empirical data concluded that most successful elite endurance athletes did about an 80% of their training at low intensity and 20% of their training at high intensity. This research was conducted across many sports including rowing, cross country skiing, swimming, cycling and running. This was the birth of the 80/20 rule and there’s been plenty of complementary research backing it up as a solid training foundation for elites and recreational runners alike. More than performance, though, following something like the 80/20 rule helps us non-elite runners avoid the perils of over training – injury, burnout, performance plateau, illness and fatigue – especially when we don’t have a team of experts around us, helping us to recover with massage, nutrition, physio and rest. And besides, just going for an easy run without a plan or a care is the most wonderful thing, especially if you can do it with friends.
Practical tips
So what can you do in practice to help you stay on track with 80/20 training? (without religiously logging miles and intensity on a spreadsheet… who does that?! 🙋🏻♂️). Well here’s some simple tips:
- Long SLOW Run. The clue is in the name. Make your LSR very slow. Chatty is good. Slower is better so take the opportunity to run with the next group back – don’t try to keep up with the one in front.
- Spread your sessions out. Hard sessions should have easy runs or rest days either side
- Don’t try to cram it all in. Perhaps do hills one week, track intervals the next.
- Talk to a coach about a tailored training plan