Taking 'down' weeks

Marathoners will know the feeling well. A week or so into the pre-race taper you feel very tired to the point of being totally exhausted. Even very easy runs seems like a struggle whereas just a few days earlier knocking out another brutual 22 miler seemed like a piece of cake. You wonder what on earth is going on.

I was remined of this feeling this week. After a good block of training including some long tempos and a fun 2hours 40mins with 6000feet of ascent at the weekend I'm taking a 'down' week and today I felt really tired, even running easily. Thats my body telling me that the last few weeks have been a good stressor and now I need to recover to take my fitness to the next level.

The body is very good at getting into a rythmn of handling hard work week after week. It learns to fool itself about its true level of fatugue. And in that fooling lies a potential elephant trap that most runners have fallen into at some point. Feeling invincible you keep pushing and pushing until you go completely over the edge and breakdown with illness or injury or worse still overtraining which requires a period of sustained rest to get over.

We all know that fitness comes from repeated cycles of stress and recovery to produce adaptation. So what can we do to give our body the best chance to adapt ? Regular 'down' weeks are a staple for many elite level runners and work just as well for club runners. Inefffect they serve as a mini-taper. The idea being to take quite a big drop in training laod for a week every 3rd or 4th week.

What does a big drop actually mean ? Well some runners will go for a 50% reduction in training load. So three weeks of 80 miles would be followed by 40 for example. Hard workouts would see a correspong drop in the volume of faster miles run (though you need to maintain the pace to keep the neural pathways ticking over). The temptation is to go for just a small reduction (usually induced by fear that less training = losing fitness) whereas if you are really taking a 'down' week then you should make it really down. The use that freshness for the next training block.

So ask yourself whether you have been running the same training for a while or reached a bit of plateau ? Then take a down week and recharge the batteries then take your training to a new level the week after.

Marathon Training w/e 14th sept - the last long run

This week was the 6th of my 8 scheduled marathon build up weeks and definitely fell into the two steps forwards one step back category.

A couple of easy days got last sundays 3x7km out of my system and then on wednesday I nailed my last long run. I mentioned at the start of this series of posts that I was going to be making my long runs more challenging this time round as just doing 30-40km at a moderate to steady pace wasn't giving me big benefits any more. I suppose this shouldn't be a surprise really. After repeating any training stimulus several times the body adapts and it ceases to be a stimulus ! This weeks long run had quite a bit of faster running in it and I'm looking forward to seeing how this translates into my ability to race the last 10k in Geneva.

The plan was to end the week with a less than flat out effort round the Bristol Half Marathon. Unfortunately doing drills on saturday I managed to tweak an adductor so spent a worried 48 hours clutching the ice pack. Its a classic compensation problem as result of piling on the training when the hip wasn't working properly. Fortunately the adductor is only a strain and i'm back running and a few easy days have also allowed the hip to clear up so all in all not a bad outcome ! On top of that my Saucony team mates Tom Payn and Ben Moreau finished 1st and 3rd and Bristol, just a shame I wasn't able to be up there with them.

Anyway last weeks training (at 6000ft altitude so paces about 5-7 sec/km slower than the same effort at sea level):

Mon 60 mins very easy + 40 mins easy
Tue 45 mins easy + 40 mins easy
Wed 2hr 17 (approx 38km) split 40 mins easy, uphill: 10 x 60sec fast / 90sec easy to burn off some fuel, 25 mins moderate, 25 mins MP into a strong headwind along the lake (bit of psychology for Geneva), 5 mins easy, 20 mins progressive with last 3km: 3:17, 3:14, 3:10 Solid effort and drinking water only - save the Vitargo rocket fuel for race day :-)
Thr 60 mins very easy
Fri rest and travel home
Sat 30mins, drills and aarrgghhhh ....
Sun off and ice

2 weeks to go and its a question of letting the body heal up now while keeping in touch with race pace so that the CNS doesn't forget what it needs to do come race day.

Recharging the batteries

After Torbay I put my feet up for a few days to make sure I was fully recovered. Its as much a mental as physical thing. Just switch off from running, focus on other stuff that needs attention and then come back recharged. It doesn't take long and is probably the most underestimtated component of most training programs !

This week i've eased back into things and I'm really looking forward to heading for the swiss alps next week to put in a block of aerobic work at altitude before moving into more specific marathon pace work in august. More on my marathon plans and training as I get nearer the race. Can't wait !

On the other side of the world the US Olympic Trials are in full swing. It was great to see my old friend Gabe Jennings win his 1500m heat last night and fingers crossed he can repeat his 2000 performance when he ran away with the final to get to Sydney. The US trials are such compelling viewing because of the winner takes all rules. First 3 in the final with qualifying time are on the plane. No if, buts or selectors opinions. Black and white. And that makes box office.

Here there have been plenty of encouraging performances from our athletes in the run up to our trials though the big news seems to be off the track yet again with Dwain Chambers going to court to try and overturn the BOA ban on convicted drug cheats representing GB & NI at the Olympics. I have little sympathy. He knew the rules and chose to cheat so he must live with the consequences of his decisions.

Now, where's my passport and SPF25 ?