Tag Archives: Marathon training

The Chicken or the Egg?

24 October 2012

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A question I get asked every time I start with a new running client is, “Do I run before I lift or lift before I run?”

Basically, the “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” question for runners.

Apparently, this guy is running the NYCM, too.

The general school of thought is that you do your primary exercise before your secondary if you are doing them back-to-back like I often do. Theory: you don’t screw up your form by having tired, overworked muscles and you get a proper running workout (your primary goal) before you hit the weights.

I tend to think there’s a better way to go about doing a double.

 

  1. Split your workouts into morning and night. I still recommend running first.

    Dawn Patrol running in Central Park. My favorite time to run.

  2. Do your serious (heavy/hard) leg workout on a day that you don’t run at all.

    Leg workouts are serious business & need their own special day of the week.

  3. Lift on a cross-training cardio day, like one when you swim or spin for cardio training instead of running.

    Spinning = VO2 max training = faster runner. It’s science.

  4. If you must do it back-to-back, do a dynamic leg workout following your run–plyometrics. That way, your muscle fibers are consistently doing one form of exercise.

    Running = jumping, so keep the same muscle fibers active in the gym & JUMP to avoid injury.

  5. Only do upper body lifting on a double day.

    Strong runners have strong upper bodies. Don’t ignore the other half!

Overtraining is the main cause of injury in runners. Don’t be “that guy”! Rest, recover, spread out your workouts throughout the week. But whatever you do, be sure to get your strength training in so you can protect your joints and get to that start line!

Now go out and run!

Endurance Without the Mileage

7 September 2012

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The Marine Corps Marathon is a little more than 7 weeks away.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!

Ready to rock my Team Fisher House gear & get my medal!

But I’ve only been back running for 3 months now. That whole surgery thing in May set me back a ways in my marathon training. Soooooooo, what’s a gal to do when she’s committed to running a marathon, for a charity no less, in 7 very short weeks? Suck it up and train smart.

Starting back, I started slow and short. My friend took me for my first jog around the block when I felt ready. I broke exactly zero records on that and just about every run to follow for the past 2 months or so. Only in the last few weeks have I started feeling like myself.

Slow. Heavy. But more like Abby Who Runs instead of Abby Who Just Had Surgery. Progress!

Run, run, run as fast as you can! Can’t catch me, I’m the cupcake woman! Admittedly, I don’t really have cupcakes all that often, which is sad but true.

My first concern was Rosebud. After that, it’s hydration. Then it’s my legs. And finally, my endurance.

My mental game is there. I struggled mentally with my first marathon back in 2003 but kinda got the hang of it after that. My game is primarily about endurance. And since I haven’t had much time to build endurance, I’m doing it in a rather unconventional way.

I’m running, yes, but I’m spinning. Like, twice a week and on days that I’m running and the day after a long run. And I’m lifting twice a week in addition to the 4-5 days a week of running.

Lord help me, it’s been a beastly hot summer! Check the “glow” (= massive sweat).

I’m doing this for several reasons:

  1. One of my favorite Flywheel instructors is finally back from the Hamptons. Finally.
  2. I need to train for the time, but not necessarily the mileage, to increase my endurance without getting injured.
  3. I want to get stronger but I really can’t afford to add more run workouts.
  4. I feel safe to push hard on the bike and in a gym.

A typical week looks like this:

Sometimes I decide not to run and I take a nap. It happens.

The spinning and the track workouts have definitely made a HUGE difference in my ability to add mileage in short period of time.

The other thing I do is mandatory take-down weeks once a month. I add mileage to my long run every week and then, after the third week of adding, I drop down. For example, the past 4 weeks have gone like this:

  • 8/19: Battle of Brooklyn 10-miler
  • 8/27: 14 miles
  • 8/3: 16 miles
  • This weekend: 13 miles
  • Next weekend: 18 miles

This allows my body to take a break from all the adding on and have an easier, shorter long run every few weeks. We’re all about finishing here! No records being broken.

Well, maybe the shortest time from colectomy/ileostomy to marathon? Nah. Probably not.Anyway, if you’re in a hurry to go from nada to marathon (and have done a marathon before), this is a good way to add the mileage without breaking your legs. Works for me!

Now go out and run!

Go the Distance

14 August 2012

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First off, thank you all for your kind words of encouragement yesterday. It’s overwhelming to receive such an outpouring of support from so many and I’m grateful for each and every one of you who read, commented, and “liked” my “coming out of the bathroom” post. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me–it has! Five pounds of colon, to be exact :)

Colon-free and kicking ass!

Now when I go to wipe my face with my shirt in Central Park, I won’t be so shy about Rosebud showing because all of you will be like, “What? It’s just an ostomy. NBD.” (No Big Deal for the short-hand illiterate like myself)

This past weekend, I ran NYC’s Summer Streets with several of my lululemon friends and family. We ran about 13 miles down and over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was glorious!

This is actually from last year, but you get the idea. Awesome views from the bridge!

As we trekked down Park Avenue with several hundred other runners, we chatted about life, running, training, and what-not. The miles ticked on by and before we knew it, we were turning around, barely winded and ready to head back uptown.

Grand Central Station, where did you come from? Only one mile left!

I haven’t felt so relaxed on a long run in ages! No bathroom break panics, no oh-my-God-it’s-so-hot-I-gotta-stop-before-I-die moments, no “are we there yet?!” moaning and groaning. Just 13 chatty, easy miles.

In order to go the distance of a marathon (or any other race), you gotta go the distance in your weekly workouts. Long runs aren’t meant to be speedy, they are meant to be long. I have a strict rule that I must feel good at the end of a long run, not dead dog tired.

Save the speed for your Yasso 800s and tempo runs. Save the marathon goal pace workouts for the middle of the week. Save the sprinting for the finish. Use your long runs to go long, go easy, and finish feeling like you could have gone longer.

That’s how Kara Goucher trains. And we all wanna run like Kara, don’t we? (again, I have to credit Erica for this awesome photo)

Matt Fitzgerald over at Competitor Magazine found that most elite athletes do more than 2/3 of their workouts at significantly slower than race pace. The goal is to run and keep running.

“Studies on the training intensity distribution of elite runners have found that most elite runners run at low intensities most of the time. For example, a survey of male and female runners who competed in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Men’s and Women’s Marathons revealed that the men did almost three-quarters of their training slower than their marathon race pace, while women did more than two-thirds of their training at slower paces.”

Sum it up: No burn out.

Promise you, this is the way to train for your marathon and enjoy training for your marathon. After all, it is the journey, isn’t it? What are you waiting for, grab a friend and hit the road!

One handed! Peanut will be my running buddy very soon. And from the looks of it, my shopping buddy, too!

Now go out and run.

Train Your Brain

8 August 2012

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A few weeks ago, I had the chance to bug the hell out of chat with my cousin’s boyfriend who happens to also be a med student at Brown headed for a very successful career in orthopedic surgery. I have high hopes for a very successful mutual business arrangement with him in the future. IF I can convince them to move to NYC, that is.

Never gonna happen, but we can have really nerdy conversation about tendons and stuff at family gatherings. That’s right. We’re the cool table.

Dear Anyone Else in Scrubs,
Beware of me. I will ask you questions all night long.
xo
Soon-to-be Dr. Abby, DPT

I had about a million questions I wanted to ask him (I restrained myself) but he had one for me, too.

“How much of running a marathon is mental and how much is physical?”

JB’s answer was 80% mental, 20% physical. I disagree slightly with those numbers. For me, 20 miles is physical. For 20 miles, my training will show. My speed workouts, my long runs, my 13-16 weeks of training will be out there for everyone to see.

Game face. Kinda struggling.

Same spot, 3 years later. Feeling much better, wouldn’t you say?

My training makes all the difference when it comes to how I’m feeling at mile 20. After that, all bets are off.

Then mile 21 comes along. And 22. And here comes my mental game. Because, no matter how hard I’ve trained or how many miles I’ve logged, at mile 20, I am bored. I am tired. I am ready to be done. And yet, I have almost another whole hour of running to go.

Miles 20-26.2 is where the difference between a 3:45 and a 4:00 time happens.

Miles 20-26.2 is where I stop smiling and start hunkering down.

Miles 20-26.2 is where I remind myself that I’ve done this 9 times before and I will do it again.

Miles 20-26.2 is where I visualize finishing.

Miles 20-26.2 are my mental game.

 

I start to envision my familiar running routes so I don’t psych myself out about how much further I have to run. I think to myself, “Self, you know what 4 miles feels like in Central Park. Pretend you’re on that run, not this one.”

I’m dreaming of a finisher medal somewhere around mile 24.

And I count down. And I finish.

My workouts make me fast. My long runs make me fit. My gym time makes me strong. But it’s all bubkis if my mental game isn’t there. So don’t get all caught up in the runs and focus on keeping your head in the game.

If finishing 9 marathons has taught me anything it’s that if I just keep going, I will eventually reach the finish line.

Now go out and run!

Friday Fitness Links: No Run-Off

6 July 2012

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I will never understand why Jeneba Tarmoh pulled out of the run-off against Allyson Felix for a spot on the Olympics team. Never. I mean, it’s her decision and all that but MAN! What a decision to make. What would you have done?

This week has been kind of a study blur for me. As it turns out, next week will be, too. And the week after that until the end of August. Oh well. So, here’s what I missed this week. You guys are probably totally caught up. Bear with me. There’s some cool stuff happening around town.

(Image courtesy of Runner’s World & your inner child)

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST: Ali’s awesome boyfriend Brian (who owns his own ad agency) put together this AWESOME display in NYC’s Rockefeller Center for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America to bring awareness to our crappy disease.

The shark is Crohn’s & Colitis, raising hell in my GI tract. Way to go, Brian!!!! (Picture shamelessly stolen from Ali’s blog because it is so awesome. Hope she doesn’t mind…)

There is also a really cool contest where you could win tickets to Newsies and dinner by taking a picture with the shark and posting it to Twitter with the hashtag #CCFAShark. If you win and can’t go, I will happily take your place :) This raises so much awareness for my disease, one that affects 1 in every 200 Americans, and I am thrilled that this display will be in Rockefeller Center for the month of July. If you stop by, tweet me (@Abby_NYC) so I can give you a shout-out!

Have a great weekend everyone! Good luck to Maggie (who is racing her first tri) and all the athletes at the NYC Tri this weekend. Who else is running? Has marathon training kicked off for you? How’s it going? The heat. Oh, the heat!

Now go out and run!