Consistency is Key
We have now been without track season for two months. My father woke up this morning for our morning run and said that this would be the week of league for the Kansas high school season. Although it seems like we've been waiting a long time, we may patiently await the return of the competitive season for months more.
My father was reading an article to my brother this morning about KSHSAA's plan for cross country. They seem to be optimistic that cross country will be able to occur, but it may look much different than what we are used to, or have a delayed start date. To read about the discussion you can see the article, "Q & A with Fran Martin on the 2020 Fall Season."
So, the overarching question is, what does this mean for our training plan?
I personally feel as if I have completed most of a build-up of base training for cross country, and if we're lucky, the championship races for the collegiate cross-country schedule are still nearly five months away (the national championships take place in November).
Many of my teammates felt it may be nice to have a change of pace, so as a team we have decided to work a brief period of speed work in for the next month or so and end it with some time trials. Having these time trials in mind will give us a sense of what kind of pace we will be working on during our track workouts. Following this we will take a break for recovery and head into cross country training, with more tempos, less track workouts, hills, and some longer runs.
This has been my training for the past two weeks:
Before each run I perform a glute and hip activation routine to help avoid injury. I also encourage myself to stretch. During dead week and finals week, our coach is not allowed to write us a training plan, so we train based on how we feel.
April 27th - May 3rd: Academic Dead Week (preparation for finals).
Monday: 12 miles
AM-8 miles
Post run: Core
PM-4 miles
Post run: Strides, in-home gym routine, and stretching
Tuesday: 9 miles
Warm up: 3 miles
Choice Workout: 12 x 400m, with full recovery
Cool down: 3 miles
Wednesday: 10 miles
MW long run
Post run: lower lumbar stabilization, stretching
Thursday: 12 miles
AM-8 miles
Post run: core
PM-4 miles
Post run: Strides, in-home gym, and stretching
Friday: 9 miles
Warm up: 2 miles
4 x 1-mile at slightly faster than tempo place
2.5-3 minutes recovery between each
Cool down: 2 miles
Post run: stretching, core
Saturday: 12
13-mile long run
Post run: stretching, lower lumbar stabilization drills, core
Sunday: Optional Off Day
Easy 5-mile run, stretching
May 4th- May 10th: Academic Finals Week
Monday: 12 miles
AM-8 miles
Post run: core
PM-4 miles
Post run: strides, stretching
Tuesday: 10 miles
Warm up: 2 miles
5-mile tempo
Cool down: 3 miles
Post run: stretching, in-home gym
Wednesday: 10 miles
MW long run, nice and easy
Post run: 10 min. core, stretching
Thursday: 13 miles
AM-9 miles
Post run: Core
PM-4 miles
Post run: Strides
Friday: 10 miles
Warm up: 3
8 x 1k with 2.5-3 minutes recovery
Cool down: 2 miles
Post run: stretching, in-home gym
Saturday: 14
14-mile long run
Post run: stretching, 10-min core
Sunday: Optional Off Day
4-mile shake-out, lower lumbar stabilization
When doing all this base-training and being away from our coaches, one thing I have tried to keep at the forefront of my mind is to not get greedy and to prioritize doing all the little things to help myself stay healthy. It's important for me to train ideally, and not over train, or under rest. I have my coach a phone call away, but she can't see me every day. She can't say "you look tired, let's cut this rep," or "take this Sunday off for sure," so it's up to me to make these choices.
I think this meme accurately represents how many runners end up in a worse injury situation. Most of the time, we don't want to believe that pain or discomfort we may be experiencing is, in fact, an injury (image found on Pinterest where I spend too much of my time).
If we can all make it out of this time injury free, the months of accumulative training will definitely help make us all fitter and could make for a very exciting year. Notice, there is an "if" in there. Sometimes we can do everything right and injuries happen, but there are some important drills and rules we can abide by from people who have worked in the sport for years to help prevent injury and keep our training consistent.
There are people who have worked in the sport much longer than I have been a runner and who have learned from years of experience. Some of the most important tips listed below I have borrowed from other coaches and exercise physiologists for preventing injuries. These tips are based on my own understanding.
Here are the rules I like to go by:
- The 10% Rule (or even better the 7% rule).This means never increase the amount of intensity you do or the amount of mileage you run by more than 7% of your previous week. So, for example, if I ran 40 miles last week, I would not want to run more than 43 miles the following week.
- Never increase intensity and volume at the same time.If you increase your volume, don't increase the amount of speed work you do or vise versa.
- Take care of the little things.This means stretching, sleeping, getting enough to eat, and doing injury prevention strength training.
- Just as important as not overtraining, is not under resting.This means that if you're going to train hard, it's just as important that you take the time to recover.
- "I would rather be 5% undertrained than 5% over trained."This means if I am debating whether I can train harder, I want to error on the side of caution. If I become injured, I can't take advantage of any of the gains I have already made.
- Long runs are no more than 20% weekly volume and never more than 2 miles longer than previous long run.This one pretty much speaks for itself.
- Rest at the first sign of injury.So, does this one.
- Don't run with bad pain.As runners, we know pain is a normal part of the sport, but for me, it has been important to recognize the difference between when pain is an indication that something is wrong or when it's normal.
This was a pain scale I used to refer to, I found from a blog by Phoebe Wright. If you have any pain at all, it's important to consider whether it warrants rest (imagehttps://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt264f.htm,where a nice interpretation of each of the numbers can also be found).
I have had three injuries in my career that have caused me to take more than a week off. After two of them, I really worked on "pre-hab" and strength training.
My junior year in high school I had a very pesky case if iliotibial band syndrome (IT band). It kept me from completing any runs over 20 minutes without pain, so much of my training switched to being interval or sprint related during this time, or just rest. During this time, I also addressed weaknesses and imbalances in my hips and IT band by doing about 10 minutes of drills, which focused on strengthening these muscles 3-4 days/week. The drills are what ultimately helped me to strengthen the muscle and end the irritation I was feeling in the IT band near my knee. Going forward, to continue to address the weakness/imbalance, I am sure to switch sides when running on a dirt road, as the roads are cambered and can lead to imbalances. I continue to incorporate drills which strengthen my IT band and hips into my daily post-run exercises.
The second injury I acquired was in my knee during my freshman year of college. While lifting at home one day over Christmas break, I moved my knee in just the wrong way and strained some of the muscle tissue in my knee. While I could run through this injury to a point, it wasn't showing any pain reduction or improvement. This was also after a long freshman cross country season, and I was very tired. For this injury, rest was the ultimate answer. I rested and cross trained for just under two weeks, and redshirted my indoor season.
This past winter, I had major back pain which affected my stride in early January. I found out that I had a bulged disk in my lower back. While this was a bit of a fluke and not degenerative or even related to training, this showed me how important it would be to have a strong core and learn to stabilize my lower lumbar. I would learn to stabilize my lower lumbar through strengthening my abdominal muscles and pelvic floor muscles, hopefully allowing me to have a more ideal posture to prevent further irritation in my low back.
The main take-away from sharing about these injuries is that two of them were more manageable and preventable with smart, body-weight strength training. Additionally, through all of these injuries, I have had wise coaches, and an excellent training staff when in college, guiding me through the process of returning to my previous training.
It is also important for us to be aware of our imbalances and weaknesses and to address them before they take away from out consistent training. Our team does activation now before every run because we noticed that many people were experiencing weakness. My trainer Tyler Patterson also has helped many of us address our weaknesses through programs like Fusionetics and what we like to call "Back school" for lower lumbar stabilization.
If you're interested in incorporating some of these "little things" into your summer training plan to help with injury prevention, I am planning to share the Iowa State Women's activation routine, as well as some of Girard High School's shin-splint prevention drills. I will probably throw a few of my personal favorites in too, so see next week's blog!
If we can all prevent injuries and keep our training consistent, then I can't wait to see what the next season holds. To keep my training consistent, I know that it is important for me to take care of the little things, because as Coach Amy says often "take care of the little things, the little things add up to become big things."