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Anatomy of an Easy Day

April 10, 2017 by Jay Johnson

Most runners know that they can’t run hard every day. These runners know they need to recover from workouts and long runs with easy days. But what should an easy day look like? Is there a specific pace you should run? Should you run strides on easy days? Should you do core strength and stretching, and if so, how much?

To answer these questions, I’ve come up with my ideal model of an easy day.  

  1.  Warm-up

The warm-up is the first thing you do when you get out of your house or get out of your car. You want to get yourself moving in all three planes of motion for two important reasons. First, you’ve likely been sleeping or sitting prior to this run, so you need to remind your body that it’s athletic and can move in all three planes of motion. Second, even though running is primarily a sagittal plane activity, athletes who are capable in all three planes of motion are going to have fewer injuries. The Lunge Matrix (LM) gets you moving in all three planes of motion effectively and quickly, taking just 3.5 minutes to complete. Click here to see the Lunge Matrix. Following the Lunge Matrix you should do Leg Swings (LS). Click here to see the Leg Swings video. These two elements take a total of 5 minutes.

  1.  Easy Aerobic Run

This is simple. You want to run easy because you need to recover from a workout or long run. When in doubt, go slower than you think you should. You get the same aerobic stimulus running 9-minute pace as you would running 8-minute pace, but at 9-minute pace you recover quicker and are better prepared for the next hard day. While 8-minute pace and 9-minute pace are just examples, the overall point is that you can and should err on the side of running slower on your easy days.

Easy runs are important because you get oxygen rich blood to muscle cells that need to repair from the previous hard workout. Running easy helps you to maintain the aerobic fitness you’ve gained in the workouts. More importantly, it adheres to the Law of Specificity, which says that if you want to become good at a skill, you need to practice that skill. So to be a better runner you need to run. While there is a place for cross training in a sound running program, the majority of the time you want to go for a run on an easy day.

Quick side note: I think there is definitely a place for taking 2-3 weeks of “active recovery” once or twice a season, times where you would not run at all and instead hike, bike, swim, paddle, row, etc. for fun and recreation.

While most of my online clients have one day of cross training and one day where they go for a brisk walk, they also have easy running days assigned in their training.  

  1.  Strides

Strides are a “need to do, not a nice to do,” a term coach Vern Gambetta likes to say. Strides are non-negotiable in my training plan. You need to do strides on your easy days for several reasons.

First, if you do some strides at 5k pace the day before a long run or a workout at marathon or half marathon pace, your legs are going to feel better the next day at the start of that workout. There is a motor memory that your muscles have, and if you ask your legs to go faster the day before a workout, the pace of the workout will feel much more manageable. Your aerobic fitness should be high enough that the beginning of any workout should feel pretty good. However, if you don’t do strides the day before the workout or long run, you might feel sluggish, even if aerobically the workout should be easy. Said another way, we don’t want your legs to be the limiting factor on your workout day, so make sure you get in some strides the day before.

I like to see adult runners do their strides in the middle of their easy days. 5 x 20 or 30 seconds at 5k pace with 60-90 seconds of easy running between is the perfect stimulus to do two-thirds of the way into a run. If you’re getting ready for a 5k workout, then do the strides faster than 5k pace. That said, 5k pace strides are fast enough for most adults the day before workouts.

  1. Strength and Mobility (SAM)

Most runners aren’t as strong in their core and legs as they should be. Stronger runners are less prone to injury and strong runners can race faster. More over, doing some strength training immediately after running, which is called “concurrent training,” has been shown to improve mitochondrial density. So you’re becoming a better aerobic athlete when you do strength training immediately after your run.

Additionally, when you do strength work you get a hormonal stimulus that is different than you get running. Specifically, you upregulate testosterone and human growth hormone, both anabolic hormones. Anabolic simply means “building up.” Running is a catabolic, “breaking down,” activity. When you view running the through the anabolic/catabolic lens, it makes sense that you would want to do some strength training to complement your running.  

After each easy day I want to see athletes do Strength and Mobility work. What types of exercises should you do? That’s easy. Follow these exercises and you’ll gain strength and mobility – core strength, hip strength and hip mobility, aka Strength and Mobility, aka SAM.

Click here to watch SAM – Strength and Mobility – Core Strength, Hip Strength and Hip Mobility.

One question that I often get is “But won’t I be sore from doing this type of strength work on my easy days?” In the short term, yes. For a week or two you’ll be sore, both from the Lunge Matrix at the beginning of your run and from the SAM work. Soon, though, you’ll feel fine after this work on your easy days, although you may still feel soreness from the SAM work that you do after your hard days.

The mobility piece of SAM is simple – we want you to have good (great?) hip mobility. If you have a background in gymnastics or yoga, there is a chance that your hips are “hypermobile.” But for the vast majority of runners, their hips are tight. The SAM progression above addresses those issues. You’ll notice that the first part of each post-run SAM routine is challenging, as that’s the Core Strength portion. The next portion is focused on Hip Strength and that is challenging in the first few weeks, but will get easier as time goes on. The third part of SAM is comprised of easier hip exercises, which is the Hip Mobility portion. Most of the post-run SAM work takes 10 minutes and there is a gradual decrease in intensity from the first minute to the tenth minute.

Bottom line: If you do SAM work you’ll get stronger and you’ll have a lower risk of injury. Pretty good deal for adding just 10 minutes to your training.

  1.  Rope Stretching (aka – Active Isolated Flexibility).

I learned this approach to flexibility – rope stretching, also known as Active Isolated Flexibility (AIF) – from my good friend Phil Wharton.

The underlying principle is that all muscles work in pairs, so if you want to stretch the hamstring, you need to contract the quads. To do this properly you need a rope to assist you with the last few degrees of your range of motion.

This work isn’t sexy, but it’s really important and I want to see athletes do this as the final element of their easy day. Phil has a flexibility DVD/Download that has all of the exercises in one 40-minute routine. But when Phil and I produced the videos we knew we needed shorter routines as well. So there is a 20-minute and 10-minute “Quick Release” routine that are really about 15 minutes and 7 minutes, once you learn all the exercises. In my mind, this work is really 7 minutes on your easy day. Visit WhartonHealth.com to get all of the videos.

If you want to be the best runner you can be then you need to do rope stretching. It’s binary – you either do it or you don’t.

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda (Star Wars)

  1.  The length of the easy day.

This is simple. If you normally run 60 minutes on your easy day, I’m asking you to change your routine.

0 – 5 min: Lunge matrix and Leg Swings.

5 – 30 min: Easy running. When in doubt, run slower than you think you should.

30 – 43 min: Continue easy running, and now do your strides as part of the run. Have fun in this portion of the run, and know that you will likely feel better having done the strides than you felt leading up to the strides.

43 – 53 min: Do the assigned SAM work. Click here for the videos.

53 – 60 min: 7 minute “Quick Release” routine.

That’s it – the anatomy of an easy day!

Filed Under: Coaching, For Everyone, Training

Finish Your Marathon Strong: Part 1

February 1, 2017 by Jay Johnson

A question that came up in my recent survey was “How do I keep from bonking between 18-26.2 miles in the marathon?”

Great question. It highlights the crux of the marathon for both recreational and very serious marathon runners.

As you probably know, the body doesn’t have enough glycogen in the muscles and liver to finish a marathon, so the body has to utilize part of its fat stores to finish the race. This means everyone running the marathon has to figure out the best way to both get to the line fit and have a body that can utilize fat (aka lipids) in the final 10k of the race.

So this is a great question for the marathon, yet the same idea applies to shorter distances. How do I run the last mile of a 5k or 10k without slowing down? How do I run the last 5k of a half marathon without slowing down?

What makes the questions about the 5k, 10k and half marathon interesting is that 90% of runners would say they felt well in the opening kilometers/miles of the race. It wasn’t until the end that they felt like they couldn’t maintain pace, let alone speed up.

Today let’s focus on the following question. What does a well executed race look like for a variety of distances? Then next week we can discuss what the proper training looks like for these various distances.

Sound good? Great! Here we go.

Any race can be executed as an “even split” race, where the pace is the same throughout the race.

A negative split race means the second half of the race was faster than the first half. I think a negative split race should be the goal of your racing, yet this may be unrealistic in the marathon and half marathon for some athletes.

I like to see 5k runners break down the 5k into five individual kilometers. My instructions are to maintain a solid pace for the first three kilometers, grind out the fourth to maintain the pace, then speed up in the fifth. You will likely be pleased with both your finishing time and your place in the race if you execute that race plan.

The 10k is similar, but you might want to use miles. Maintain for five miles, grind out a sixth mile at the same pace (and this is going to be really tough), then have a kick – i.e. speed up – the last 200m of the race for a net negative split race.

Half marathons should be run conservatively for 10 miles, then grinding out the last part of a run, a 5k, at a pace that is faster than the first 10 miles. Again, this gives you an overall net negative split race.

I’ve coached runners who have been able to run their fastest miles of the marathon in the final 6.2 miles of the race. Unfortunately, I’ve coached more runners who have failed to execute the race plan of feeling good through 20 miles, then speeding up, as they ran just 5-10 seconds a mile faster in the first 20 miles of the race than we had agreed.

If you run too fast in the early miles of a marathon, you pay the price in the last 6.2. Perhaps this could be part of the problem for the person who wrote in?

If you want to run a good marathon, you need to be right on pace for the first 20 miles. Make it a 20 mile race, then try to run 3 miles faster, 2 miles faster then 1.2 miles faster. Even if you can’t speed up in that last 6.2 miles of the race, having that mentality will often keep you on pace and allow you to finish a race having run even splits.

So there you go, four ways to run four different races. Keep your eyes out for How Do I Keep From Dying At The End Of The Race? Part 2.

To get Simple Marathon Training on Amazon, click here!

Filed Under: For Everyone, Questions, Simple Marathon Training, Training Tagged With: marathon, Simple Marathon Training, Training

The Necessary Warm-Up for Runners

January 23, 2017 by Jay Johnson

Before your feet hit the pavement you need to warm-up. Most runners believe that the first mile is a warm-up, but getting ready to run by running isn’t ideal.

The necessary warm-up that will help your body prepare for the strain running puts on your body is the Lunge Matrix and Leg Swings.

The Lunge Matrix is rooted in Dr. Gary Gray’s work, with this Lunge Matrix designed specifically for runners.

The Lunge Matrix only takes 3 minutes and 30 seconds. You do this warm-up before you run. This warm-up gets you moving in all three planes of motion. Runners who do the Lunge Matrix before their workout have a much lower risk of injury because their body is properly warmed up prior to their workout.

Following the Lunge Matrix you need to do Leg Swings (LS).

This simple routine can be done anywhere – next to a wall, tree, fence, car door.

LMLS only takes about 5 minutes and is the warm-up that all runners should be doing prior to their run, before their first step of running.

Filed Under: Coaching, For Everyone, Training, Videos Tagged With: General Strength, Leg Swings, LMLS, lunge matrix, warm-up

Marathon Training Build Up Plans

April 18, 2016 by CoachJay

Simple Marathon Training: The Right Training for Busy Adults with Hectic Lives is the best marathon training book for the busy adult.

The SMT system is comprised of a 20-week training cycle.To begin the cycle you need to be running four days a week and have done two long runs of 8-9 miles.

The following progressions will get you ready to follow the SMT system that is laid out in the book.

28 weeks from your marathon (need to be doing a 3 mile long run) –8 Week-Build Up.

27 weeks from your marathon (need to be doing a 4 mile long run) – 7 Week-Build Up.

26 weeks from your marathon (need to be doing a 5 mile long run) – 6 Week-Build Up.

25 weeks from your marathon (need to be doing a 6 mile long run) – 5 Week-Build Up.

You can purchase the Simple Marathon Training book here.

Learn more about the SMT program here.

Filed Under: For Everyone Tagged With: General Strength, long run, lunge matrix, marathon, marathon running, marathon training, Simple Marathon Training

Podcast 020 – Charlie Kern

January 26, 2016 by CoachJay

Charlie Kern is the boys track coach at York High School in Elmhurst, Illinois.

This podcast is a collection of excerpts from his full interview on High School Running Coach.

He talks about the face that caring for athletes is more important than workouts.  He talks about some of the things they do at York that are different than other programs.  He also shares a couple examples of workouts they’ve done to get athletes ready to run well at big meets.

Charlie is a fantastic coach and I’m so happy he is part of the 2016 High School Running Coach line up.

Listen to the podcast on iTunes or listen to it on Stitcher if you have an Android device.

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Filed Under: For Everyone

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