Changing pace
Photo by Lee Crumbaugh.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 09, 2016
Great training pays off! Deena Castor wins the 2008 U.S. Women's Marathon Trials in Boston.
"I get out most every day and run four miles."
"I'm not a fast biker [or swimmer or runner]: I just keep on going and get there."
"This is the pace we always run [or ride or swim] on Tuesday night."
Friends, if you see yourself in these real-life quotes, I have some thoughts for you to consider.
First, congratulations for your commitment to running or biking or swimming. You are to be celebrated for being among the few who have made and are acting on a commitment to your sport.
Second, you are missing out. On what, you may ask? You are missing out on the benefits of changing pace.
Our bodies are regulated to stay in balance. That is, we are subject to "homeostasis," which means that we tend to remain in equilibrium under normal physiological conditions. Homeostasis means that as we change our "normal conditions" our body seeks to continue to function by adapting to these new conditions. This is called the "general adaptation syndrome theory."
According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine, "Exercise has the ability to optimize your body's cardiovascular, nervous, muscular, and endocrine systems. Exercise increases the demands on your body and, as a result, your body compensates by increasing muscle tissue, vascular networks, neural connections, and efficiency."
In training, when we stress our physiological systems within tolerable limits to create a recoverable level of fatigue (meaning not to the point of over training), our body responds over a period of recovery by strengthening these systems, improving how we mobilize energy and use fuel supplies, and repairing damaged cells. Typically within a day or two, we become stronger, faster, more agile and/or more efficient.
When your workouts become routine and you don't change them up in terms of frequency, length, form and intensity, you are not increasing the demands on your body and asking it to adapt and thus you are not gaining more strength, endurance, speed, agility and/or efficiency.
That's why smart training schedules target a goal (usually an "A" race) and periodize and change up workouts to build up fitness and prepare the athlete for great results. Periodization means that over three- or four-week cycles mileage and/or intensity build, and then back down for a week or so, before going up a notch and building again from the new level. Changing up workouts means varying speed or adding intervals or tempo runs and varying and increasing distance. The key is not keeping things the same but changing things up.
Last Saturday in my second 20 mile or longer run in training for the Baltimore Marathon in mid October I picked up the last five miles to marathon race pace. And after weeks of focusing on distance, in my last three shorter runs I have pushed the pace. In previous training cycles the focus was building my base, to adapt to running more miles, over which time I raised my weekly total from less than 20 miles to nearly 50 miles. This build came at the expense of running fast. Now, while not abandoning long runs, I am focusing on adding speed.
Theory and experience say that if I stick to my periodized and variable training schedule, changing pace and distance over two more cycles, and stay healthy, I will hit the starting line of the Baltimore Marathon well adapted and peaked for racing.
By varying your workouts, changing pace and distance, and periodizing your training, you too can get to a new level of fitness and, if you have a goal race ahead, to the starting line prepared for a great outcome.
