Note: To me coaching is all about stewardship, using the knowledge and experience I have gained over 40 years as a runner, and 10 years as a coach, to help others pursue their running goals. So rather than publishing a book you have to pay for, I am publishing it here on my blog, free for all (runners and coaches alike) to read and enjoy, maybe learn something from it, or potentially have it prompt you to look at something from a slightly different viewpoint. If any of those happen, mission accomplished.
Chapter 1: The 5 Tenets of Training
When it comes to
studying any topic, I have found it is very helpful to break it down into its
elemental parts and understand how they fit together in order to make up the
whole. When you do this it helps you understand what the key drivers are,
the things that make other things happen and determine the outcome. When
I first got into coaching this was one of the first things I did.
I have a long background
in the sport of distance running, having started running road races and track
meets as a grade school kid back in western North Carolina, and became obsessed
with the sport at an early age. I checked out and read and re-read almost
every book on the sport that was available at the Henderson County Public Library
as a kid. From Lydiard, to Fixx, to Henderson, to Moore, if you had
written about running back in those days I probably have read and re-read your
stuff. This obsession continued on through high school and then into
college where I ran track and cross country for the University of Mississippi.
I would spend hours sitting around talking running and training with
friends and teammates who were almost as obsessed with the sport as I was.
Post collegiately I continued to run in road races and with the advent of
the internet age more and more information became available, which I eagerly
devoured. So when, in my 30’s, I started getting into the coaching side
of the sport I had almost 3 decades of experience, reading and studying to draw
from.
I added to this
background in running, the training I gained in analysis during my work as a
business and financial analyst in the corporate world over my first 15 years
post college. I was trained and became experienced in the art of tearing
down a business into its elemental parts so that I could understand how it
works, what the key drivers were, and then build up a model of that company so
that management could forecast results and run “what if” scenarios through it
to see how various factors would affect outcomes.
So as I went into
coaching, I combined my experience and knowledge in the sport with the
analytical skills I had learned in the corporate world. One of the first
things I did was sit down and determine what were the key drivers of training
for distance running. What were the things that we could control that
would ultimately determined how successful we were in our training. This
first chapter is about what I found, what I believe to be the “5 Tenets of
Training” for distance running, as it has shaped how I approach training
runners for the sport.
My 5 tenets of training
for distance running are:
- Consistency
- Capacity
- Frequency
- Mixture
- Passion
Each of these 5 tenets
are critical in our training and development as distance runners, but they are
all interconnected. So our degree of success will lay not just in how
well we develop any one tenet, but how well we balance and raise our game in
all 5 tenets together.
Let's take a look at
each tenet in a little more depth:
Consistency
Distance running is a
fitness sport in which we have to slowly and methodically build up our fitness
and adaptations to the sport over time. Consistency then is a tenet in
our training because the more consistent we can be in your training, the higher
we can raise our fitness level. In Chapter 2 we will discuss the
Principle of Stress and Recover which will underscore in more detail the
importance of consistency in building fitness.
Interruptions in our
training, even minor ones, at a minimum delay our fitness build-up, and when
long enough or frequent enough, lead to a backslide in fitness and physical
adaptations. When we experience an interruption in training, not only do
we lose that time associated with the interruptions, we also lose the time
associated to build back the fitness and adaptations we lost during the
interruption. So if we lose 2 weeks of training due to an
unexpected trip, our cost is not just those 2 weeks but those 2 weeks plus
whatever time it will take to build back up the fitness or adaptations we lost
during those 2 weeks. Often interruptions can cause a loss of twice as
much time as the actual interruption lasts.
So a major focus in our
training needs to be on consistency so that our fitness has a chance to build
and progress as much as possible during our training cycle.
Capacity
Capacity refers to the
work capacity we build up in training. It is the amount of work we can do
consistently in training and is made up of both a quality and quantity
component. The numbers of miles we cover in a normal training week can be
a good gauge as to the quantity aspects of work capacity and the number of
stress (“hard”) workouts we can do per week can be a good judge of our quality
density component of our work capacity.
Simply put, our work
capacity is a major tenet of our training because the more work we can handle
on a consistent basis, the more we can accomplish; the more fitness we can
build and the greater the adaptations we can elicit from our training.
A major focus on our training
then will be on building up or maintaining our work capacity so that we get the
most fitness gains possible in our training cycle.
Frequency
Frequency refers to the
number of times that we run during a given period of time. Every time we
go for a run of 20 minutes or more our body responds by releasing certain
enzymes and hormones that help the body adapt to running and improve our cardiovascular
fitness. To a certain extent the more often we run the better adapted to
running our bodies become. This tenet has to be balanced with the need
for runs lasting for longer durations in order to build endurance, and stamina
and other specific fitness points, but to a certain point the more we can
increase the frequency of our runs within our training mix, the better adapted
to running and fitter we can become. I have established some basic rules
for when and how to add additional runs into your regular training schedule and
will go over those in Chapter 4.
Mixture
Mixture refers to the
stress (“hard”) workouts we do in our training, when do we do them, and how do
we structure and sequence those workouts to build our fitness best. This
is the “sexy” part of training that most books and article get written about
and will be discussed at length in later chapters in this book.
The major focus of
Mixture is determining what do we need to do to get the most out of our
training (i.e what are the demands of our goal race) and how best to structure
our workouts and training to accomplish that.
Mixture is a major tenet
in our training because it determines, to a large extent, how well we use the
other tenets to build up our fitness.
Passion
Passion is our continued
desire to train and chase our goals. Passion is a major tenet in our
training because it provides us with the motivation and fire to undertake all
of the physical and mental components of training.
We cannot undertake
training beyond what our passion will allow us to do or it will not last, so
our passion needs to be monitored, nurtured and safeguarded as we train.
Synergy Of the 5 Tenets
How successful our training is
will depend in large part on how well we balance all 5 Tenets of Training
together. We should never focus solely or heavily of one tenet at the
expense of the other tenets, but rather seek to balance and build up all
aspects together. There is a very real synergy that comes from balancing
all 5 tenets together in your training.
All of the
tenets are interconnected and so when balanced together they help raise each
other up and provide more from training. Being consistent in training makes it easier to build up our capacity and frequency and get the most out of our workout mixture. Building our work capacity gives us more to work with and helps us get more out of
our workout mixture and provides
more room for increased frequency.
An increase in frequency
allows us to build more capacity and
gives us more opportunities to enact our desired workout mixture. Passion
provides the motivation and fire to run consistently,
and build our capacity and to run frequently and do all of the needed mixtures of workout to accomplish our
goals.
If we
let a focus on one component get out of alignment with the others it can
jeopardize the synergy and cause the whole thing to come grinding to a halt.
For example, if we try and increase capacity
or frequency too quickly and
breakdown we jeopardize our consistency.
Or by focusing too much on building the quantity component of our work capacity we might jeopardize the right mixture we need to continue to improve.
Or if we push forward too far in capacity
and frequency, we may extend
ourselves too far and jeopardize our passion
to want to train.
Only the
careful balance of these 5 tenets will produce the optimal results we are
seeking, where we get the most out of the time and energy we have to put into
our training. And ultimately this is what this book is about, how to find
and utilize that optimal balance for each of us.
Scorecard
In the corporate world I
worked regularly with a concept called the “scorecard” in which we would look
at all the major drivers of our business and we would compare our practices and
procedures in that area to the best practices and procedures of all best
businesses in our industry. This helped us determine areas for
improvement and growth, and where we could go first for the most immediate
improvements.
So when I entered the
world of coaching and had established the 5 Tenets of Training, I brought this
“scorecard” concept with me and started to use it determine what components of
the runner’s training where in most need to improvement.
For the first 4 tenets;
consistency, capacity, frequency and mixture, I was able to develop a scorecard
that graded their training on a scale of between 1 and 10 for each tenet, with
1 being what a brand new runner might be doing and with 10 being the best
practices of the top runners in the world. This would allow me to give a
score to each runner I worked with in each of these 4 tenets to see where their
weaknesses may be and to help plan on how or if to boost each area during their
training.
The fifth tenet,
passion, is a little more subjective so hard to put a hard number on. So
in regards to this tenet it is important to understand where running and
running goals fits in that person’s life and how important and motivated they
are to reach those goals. Then this would be taken into consideration in
designing their training, being careful not to build training past what they
might have a passion to maintain.
Useful Maximums
As you go through the
process of looking at yourself, or a runner you coach, in terms of these 5
tenets and where they stand on each, it is important to remember that each
runner will have certain useful maximums in each tenet. A useful maximum
is simply the most a runner can realistically do in that tenets because of
personal, life or other imposed ceilings. These useful maximums can and
often do change over time. These maximums are not good or bad, they just
are, and it is important to understand them as you design training programs.
If a runner only has the time in their work/life schedule to run 5 times
per week, it does no good to try and schedule 7 runs. If they only have
the energy to run 50 miles a week, it is counter-productive to try and push
them to run 70 miles a week.
One of the first steps I
take with a runner I start to work with is having them fill out a questionnaire
and then have a phone call with them so that I can better understand not only
where they are in each tenet of training but where does running and their goals
fit into their life, and what useful maximums may exist. This is
important to flesh out and consider these before you can design the best
program for them. It also fosters the conversation on those
limitations and how or if they will impact the runner’s ability to reach their
goals in the sport.
