Back to Work (Base Training)

"The hard practice yesterday is just a warm-up tomorrow." -Anonymous

Season Objectives

The objectives of this Season are more abstract than a single race: one of the goals is to keep on progressing with my running speeds at all intensities, and to be able to run more while avoid getting injured. It's important to enjoy the running: to go on adventures, explore new routes and places on foot, to get joy out of the daily routine, and observe the progress. Still I need competition to spice it up. I want to make my new personal records to see where I have come with my training and to see where I'm going with it. The year will be divided into two parts: Training for 10K road race and training for standard 42K Marathon. The dates when I aim to be at my peak performance this season are April 20th for 10K racing at week 16 and October 13th for Marathon at week 41. I kicked off the Season 2014 on 4th of November and so far I've gone through 8 weeks of Base Training. Here's some of my thoughts about it.

Running

After having an off-season (3 weeks) running very little I started out with a conservative 70 km week. In Base Training the intensity is to be kept relatively low, but not to succumb to monotony. Every day is to be different from the day before. I varied between three running intensities during the week: Recovery, Easy, and Medium Long Run. The idea behind the Base Training is to build up the endurance and fitness in the body so that it will be ready to take the pounding of more intense 10K training. A good base is the foundation of intensive training and satisfying results. Without a proper Base, injuries will surely haunt when the intensity and distance are both there. In Base Training one can relatively safely add up weekly distance. From last season I learned that it is not wise to try to beat your previous week distance every week. This time I came out with a plan to add it up two weeks in a row, then dropping 20% of the training distance (a recovery week), then bounce back to where I was, and then the next week go for more distance. I built it up slowly and on the 7th week of Base Training I ran 96 km. That's my current record of distance ran in one week. I broke my previous record three times during this period of Base Training. My training log during my record distance week is presented in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Training log from week 51/2013.

This 8-week Base Training went exactly as was planned. I didn't suffer from injuries or even nuisances. I ran every practice that was planned, every day, for 8 weeks straight. That's 56 days of running streak (and counting) with minimum of 6 km running per day.

Figure 2: Daily Running distance (brown bar)
 and Running index (black line),
4th of November to 29th of December in 2013

Figure 3: Weekly Running distance (brown bar),
Average pace (green line), and Average heart rate (red line),
4th of November to 29th of December in 2013.

My daily running distance and running index during the Base Training are presented in Figure 2. The running index uses a formula that basically tells you how economic your running is. The weather, route, temperature among vast amount of other variables affect the running index but a general tendency can be seen from the line that the running has been more economical lately.

My weekly running distance, weekly average pace and average heart rate during the week is presented in the Figure 3. My weekly running distance has been going up with recovery weeks in between and at the same time my average running pace has gone up while my average heart rate has dropped. This describes very well the progress I have been making during the last 8 weeks. What these Figures don't tell for example is that lately the temperatures have been higher than in the beginning, so I believe there has been even more progress than what is visible in these figures.

Strength Training and Injury Prevention

My newest difference maker and useful trick for staying healthy has been the strength training. Not much at a time, but constantly. I want to run and I am not settling for some fixed amount per week. I want to run more and even more. Recently I have discovered that I really need to do constant strength training to be able to run more and without injury. I have now been doing a strength training program called IronStrength. I do it at home in my kitchen every Monday and Friday. Yes, that's right: it seems that my kitchen actually inspires me more than any gym. You don't need much to be able to do suitable strength training for distance runners. It's all about making it easy to start and be constant.

Figure 4: A "glass roller" from
the era before the foam rollers.

Other aspects of my injury prevention include cold baths, stretching and foam rolling. I take a 15 minute cold bath in my bathtub every time I run more than 10 km. I do couple times a week stretching by going through the biggest muscle groups in the legs. Unlike before, the trend now is to stretch in short bursts. I stretch 5 seconds, ease up for 2 seconds and then 5 seconds again. As many repetitions (about 6 reps) as it needs to get the muscles elongated. Foam rolling is something new that I'm implementing in my routine and so far I am not sure about it's efficiency. The foam roller does massage and stretching at the same time. I bought a standard foam roller, but I remember my grandfather (elite veteran marathon runner) always had the same old glass bottle (see Figure 4) that had a rough surface for the same task.

Running in Heat

I didn't have much of experience training at high temperatures before I started running in Argentina. The summers in Finland are great for training and they could be compared to the spring of Buenos Aires. Maximum temperatures at about 25 C (77 F). But when the summer starts in Buenos Aires, the daily maximum can reach up to 40 C (104 F). That is extreme case but the daily maximum hovers for weeks above 30 C (86 F). The Sun climbs up almost straight above your head and shines intense. And when it rains, it rains very hard for couple hours, then the Sun comes back. I have experimented and learned some things that I have found useful for training in the heat:

One should either go out running early in the morning or in the afternoon/evening when the Sun has started to set. They say your shadow should be longer than you are, that's when it's good to go out for a run. The heat will be out there but the Sun affects you less. I prefer running in the morning, so I get out at 7 to 7:30 am.

If you have to run during the day, then remember to use sunscreen. Go ahead use the most protective screen available. Apply the sunscreen 30 minutes before you go out to let it be absorbed, so that sweat won't take it away from skin. Be on the look out for shadows whenever available, they make a big difference.

The body adapts to the training at high temperatures in about 10 to 15 days. It's not that big of a deal after that. Your heart rate monitor is your friend when first running at high temperature. Take a step back with your pace: you are not suddenly in worse shape, it's just the heat.

I wear technical shorts and shirt, a cap or a visor and sunglasses. I don't eat before running. I want to feel light and in fact you want to have all the blood in the body available for circulation near your skin for cooling. I just drink fresh orange juice and a cup of coffee in the morning and then I'm off running.

Hydration is very important before, during and after training in the heat. When I run 18 km or more I carry a bottle belt with me. You need more water and less carbohydrate in your drink when running in the heat.

On-going Games

To keep running interesting I have some side projects going on. First of all the run streaking project: currently (today is 29.12.) my record and on-going streak is 56 consecutive days of running. The second project is to beat my previous weekly running distance record as often as I can. Not exceed it too much, just enough to make a new personal record. Much like Sergey Bubka did his world records in pole vaulting: by one centimeter at a time. One of the projects is keep on writing this blog, to analyze my running and share the experiences with people that are interested in what I do. The newest project is making running videos. I recently got me a Sony Action Camera and we shot the very first video to test the camera and editing software. Here it is:

What next? Tomorrow I will start my training and preparation for 10K road racing. It's a 16-week project and I look forward to running strong at the end of it. I don't have a time goal except I want to run the 10K as fast as I can. Stay tuned.