Training help for someone that doesn't seem to need it!

Monday, February 11, 2013 · Mike Davis

Welcome back winter! If you live in the Northeast you probably spent your long run day either inside or outside shoveling snow. I did both; waiting out the snow and then spending 3 hours snow blowing and shoveling. I am a bit sore today and not so sure what I will do for either a run or a workout. I feel bad for my clients as they were all planning long runs yesterday and that wasn’t possible. Hopefully the roads are clear enough today for them to get their runs in. I would like to run, but I sure feel pretty beat up at this moment. We shall see. This week I met with a guy that is certainly remarkable in his physical conditioning and becoming a pretty decent runner as well. He emailed me a rather lengthy description of what he’s looking for and a detailed description of what he’s currently doing. He’s actually a Cross-Fit instructor locally and that should tell you something about his conditioning. I requested that he send me his current training plan and it was quite impressive if not a bit overly aggressive. The missing piece in his training according to him was some direction for his running aspirations. He began running in the “Tough Mudder” events and has gradually gotten better, winning his age group regularly and finishing in the top 10 overall. Pretty impressive for a fairly newcomer and now he believes with some more intense training he can actually win the events. While lofty goals, he certainly has shown the ability and tenacity required to compete and be successful. As I mentioned in viewing his newly designed training plan, I can see he is certainly serious about his goal. My question was what does he need from No Finish Line Running? We met at Starbucks (my favorite meeting place) and I quickly realized the gentleman was not only very serious about his goals, but quite enthusiastic! His detailed thoughts and training plan were both impressive and even a bit overwhelming. I am certainly detailed when it comes to my clients, but his motor was running at 100 mph. Trying to understand how I could help someone who already seemed to have a solid training plan was a challenge so I just listened. As he articulated his experiences and how he had improved his running to this point I saw a weakness, but just continued to listen. After he took a breath, I asked him a question. “Do you understand training specificity?” To this point he had expressed all the concepts of interval training, threshold workouts and other running techniques, but he lacked specificity. He was lost to understand what “training specificity” was. I went on to explain. He was doing intervals on either a track or on the road and doing his long runs on trails. He was getting faster with the intervals and learning to run comfortably on the trails (where he would be competing). Pretty smart training as it helped him get faster and comfortable with trail running. However with his goal to improve to an elite level, he needed to learn to run faster on the terrain that he would be racing on. The intervals on the track or road were helping him with his turnover speed but he needs to learn the same values out on the trails where he will compete. Pushing harder on the road or track makes sense when you are competing on that surface, but our brain needs to experience pushing hard on a trail if we want to repeat that action. No matter how many times a person pushes themselves hard around a track, they won’t have that same confidence on a trail if they haven’t prepared that way. The “specificity of training.” I went on to explain how his current running plan is helpful to a degree but for the level he wants to attain, he needed to start being specific in his training. Wow, I was actually doing what I do best; I was helping someone that I didn’t think needed my help! I explained the type of training plan I would consider best for his goals and he totally bought into it. While I may not do much more than design a running plan for him, I’m okay with that. I really enjoy designing training or running plans for unique circumstances and this is definitely one of those. If you need help preparing for a “Tough Mudder”, NFLR will have some experience to help you! It’s now a bit later from when I started this story and I just got back from an 8 mile run and despite no sidewalks I did okay and really enjoyed it. I must admit as much as I want to get away from the snow, I enjoy the challenge of it at times. Hope you all have a great week!