Face the brutal facts

I've been lying to myself for the past few weeks. I want to be out running a minimum of 3 times per week. My key indicators have been my long run of 3 hours and my yassos. My yassos have been less than 4:30 min for 800 m with a 4:00 min rest. That's cool since my goal is to run a 4:30 hr marathon my yassos are ok. Today I did 10 of them at 4:20. That's a good indicator.

My other indicator has been my 3 hour run. I've done a couple of them and they are getting easier, not easy, but easier. Unfortunately my gps from years back is broken so I haven't really know what speed I've been doing. Since the yassos have been ok and the long run feels good I've convinced myself that the long run time is just fine. I could have used the gps on my phone but it the battery doesn't last for 3 hours using the gps so I haven't bothered.

Because these two indicators have been good I've been slack, lazy. I haven't trained as hard as I know I need to. I've given myself the excuse that I'm saving my muscle by only getting in 2 runs per week. Lies, especially lies to oneself, are so easy to believe when it makes life easier. And these lies have caused me to drift from my plan. Facing the brutal facts means seeing with fresh eyes what is blatantly obvious to anyone who has any ounce of concern. I didn't choose to face the facts, they jumped out at me.

As I was heading out for a one hour run I thought I would use the phone's gps as the battery was full and it was only going to be for one hour. I'm slow. Way, way too slow. Embarrassingly slow. The yassos are on track which means I have the speed but I'm not able to maintain it over the distance - even for one hour. With each passing 5 minutes my phone would tell me the distance. The first time it spoke I thought the gps was still getting a lock so the timing was out. By the third timing I was sure that the problem was me. By the 50 minute mark I was facing the brutal facts and I didn't like it.

There really are only two options when the facts brutally scream reality into your soul - deny them or change. Denial is easy but it comes with a price. In running a marathon the piper must be paid. I either pay the price now in order to run a good run leaving me satisfied and fulfilled or I pay the price of defeat - not of the marathon but of myself. Not running a marathon in the desired time is sad but if you give your best you stand tall knowing that you could have done nothing else. But to try halfheartedly under the pretense of giving one's best is to lie to oneself and that's defeat of the soul. Denial is too hard, too costly.

And so I have been shocked into reality. My conviction to run 3 times per week is now strong and sure and no longer clouded by lies. The path ahead will still be difficult but the prospect of satisfaction is more sure.

8 weeks to go.

Poor Man's Therapy

Therapy is expensive but if you need it then it's worth every cent you spend. Long distance running is poor man's therapy.

In long distance running, the 2-3 hour range, there's a lot of time to think. Lots of time to think and to think and to think. The time is great for working through ideas and concepts and all the good and bad stuff that's going on in your life. But there's something that happens, at least to me, at about the 2 hour mark that turns thinking into therapy.

Around 2 hours into the run I get exhausted. Really exhausted. Each step I take just adds to the exhaustion. Physical exhaustion becomes emotional exhaustion. The emotional walls that keep out the bad thoughts, the pains of yesterday, the thoughts of hurt and anger - those walls come down and I have to face them. I can keep running but I can't run away from myself. Unresolved stuff stares me in the face. They become my running partner. And they don't shut up. They want to talk. They want me to talk. They want to find peace and they don't care if I don't - at least in that moment.

And so I keep running and I keep thinking and the walls keep tumbling down and the conversation continues. And I'm too tired to keep them quiet and I'm too tired to put up a fight and so I listen to what they say to me. They don't shut because they are the ghosts of yesterday and they long to find their peace so they can move onto to another realm. And if I work with them, if I listen, and if I hear where they are coming from they will lead me to parts of my soul that I cannot go on my own. And once there I see the pain and the hurt and without all the distractions and denials I embrace the pain for what it is, for what it was, so that I can keep going forward, so that I can keep running.

Running is as much an emotional game as a physical one. Work with it and the emotional benefits will be as great as the physical ones.

9 weeks of therapy left.

Embrace the pain.

I worked with Peter years ago. He ran lots of sub 3 hour marathons. He inspired me. Peter gave me some advice about marathons that I have always remember. He said, "If you are going to run a marathon then you had better get used to pain." Marathons are painful.

Getting out of bed 3 hours earlier to fit in the long run is painful. Changing diets to stay healthy is painful. Having to increase the discipline of my bed time routine is painful. Running when I am exhausted is painful. Running out of energy 7kms from home is painful. Getting blisters on my feet half way through the training run is painful. Dealing with my emotional baggage that turns up mid run is painful. Having my shirt rub my nipples raw is painful. Falling short of my goal that I spent months and months preparing for is painful. If you are going to run a marathon you will need to embrace pain.

If you are a body builder than you know this. You understand hitting failure. You understand DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). You understand the need to push your body beyond comfortable in order to make it stronger. The same applies to running a marathon - only the pain is different. In body building the effort is intense and short. In running marathons the effort is sustained and, obviously, long. But you get the principle - pain is not the enemy; pain is the evidence of your progress. You know the cliches and slogans.

For those of you who are inactive who are reading this please note that I am not talking about acute pain. Acute pain is not good. This week my lower back was so sore it hurt to walk. That's acute pain. I missed two running sessions because I had to rest my back. The back is healing well so I could run my yassos today. Yassos are a tough run. Interval training is tough. It needs to be because I'm training myself to run faster. If I run comfortably then I won't improve so I must run at an uncomfortable pace so that my legs get stronger and faster. This is the pain that I must embrace. In body building if I want to get stronger I must lift heavy weights. Lifting light weights is comfortable but it won't make me stronger. To improve I must embrace the pain of discomfort.

Yes, you will suffer as you prepare for your marathon. But it's worth it. You become a finisher. You become one of those people that can start with a big goal and break it down into little goals. You become one of those people who understand consistency and progress and set backs and effort. You become a better person. A stronger person. You become a finisher. And that's worth suffering for.

What pain have your endured in order to achieve your goal? Was it worth it? For those of you who have run long races what pain did you endure in your training? What pain did you endure on race day? Leave a comment below as an encouragement to those who are starting out.

10 weeks to go.

Conflicting Diets

Different diets produce different results.

Depending on what your goals are you need to find a diet (an eating plan) that matches your goals. My challenge is that body building and marathon running have two very different diets. The body building diet is high in protein because muscles need lots of protein to repair and grow. Protein doesn't make a good fuel source which is needed for running long distances. Protein is great as a building source but horrible as a fuel source.

Fuel well

For fuel the body requires carbohydrates. Before a strength training I take carbs to give myself the fuel to have an intense workout. But once the workout is done I don't need a lot of carbs for my lifestyle but I do need protein to repair and build the muscles. While protein is important for running a high carb diet is the norm. Strength training burns some calories but running burns a lot of calories. Today, for example, I burned over 2,000 calories during my long run. 2,000 calories is what I would normally eat for the entire day! That's a lot of fuel I'm burning. Having just a high protein diet won't help. A high carb diet is crucial to running a marathon.

So I have a conflicted diet. On one hand I need high protein for building muscle and for marathon prep I need high carbs. In order to balance both requirements I'm following a body building diet for most of the week but increasing my carbs on the running days. On the days I'm running, and therefore burning lots and lots of calories, I'm eating my normal amount of protein (and fat) and then eating a very healthy size of carbs to compensate.

This is what it looks like in practice. Before my run (which I do in the morning) I take some protein powder as my pre-run drink. I don't eat anything else. I want to run without a stomach full of carbs because I'm training my body to use fat as a secondary fuel source so I don't want carbs in the stomach - protein is fine. Today was a three hour run. I drink lots of water during and after the run. After the run I'll eat a really good meal full of protein, fat and carbs for recovery. My current calorie intact on a normal day is 2,000 calories. Adding what I've lost to running for 3 hours means I need to eat 4,000 calories today - that's not going to happen. I feel sick if I try and eat that many calories. So, today, I make sure that my protein and fat requirements are met and then I eat whatever I feel like in carbs knowing that I won't even come close to 4,000 calories.

On non-running days when I'm lifting I stick to my usual calorie intact.

In the midst of all of this I continue to monitor my body fat. If that's going down too much then I'm out of balance. If it's going up then I'm eating too much and I need to scale it back. As I'm increasing my running I need to be increasing what I eat on those days and monitoring my energy levels the other days.

How about you? Are you following any kind of diet to produce best results? Does your diet match your bodies requirements? I still feel like a novice in understanding what's best for fuel and dieting. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

11 weeks to go.

Run Long, Run Yasso

You can't run fast what you can't run slow. In preparing for a marathon it is important to have some long runs under your belt. By long run I'm talking about 30+kms. I'm not fast so that's a big time investment. However, you either invest the time and do the long runs or you hit failure 15kms short of the finish line. That's a long walk home.

The purpose of the long run is to prepare the body for the distance. When I started strength training I couldn't do a one arm push up. My body didn't know how to do it and it wasn't strong enough. I had to develop and teach my body what to do. Same for the marathon. You can't skip the long runs. But, and here is an important but, the long run doesn't prepare you to finish fast, it only teaches you to finish.

Our bodies, like our minds, do what we have taught them to do. If I practice running long and slow guess what will happen on marathon day? I'll run long and slow. That's fine if my goal is to finish. But it's not. My goal is to finish with a better time than last time (without losing any lean body mass). Getting in enough long runs is essential to finishing but to finish in a better time I need to add speed.

I could simply run the long run at marathon pace but in practice that isn't a good idea. The marathon puts enormous strain on the body and training at that pace would lead to injuries and burn out. A different workout is required to help develop speed. Please welcome Mr Yasso.

I was introduced to the idea of running Yassos, and the story of Bart Yasso, reading The Runner's World "Complete book of running." You can read the same information online here and here. Essentially, you run and rest in minutes what you expect to run in hours, over 800m. When you can do 10 of these then you are in good shape to run the marathon in that time. Practically it looks like this: since I want to train for a 4 hr marathon I would run 800m in 4 mins, rest (slow jog) for 4 mins and then repeat 10 times. If I can do all 10 then I'm good to go. Assuming of course that I've been doing my long runs as well.

Not everyone thinks these are the best indicator or the best workout leading up to a marathon. Coach Jeff thinks that a fast finish long run is better than doing Yassos. Personally, I've never done the fast finish long run training but I do hope to include at least one of these going into this marathon. I have, however, used Yassos in the past and I find that they are a great workout and a great indicator, so I intend to stick with them.

To finish you need to train your body to go the distance. Do the long run.
To finish fast you need to train your body to run comfortably at a faster pace. Do Yassos.

12 weeks to go.

The right plan for the right goal

A good goal needs a good plan. If I want to get stronger in the chest then it doesn't matter how many kms I run nothing is going to happen to my chest. And if I want to get faster in my running then it doesn't matter how many push ups I can do. The right goal needs the right plan.

Post race swim at the end of the Kaveri Marathon

With one goal its often very simple to find a good plan. But life is way more complicated than that. Often there are competing goals in our lives and these goals require different plans - often these plans compete with each other. That's my situation here. I want to run a marathon while I keep doing my body building but these two goals don't match up. Here's why.

In order to build muscle you need to be eating more than your body is using. Our bodies use this excess energy to build muscle (and fat). Strength training tells the body to use the excess for building extra muscle. However, running burns a lot of calories - A LOT. In a 20km training run I burn up an entire day's worth of food. Putting on muscle and training for a marathon don't really go together. Goals need to be realistic so this isn't my goal. My goal is to maintain my lean body mass, that is, to keep all the muscle I have spent the last couple of years building. I need a plan that gets me to the finish line and achieve a PB over this course - hopefully a PB for all the marathons I have run. Two great runners have guided my planning.

Geoff Galloway, an Olympic runner, notes that "Research has shown that you need at least three days running per week for sustained improvement."  Galloway actually suggests the best option is to run 4-5 days per week. While 4-5 days would be better for my running it would cause havoc for  maintaining my muscle; I would simply burn too much energy. Also, I need time to do my strength training. Without the continued upper body strength training I'll definitely lose muscle. So I need to work around 3 days running per week.

Amby Burfoot, a winner of the Boston marathon in 1968, suggests the simplest running schedule I have ever seen:  "I do a Yasso workout in the middle of the week, a long run at the weekend and fill in the rest  of my training as best I can." The long run prepares me to run 42 km. The Yassos (I'll talk about these next week) help me run faster. These two runs form the backbone of my running. The long run gets me to the finish line while the Yassos get me there sooner than later.

This is my training plan. I believe this, along with my diet plan (to be discussed later) will get me a PB over the course and, perhaps, a PB overall. Do you have a goal you are working on? What's your plan for improvement? Does your plan and your goals match?

13 weeks to go.

The most important piece of equipment for making gains

Strength training doesn't require a lot of equipment. I started with Mark Lauren's book, You are your own gym which uses your own body weight. But even in his book there is some equipment that one needs for some of the exercises. With running you really only need a good pair of shoes (and shorts in most countries). There is the whole barefoot running movement, but even with this movement they still encourage some foot protection, the most popular being VibramFive Fingers. But shoes and weights aren't the most important piece of equipment for making gains - the humble notepad is.

The humble notepad, and her friend the pen, are the most important pieces of equipment for making gains.

With a fresh approach to exercise, whether it be cardio or strength, the gains are rapid. You run 1km in the first week - awesome. The second week you manage 2km - 100% gains. By the end of the 4th week you are running 5km - how good is this!! At some point, around the 2-3 month mark things begin to slow down. Progress becomes difficult. Your 5km time isn't getting any faster. The 10km feels too far. With a drop in progress so goes the motivation. Progress often equals motivation. That's where the humble notepad comes in.

The humble notepad doesn't lie. She just reports the facts. If you haven't put in the work she will tell you. If you have put in the work and you are making gains, she'll tell you that too. She tells the truth and tells it you straight. And when you are making gains, however small, she'll keep you motivated.

In strength training I record every exercise, every set, every single rep. It's not hard. I do a set, I write it down. In a single session I may do 4 exercises with 3 sets each. That's 12 numbers I need to write down. After each set I write down what I did. The next week when I redo the same routine I make sure I increase even if it's just 1 rep. Small gains are progress. One extra rep per week means that after 3 months it's time to add more weight - more weight means I'm getting stronger. Without the notepad I'm left to my memory of what I did the previous week - that's not going to be accurate. The notepad won't lie to me but my memory will.

As I prepare for the marathon I want to take the same approach. What type of run am I doing (Slow, HIIT, Yassos, Long, FastFinish)? How did it go? If I'm running Yassos then I want to record the number of intervals and the speed. If I'm doing more Yassos or doing them faster then I'm making gains. If my long run is getting longer then I'm making gains. The notepad won't lie - she will show me if I'm making gains or if I'm stalled.

Motivation in the beginning is easy because the gains come quickly. After the easy-phase progress slows down and motivation with it, unless I see gains, however small. How about you? Do you use a notepad? Do you prefer paper or electronic? How are you measuring your progress with the goals you have set for yourself? What difference do you think a notepad would make to your motivation and progress?