One of the things I’ve struggled with most if finding appropriate training in the city (where I pretty much live) when I’m racing in the mountains. Ideally I’d like to hit the trails 2-3 times a week to both improve my technical running skills and also to get that much needed vertical gain which urban Sydney is largely lacking. And with Sydney traffic being horrific it’s hard to get to the trails when you don’t have half a day to spare. So, how do you train for a race with 2,000m of vert when your local running area is lucky to clock up 100m?? First you’ve got to identify what race it is your running and train for it. Um, duh, tell us something useful Jen! What I mean by that is, what’s the defining feature of your run? Is it stairs, technical, fire-trail, long never-ending hills? Review the course, read up what you can about the terrain and think about how you can simulate as best you can in training. Ideally you’re doing all your long runs out on trails, if the trails that you can get to don’t have a lot of what you need to practice (technical or big hills) look for ways you can do repeats on the most hilly or most technical sections that you can find. Create your own Strava sections for them and run them over and over seeing if you can get faster and stronger over time. When you can’t get to the trails or when you have but are looking for a little bit extra in the week, look for areas locally that you can simulate hills and stairs. There are countless sets of stairs in the Sydney CBD and in most suburbs, find them and smash out a few reps on them. If you know there’s 1,000 steps at the end of UTA for instance then find somewhere where you can do 1,000 steps to get a feel for what that’s like. Granted you’ll be going up and down and getting a rest on the down, but as I can attest post Hounslow Classic 2016, going down stairs will also bugger your legs (in an awesome way obviously)! During the week I like to run with some folk at work but recently have found that I’m struggling to make them really useful sessions for my current training (nobody wants to do 2k speed work with me!) so instead of doing an easy 7k run with them I’m focussing on getting out to the local city park where there’s lots of stairs and small hills where we can do repeat circuits. When training for trail “stairs” you can do repeats of normal steps, double steps, pigeon toe / duck toe steps, alternating between all of the above in random patterns. Do whatever you can to simulate the fact that trail stairs are seriously fucked up and rarely are worthy of being called stairs! But hey that’s why we do it cause nature’s staircase is paved with happy feelings and giddiness when you slip and almost stack it, just missing out on taking down a dozen other runners! Yee-haw! For hills I try to focus on up or down at a time when the hills are short and lacking in abundance. I push on the uphill and then rest (walking) on the downhill. But it’s important if you’re going to be running downhill in the race to focus on smashing out the downhills in training too so that your quads get used to it. On those days I focus on a fast paced hike up hill (remember unless you’re in the elites you’ll be doing a lot of walking up hills in ultras so it pays to practice this too!) and then smashing the downhills (ideally find grass if you can and keep your stride really short and light). Whilst it’s likely you won’t be able to fully replicate the conditions you’ll face on race day, with a little creativity and planning you can focus on preparing your body and mind for what’s ahead.
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Hopefully most of you are aware of cadence (how fast your feet turn over-the-counter usually measured per minute) if not Google running cadence and gorge on the masses of information on the science and studies.
I've done no studies and I'm no scientist so I'm not going to regurgitate stuff I've found online (much). The optimal cadence for runners is 180+ steps a minute. Sounds like a lot, it is a lot! Well for us average runners it is. If you're running sub 4min ks it's a hell of a lot easier to turn your legs over. For us mere mortals though it can feel like jogging on the spot and looking like a dick whilst doing so. But fear not a cadence of 180 is possible and I promise you don't look as ridiculous as you feel... First things first buy a metronome (music shops or I got mine from a horse riding shop) or if you run with your phone you can download a metronome app. I don't run with my phone and when I do it's only for the sole purpose of taking selfies!!
Now with a metronome there are a number of options available (depending on the type you buy). I bought the Seiko DM51 which has a few different settings on the type of beep it makes (lots of musical half note / quarter note stuff that I have no idea about!). But all you really need is to be able to change a) the speed of the beeping and b) the volume (unless you like to let the people two blocks away know that you're coming!).
Setting the speed This is personal preference. Of course you can set it to 180 beats per minute and each foot that lands should aim to land at the same time as a beep. I find that the beeping is way to close together for my brain to tell me if my foot is hitting at the same time or not. Instead I set the beep to be 90 and focus on hitting the beep with every second step e.g. always with my right foot. This make it easier to tell if you're on beat and as you go for longer runs if you suddenly notice you're landing on the left foot then you know you're deviated from the cadence pattern. Adjusting the speed If you find that you're often switching between feet then you're consistently running off of the planned speed. Now to figure out if you're going to fast or two slow you can off course really concentrate on which foot is striking when but it's a lot of effort and focus. What I found works best is to also have your running watch set to show the cadence. You can then cross check between the watch and the metronome. For me I noticed I was actually running more consistently at 92 beats per minute and hence I was running faster than the metronome. So I unclipped the metronome from my shorts and upped it from 90 to 92. That got me back on beat for most of my run. When I was pushing the pace in sections I went as high as 93 beats and when my legs were fatiguing I allowed it to fall to 91 beats. I could have set it at 90 but I didn't want to teach my body bad habits for when it's tired. If I'm capable of 93 beats comfortably then I figure I should try to maintain that where possible. Again I’m not a scientist or a running coach so there's no evidence that I know of to back this theory, this is just my feel for things. Feeling like a tool Yep that first time you're running at a notably increased cadence you're going to feel silly. I was running at around 176 and just moving up to 180-182 I felt like I was running on the spot. But give it some time to settle and try it for a few weeks and hopefully your stride will become more natural at the faster cadence and you won't feel so ridiculous. But as with everything in life it's not a one shoe fit and you need to adapt your training and your style according to your body type and your running. But I note that I have easily been able to increase my cadence and now feel very comfortable at this increased turnover and I've seen videos of me running and I look awesome, no tool in sight ;o) What about hills - surely I lower my cadence then? Well no. Really you should aim to keep your cadence high at all times. On the downhill taking short small steps reduces the potential for injury on overextended hamstrings and smashing of legs in general (again Google this sh!t) and on the uphill (assuming you're not walking) you can really charge up them by taking small, fast, mountain goat steps. This is how the pros do it. And as I've read in a number of place when on the trail if there's the option to take more steps then take them! This means that, as much fun as it is, you shouldn't take massive leaps between rocks or off of tree trunks as all you're doing (other than looking mean as in your Instagram photos) is increasing the potential for injury and giving your body a hammering it doesn't need. As always seek feedback from your body and find your own rhythm and flow |
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