Eating Elephant Feet: 4 Ways to Fly through the Hard Weeks of Endurance Training

"How do do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." General Creighton Abrams

Eating Elephant Feet - The Hardest Part of Endurance Training

        At the beginning of starting anything new there is excitement and energy. The same is of a race, or a marathon training cycle, there is plenty of adrenaline and energy. This is a second blog post showing how the training for a long distance event, and then actually doing the event are incredibly similar. While the first introduced how the first few miles can set you up for a great race, or how they can blow-up the day, this is about the Muddy Middle. It is a space when the new thing gets old, when a marathon turns into a test of will, and this is true of the training cycle as well.  Enthusiasm has started to run dry, and we may even begin to second-guess ourselves. This usually happens from about weeks 4-12 and then miles 4-20 of the race, motivation means nothing and yet it can mean everything. Physical discomfort becomes more pronounced, we are in danger of quitting, mental drift, and a lot of negative self-talk.

        My hope is to give an introduction of what happens in our bodies while we experience the Muddy Middle. Then I’ll also share a few approaches I’ve adopted in racing and training to physically get through the middle. In the next blog post, I’ll share insights about mentally getting through the Mud.

Your Body in the Muddy Middle

       During these weeks, it may start to feel like you are running in mud. Frequently a training calendar starts to pick-up steam after about a month. You’ll start to see that distances are getting longer, and some of those earlier speed sessions are starting to get drawn out also. You’ll know when you are in the Muddy Middle of the Training Cycle when you start to look forward to a recovery or down week. But you’ll really know because you start to notice a fair amount of residual soreness. During this period of training, it can start to feel like a lot of time is spent running, recovering from running, and preparing to run again.

       You are in the midst of experiencing “Cumulative Fatigue”. The physical feeling is as pleasant as it sounds. Coach Luke Humphrey, at the Brook’s-Hanson’s Project, a team of Olympic hopefuls, puts it this way “There isn’t a single day that is overly difficult for the runner, but every day is tough enough that there isn’t a full recovery between all runs of major importance.” Imagine that there is 8 inches of snow everyday for four months, except it always snows 2 more inches than expected after you go out to shovel. The snow would build-up. So instead of shoveling 8 inches, you’re always shoveling at least 10 or more. Then the pile you are trying to put it all on is steadily becoming a small hill all the neighborhood kids want to make a fort out of. The trick with this sort of fatigue is that you hope to have it stop snowing in time for race day. In other words, just when you think you can’t handle it, there is a down week, or the Taper finally begins and you start the glorious process of unloading fatigue.

       Dr. Tim Noakes, refers to a Finnish university study, in The Lore of Running, that was attempting to watch fatigue happen in real time. In the lab, an experimental marathon was devised while athletes were observed, and notes taken. The scientists involved were able to note exactly how runners changed as they experienced the marathon. Noakes states, “During the experimental marathon, a progressive fall in maximum sprinting speed was measured repeatedly throughout the race. Gait changes also developed as exhaustion progressed during the race. Firstly, the foot contact phase of the landing cycle increased. Secondly, the forces generated during the push-off phase were reduced. As a result, the knee went into a greater degree of flexion on landing.”

       In other words, researchers saw runners get slower, feet not popping off the ground, loss of power, and over-striding. To build in marathon fatigue resistance, mad scientists and coaches create training plans to build an environment for runners to have to train in while feeling tired and appropriately sore. The Art of Coaching or training yourself then is to not load too much fatigue too quickly onto an athlete - risking injury, over-training, and burnout. There are numerous ways one can handle fatigue, and even begin to improve in the midst of it. Here are some I employ:

Four Suggestions to Handle Physical Fatigue

Race!!!

       When preparing for a half or full marathon over 12-24 weeks, having several smaller distance races along the way can keep one focused. It can also produce a breakthrough. I wouldn’t recommend resting for the race like you will for your big goal race at the end of the season. So, naturally, you’ll be in a race while you are experiencing cumulative fatigue, but because you are in a race you’ll run faster than you thought possible. That part of your brain that is constantly trying to protect you from death will realize you can indeed run faster than calculated and not fall over. This is a huge confidence boost. In addition, races are just fun!

Do 80/20

        It has been shown time and again that the best and most consistent runners, from a local club champion to Elites in Europe, will have about 80% of their weekly mileage at an easy effort then 20% at a higher intensity. This easy pace is usually about a minute to two minutes slower than marathon pace. The pace isn’t fixed, instead it may fluctuate day-to-day depending on feel. Fitness author and journalist, Matt Fitzgerald wrote in his research on 80/20, in the book by the same title, “Only very recently have scientists analyzed the training data of elite runners and discovered that nearly all of them follow the 80/20 Rule.”

       How should you feel on an easy run? Whether an easy paced run is 5 miles or 10, I want to finish it feeling like I can run two more miles with little effort. Frequently we fall to the temptation of running an easy run too fast or too long. Then when we have to do an actual hard effort run, in the other 20%, we can’t because we’ve spent our energy on an easy run. Many new runners make the innocent mistake of thinking they need to practice every run at their goal pace.  On the contrary, a study of the top Boston Marathon finishers showed that these best of the best marathoners, when compared to other marathoners, actually had the largest discrepancy in their day in and day out training paces. In other words, they were good at running slow and at running fast.

         Another innocent mistake many make is going hard all the time. The recent trend of going for high intensity we see in Personal Training and fitness clubs all over has crossed over into endurance training.  However, High Intensity Interval Training and Boot Camp style fitness smacks in the face of the collective wisdom of slow progression that endurance coaches and world-class athletes have practiced for generations. I know from personal experience, that while HIIT may give short-term weight loss, it beats the snot out of your body. The human body can’t handle stress and high intensity on a regular basis without quitting at some point. Either your body will fail you in the form of an injury, or your mind will simply quit.  Intense interval sessions may be helpful for jump starting weight loss and increasing pain tolerance, but this can do more harm than good in a long marathon build. More is not always better. This is equivalent to dumping five feet of snow on you in the midst of cumulative fatigue, instead of the usual 6-10 inches.

        Many debate how helpful HIIT training is for a healthy long-term lifestyle, much less, adopting it for marathon training. However, if you just can’t stop your HIIT workouts (they are addictive), then do them no more than once a week in place of an interval/speed session. While I know HIIT workouts frequently have running, realize your running speed won’t improve as quickly since you aren’t actually focused on running. I recommend runners lose HIIT during marathon build-up, and then use it in low doses during down times.

Recover Right

        I appreciate Amelia Boone’s (World Champ Obstacle Racer and Ultra Marathoner) advice on this: “If you are going to train like an elite, you have to recover like an elite.” While we may know the kind of crazy workouts an elite will do and we may even try to copy versions of these workouts, few of us will try and do the same recovery protocol that an elite will do. We shun eight hours of sleep, a power nap, massage, preventative chiropractic or physical therapy treatment. We’ll even put our recovery at risk, swapping out a high protein diet with quality carbs for the latest diet fad.

        It may take a while to accept this, but the truth is, that while you run, you are getting weaker. It is during recovery that you actually get stronger and faster. Like so much of life, the process of growth is stress and then rest, then stress some more, recover, and repeat. In this process, we progressively become stronger. There are no shortcuts, and no one can cram for athletic achievement like we may have crammed for an exam. Without recovery, you only have stress. This is a hospitable environment for injury and mental fatigue. One of the world’s best coaches, Dr. Jack Daniels states:

If you overstress some body parts, they may not get tougher; in fact, they may get weaker and break down completely. This brings up a very important equation. When does the body accomplish the strengthening part of stress reaction? It is during the recovery, or rest time, between bouts of stress that the strengthening takes place. Rest and recovery are a vital part of a training program, not an attempt to avoid training. There may actually be times when you will benefit more from not going out for another run, and sometimes doing a less (physically) stressful workout will produce more benefits than a harder session.

Thanksgiving Isn't a Holiday Anymore

       There was a newer runner I had been coaching who was having a blast feeling like an athlete, getting faster, and improving their health. As they hit the Muddy Middle of their training before a big half-marathon goal race, these things seemed to go from Technicolor to black and white boring. I knew they hadn’t been running long enough to experience true over-training; the fresh excitement of running and getting good at a new habit had merely worn off. My suggestion to them of saying at least three statements of gratitude during each run was received with some skepticism, but within 10 days of merely looking for the good and being thankful even for tired muscles, their attitude readjusted and they found renewed energy. They continued this practice all the way till race day, and it was a lot more fun!