Slowing down to go faster, eventually.

Well we are back to the work week after the long Holiday weekend my friend sent me a text and said she wanted to run.  She is getting back into running, so we didn't go to far.  I had a short warm up, but it was morning so I still felt a little stiff.  We met at the park, and took off.  My pace is a little bit faster than her's as I have been running a bit more consistently than she has, so I slowed down to match her pace.  It was slow, then more normal, then slow again.  So I just stayed with her didn't push it to much.  We were only doing about 3 miles anyway so no serious distance at all.  But as I was running a bit slower I remembered and realized something all at the same time.  I realized that I felt so good, I wanted to do another lap or two.  I mean I was going slow, why shouldn't I feel good right.  It was a pretty leisurely pace for a little while.  But I noticed that I felt really loose, warmed up and ready to go.  Unfortunately I didn't want to be rude and ditch my friend so I figured I would get a good long run home.  I literally felt like I could run 10 miles and my normal training hasn't put me there yet!  But the thing that I remembered at the same time was probably even more important.

When I lived in Atlanta, back in the mid 90's there was a pretty good triathlon group that I would ride and run with.  I tried to keep up with what was in the news, who was on top, what the pro's were doing.  At that time it was Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Scott Tinley, to name a few.  ( you may have heard of them).  Anyway, Mark Allen at the time was working with this Doctor, Phil Maffetone.  If you remember the 40,30,30 Bars, the original ones.  He was the guy behind that.  And he was also behind the training of Mark Allen.  He came to Atlanta to give a seminar and I went.  He was fascinating, a genius doctor but had a way of talking about the science without it being to over our heads.  Most of us there were athletes, not doctors so we had to understand it without having a PhD.  But listening to him lecture about the muscles and typical injuries and nutrition was really enjoyable. I think Mark Allen was actually there too and of course, he talked about how he was training Mark, what they were doing, using the heart-rate monitor to measure your fitness, keep track of your results etc... He wrote a book about it and again something easy  to comprehend and so aptly called, 'The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing'.  Nothing difficult to understand about that title.  I would recommend it.  It's fascinating, enlightening and full of information that you can apply yourself, without him having to coach you personally, I think anyway.  You could have Mark Allen train you now, the link to his site is on my 'Links-Tips' page. (click the pic)  I remember thinking he was awesome back then and still think that way.  I've seen him a few other times here in Boulder, still a strong force in the triathlon world. 

So anyway, I left this seminar with more information than I knew what to do with honestly.  But I used my heart-rate monitor more than I had before and after some time I did see a difference.  I had known about one of his training methods before I went to see him speak.   His 180 Formula.  I am honestly not going to try to explain his scientific method on this as it is very involved.  But suffice it to say, for myself and many of my friends it did makes us more efficient in our training, able to train longer, over time with less fatigue, injury.  We also would keep track, as he suggests, of rides or runs we would do in the beginning of the process and notice that at the end of say three months we would do the same ride/run in much less time and feel physically better than we had when we started.  I actually remember another pro triathlete at the time, Mike Pigg, he came to speak and race with our club and talked about this training that he had been doing as well.  I remember he said he thought it was a bunch of 'hogwash', if you will, at first and didn't think it was going to work.  But a friend, fellow triathlete bet him that he would beat him on this long ride they used to do.  So he took the bet, trained with Dr. Maffetone's training regimen, kept up with his training log and did the ride.  To his surprise he did the ride faster than he had ever done, even after years of riding this with his friend and I think he won.

But the long and short of it, was on this 3 mile run yesterday, I suddenly remembered all of this, from literally 14 years ago.   I have to admit, I have two heart rate monitors, whose batteries are dead and need fixing.  I think I am going to go get that done, but until they are ready I am going to do the next best thing.  I am going to try to slow down more on my warm ups, make them a bit longer than I have been.  I was a sprinter in high school and college and turned into a distance runner and do notice that I run much much better when I am very warm and limber.  Not rocket science there, I think most of us are.  But I don't think we really give ourselves a good 15 minutes of just running without it being 'training'.  I almost need to tell myself the first 2 miles I should be able to hold a conversation with someone without getting out of breath.  I know I have heard that before.  I run with myself more often than not, so that might be a problem, as I run the risk of being thought of as the crazy runner lady who talks to herself while working out.  ha!

So there is my very UN-scientific break down of a very scientific formula developed by a very smart man about 30 years ago now.  You might be thinking, there are new and better ways of training.  Yes, maybe, but maybe not.  But I will say if you are at all curious, I would go back and look at Mark Allen's records.  Not to take away from many of his fellow triathletes, but he was amazing.  If you do get to read the book, Dr. Maffetone breaks it all down and the stats are mind boggling, at least to me.  He had such a long career too, he did his last Ironman at 37.  I know Craig Alexander won in Kona in 2011 at 38 and he is amazing too!  I think he is trained by Dave Scott, so the guys now still listen to the originators of the sport, that's got to say something on how they got there.

So if you are at all curious, I would suggest some light reading, maybe on a snow day.  He is a genius and that's what Mark Allen said about him, so I figure, I'm just an Age Group triathlete working on getting back in, don't have a ton of time, etc...etc...just like the rest of us.  So if someone has a plan that allows me to work smarter but not always harder and it will make me just as fast or faster and even more fit, well then I'll check it out.  I'd like a few more PR's!

I would post some excerpts from the book, but they are quite long so I will just say again, check out the book , 'The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing'.   I promise you will get some great information, whether you try it out for yourself is up to you.  Don't shoot the messenger!

Until next time.  Slow down a little, maybe.
Caroline / Triathleta