This week: Fulfilling the need for speed; pushups, planks, and creating a strength training circuit; plus managing the mental manifestations of pain.
For the last few months, I’ve spent my Wednesday mornings blasting through speed workouts that have gradually become tougher and more intricate. These workouts are designed to test my aerobic and anaerobic systems as part of an offseason training program that emphasizes building speed over volume.
That’s cool, but what’s really great is they allow me to tap into the childlike urge to run fast. During workouts, I often channel my eight-year-old who has one speed -- as fast as he can go for as long as he can sustain it. (If only I could tap into his youthful ability to recover in mere seconds.)
To put it another way, speed workouts are fun. After holding yourself back all week with a steady diet of easy miles, they offer an open invitation to tear it up and leave (almost) nothing in reserve. How many times during the normal course of your daily events do you get to give as much as you can to anything?
Speed workouts are also hard, taxing both your physical and mental stamina. Do too much speedwork and you’re likely to pay the price, either through injury or burnout. Skimp on recovery and you’re liable to end up in the same boat.
Yet, just enough speedwork -- done at the right duration and intensity with ample recovery time -- can do wonders for your running performance. It improves running economy and form, all of which helps prepare your body for even tougher bouts of exercise, like races.
Did I mention workouts are also fun? Too often we get stuck in repetitive running ruts where we run the same routes at the same pace and the same intensity. Throwing a little speedwork into the mix helps shake up the monotony while revving our metabolic engines.
Let’s get into the weeds with a few recent examples.