Rest and Why you Need It

Our bodies need rest in order to function properly. Does your car engine get stronger if you never turn it off? We get stronger, not during the workout, but when we rest and recover…

Growth hormone is produced when we sleep deeply and at no other time. So being horizontal is when you get to rebuild everything that training is working hard to stress and “tear down”

Bill Bowerman took a technique from Arthur Lydiard and coined the term “tough-easy” for every day that you work hard you need an easy workout to follow-up with. Easy is PE 3-4 and hard is a very long run or anything in the PE 5 & above category. Recall the post on pace and running form talks about PE, perceived effort and where your tachometer should be most of the time.

Masters runners & folks who are no longer acting like they are 20 years old often find they need a day off between workouts. This allows a more full recovery between workouts & thus you get quality workouts every time you go big. Once you are older than 20 you realize it is mostly about quality, isn’t it?

I’ll be referring you to a copy of a great article by Bridget Clark, titled Training Error – Overuse or Under-recovery? from the April 2010 issue of Ultrarunning. Her graphs are worth a thousand words as she explains the body’s response to training stimulus and how many of us will induce another stimulus (running) before we can rebuild, leading to overwhelming our systems and inching closer to the “injury threshold” in the process.
She goes a step further and talks about the idea that cross training, especially strength training, provides a stimulus that is different than running and is also non-load bearing so that the tissues build capacity and recovers better without undue stress.

Does it sound confusing that I would encourage you to exercise and then ask you to take it easy while doing it? Reframe the idea in terms of the law of diminishing returns you already know from the office. When you do not get a vacation from work or a weekend off, you become dull and less fun. Further, if you do not have adequate time to process the challenges at work (rebuild) then you begin to see diminishing returns as well – we push the pace and things begin to get dropped on your plate. Let me quote Bridget Clark, from her Training Error article, “we now have a wealth of research in sports science covering the past 30 years. With the rate of running injuries so prevalent, potential causes have been studied up and down.” She summarizes this body of research by saying, “training error is the only factor that consistently displays a direct cause and effect relationship with running injuries”. She has the doctorate in Physical Therapy, and her argument makes sense intuitively. Sometimes we will suffer what she refers to as a traumatic injury – one example would be me hitting my head on a low limb during a run and causing a goose-egg style welt to appear. The second and much more common injury is overuse, with two studies cited, ten years apart, each showing 70% of runners see these overuse injuries. We simply do not allow enough time for the body to recover and rebuild as stronger before we load it up again. Slow or abrupt degenerative damage results as we spiral toward what Bridget Clark calls injury threshold.

Remember how we talked about the injury cycle? There are 4 distinct phases - all easy to remember and each gets worse.
One: I sprain/tweak my ankle and so it hurts a bit after the run.
Two: I run on it for two weeks as I normally would, without slowing down or doing any “rehab” of the injury and now it hurts during and after the run.
Three: A week after that it hurts before, during and after the run.
Four: Finally it hurts too much to run, and hurts all the time – is this my ankles fault? Am I now meant to run? If you are in my class I think you can answer this question pretty well…

The good news is that you can apply this sports injury model to your overall sense of well being and thus guard against over training. The FIRST program, Dr. Maffetone, and Dr. Tim Noakes in his book all talk about a runner getting progressively more tired, feeling that performance plateaus and then drops, notices that immune system function begins to decline and may even see mood changes or swings in much the same way that extreme stress has been shown to affect people. We should be alert for trends over time and look out for a common acronym in prehospital care called DIC head syndrome. Disoriented, Irritable and Combative. A number of things can cause this and some could be acute problems such as; you could have low blood sugar, could be suffering from the heat, or maybe something more chronic could be overtraining syndrome. Everybody has different physiological set point for this (you are an experiment of one) and it varies depending upon what else is going on in your life as well. It is a fine line for some and gets easier to discern as your “aches and pains” database expands and as you learn more about your training process as journey of minor stressors and growing stronger from each stressor. Tired is natural, while tired with lingering effects and inability to refresh may need intervention. As you might guess, this is much easier to spot in others, outside yourself. Your training log will help you here as well as your running buddies.

Remember when we talked at the beginning about your running log? How you should examine your workouts and they will tell you a great deal about where you and how far you have come? This document can become an important window into how you are doing if you are without a coach or a regular running buddy who can spot your holistic well being. Author Tim Noakes gives a number of suggestions that you may wish to record in your running logbook that extend beyond the idea of mileage, route, shoes worn and time elapsed.
1) How did the run go? We all have a growing “aches and pains database” and this plays a role but on the trend side you want things to get gradually better.
2) What was your effort rating (or PE, perceived effort): If easy workouts feel hard this week, I ask the question “what has changed?”
3) Did you enjoy it – or any part of it? Nearly every run has both good a bad spots and if they do not pass easily out of the bad, I ask the same question as above, or if things clicked – what helped is good information too.
4) You waking pulse rate: I asked you to take a baseline pulse as homework because we want to see improvements and look for spikes in this rate, or a new creep upward, as a sign we must heed.
5) Early morning body weight: This is the best time to get a reading (after the gastrocolic reflex occurs) and this number will fluctuate but we hope that there is not a continued drop over time – a loss of appetite or persistent loss is considered an overtraining sign.
6) Number of hours slept: You know where this is going – get to bed!
7) Heart rate during the workout: This can also tell us about what you are feeling, are you pushing too hard or is it taking more effort to do what was easier to execute two weeks ago? Over time the same route should get a bit faster or easier without increasing heart rate above your regular workout numbers. See the previous lesson about pace to get a Dr. Maffetone recommended pulse rate for your steady state runs.

This kind of data will allow insight toward overtraining trends or on the bright side – when you can bump things up a notch. Many starting out will say “I do not want to bump anything, right now – I am stressed enough!” and that may be true, however 3-4 weeks without changes toward the positive side of the ledger, and no deleterious effects either means that you have hit your plateau at this exertion level and it is time to vary the workload or increase intensity for a new phase. This gradually makes you better at what you are pursuing.

If something hurts for two or more days then take 2 or more days off – simple. During that time stretch, RICE and examine what has changed that would cause the injury – but don’t assume running through it as normal, will be the cure. You will have to use active rest and modify your expectations while learning about the root cause of injury. Here is a great thought, “healing, is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature." - W.H. Auden

If you are sick from the neck up – go ahead and run (it may even help) If you are sick from the neck down – consider sitting this one out.

Expect that you’ll need to take better care of yourself and wash your hands more frequently when your mileage drops. Your immune system is cranking at peak capacity when you are running & when mileage drops sometimes the immune system takes a vacation too.

When you are getting strong running performances each week, you can gain 90% of all possible fitness developments with 4 days/week of running. You may get that extra 10% with 5 or more days each week but what you’ll find is that the number of injuries you see in the runner is appreciably higher.

Trouble signs of overtraining
Injury – muscles not allowed to recover well between workouts suffer from stress injury. Failing running form in the tired athlete leads to excessive pounding, favoring something compounds imbalances. Do not become a sport limper or it will get worse somewhere else on your machine!
Sickness – While running stimulates the immune system, too much too soon - or inadequate rest – allows the body to be susceptible to illness or infection – once you are ground down to nothing, illness sets up shop.
Slump – remember that loss or impairment of higher brain function is one way that the body shows early sign of problems. Irritability, restlessness, trouble sleeping, depression and malaise indicate that you need a rest week (decrease in training volume, additional rest days, 8+ hours of sleep nightly)

How much rest? For starters we stay within the 10% rule, so that we rarely increase training load by more than 10% in any week. We also seek to vary the training cycle and get you some rest every four weeks as a means for you to absorb your training. Within that parameter you’ll also need at least one extra minute per night for each mile you train that week. EG: If you run 15 miles in a week, you’ll need 15 extra minutes each night that week. Closer to race time - seek to allow an extra hour of sleep each evening. Olympic Marathoner Ryan Hall is in bed at 9:30pm every night. You do not spend 12 hours a day there, but you get what you need to charge up for your event.

One last resting tip is feet up - allowing time for fluid exchange (assisted by gravity) not only feels great but really speeds recovery. Racers are now using pressure stockings to gain the same benefit while sitting at their desks. Blood return and elevation are great things for tired feet and lower legs.

What's next?

This is it -our final class post of the session and our final group run this week and we head into fall race season. This class is always a huge treat for me as I watch and learn, and am continually inspired by student s and their progress as athletes. It is a rare privilege to facilitate this group and I thank you for the opportunity. You also helped (via your tuition) to raise a lot of great support for Girls On the Run and I hope you'll consider running one of their great 5K races in the future and/or the new upcoming Elkins half Marathon details TBD - but it is in the works.

I'll leave this site up for your reference and who knows - I may have time to contribute to it between now and our next class... sometime in the summer of 2011. Meanwhile feel free to share and post on the FB site to keep in touch and keep up on other's discoveries in the running world - we want to keep you on the road ad this is one more tool to do just that.

What’s next?
“What we call results are beginnings-” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bad news is that this training program is nearing its end but the good news is that you all are real runners now – so what do you do with that?

Stanford and Tufts Universities have each studied the long term effects of running on physiology and have found that vigorous exercise is associated with living longer and in better health – irregardless of the age at which participants began their exercise program. Stanford’s 21 year study showed that runners age 50-72 experienced 40% reduced risk of disability, cancer, Alzheimer’s and just plain lived longer. In the same study, runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including joint injury.
Use it or loose it, you are a runner now and you can enjoy these benefits too if you keep with a program that works for you.

Re-establish a routine: While we have a good routine already you’ll need a few more calendar pages or a training log to keep planning your progress (www.personallogs.com) and you’ll want to modify and repeat your current plan or build a new one based upon your goals. A free online training log is at www.buckeyeoutdoors.com and they have some training plans you can overlay onto your race targets too.

The Elkins Road Runners group and the West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners (www.wvmtr.org) are always taking new members and are nearly free to join. They have group runs regularly and race events as well as social gatherings. Runners are a tribe; while they may not run at your pace or the same events – they will always encourage you to run and will welcome you. Some are too busy to wave and do not take it personally – real runners are folks who get out there, stay out there, share the knowledge and encourage other runners. There are many real runners in Elkins and the bigger your community the greater chance you’ll keep running – so find these folks in your tribe. Several of these folks you have already met at seminar and there are many more out there that will happily run with you or answer questions.

Keep building: Goals for a new runner usually revolve around faster or further. Training for further distance may hinge upon the amount of free time that you can devote to training. Remember in all training; for distance or training volume - to start slowly and use the “no greater than 10% increase (per week) rule”. Faster training techniques can be incorporated after 3-4 months of base mileage for the runner. So soon after your race, you can ease back into our training plan and start thinking about techniques for increasing your pace if you wish or begin adding a long run - not to exceed 10% further than your last long run.
If you are interested in building different types of runs and calculating what would be the correct pace for each type of run – you can use the McMillian Running calculator. He also offers online coaching.


Mix it up: Running events in your calendar allow you some mid-term training goals and are a fun way to get a t-shirt. Events are a great place to meet new runners too. Remember that folks who are running pretty hard 3-5 days a week should still seek to only race 13 or fewer miles per month. So if you want to support the local event & you are over quota then just run slow – like, long run slow.

Using techniques like track and speed workouts, hill work, long runs, foot strengthening drills, trail running, balance and flexibility drills and cross training are all ways to keep your running interesting and build your skill sets as a runner. New things in running involve greater strength training, balance drills, Pilates for core strength, yoga for flexibility and focus, and barefoot running. Runners use a lot of specificity training for moving in one plane – so taking up an activity that strengthens other areas of the body is very helpful for balance, the kind that keep you upright and balance; the kind that keeps versatile and well rounded.
A good yoga site with slideshows and podcasts

She also has a new book out called The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga. Working with the FIRST program recommendations, I like cycling, rowing and swimming (or aqua-jogging) for cross training as they do not incur load bearing stress to running muscles. Visit here for their program. The text I like and use in class is called Run Less, Run Faster and details the entire FIRST Program, including drills and training progressions – this program is grueling but it’ll get you to Boston if you so desire and will improve your running significantly.

Look down the road: Long runs allow you to think about the human potential and what you might want to do next. Bart Yasso is famous for saying “Never limit where your running can take you.”
Consider that Jeff Galloway offers a run-walk method that is proven for longer distances, making any length of event achievable if you desire.
20K (12.4 miles) this is a little used but fun distance
13.1 Half Marathon There are many great local and regional half marathons and this is a very attainable distance for runners to work towards. All of the challenge with less intense training cycles than a marathon. Sounds like a fit for nearly everybody in some ways.
Marathon (26.2) Very fun and attainable with one years running experience plus 16 weeks of marathon specific training. Tom Holland’s book got me through my first one in 2008 and I had a great day using his methods, so do not give that book away just yet!
Ultra-Marathon any distance beyond 26.2 includes 50K, 40 mile, 50 mile, 70 mile and 100+ mile events. While events are getting longer and more races are being created - attendance in these events is also growing quickly and allows runners to see some of the most fantastic locales on earth. You will want to have completed several 26.2 events before moving up to this distance.
Relay events: think about the Ultra style distances but sharing the load with 6-20 of your friends in an event that is road trip meets relay race. These are becoming very popular and combine a charity fundraising element with zany fun. The Hood-to-Coast relay in Oregon, Reach the Beach in New Hampshire, THE RELAY in Northern California, and the Ragnar Relay series of events all give you the chance run short legs of the total route and trade running stretches with team mates to complete the entire event.

Travel running: You can use a travel specialist and tour companies to book running excursions nearly anywhere on earth. Some folks try to get a run or race in all 50 states, other want a marathon on each continent (yes, they run one in Antarctica just for these people). Regardless of your goals, never take a trip without your running shoes, because while you need the exercise you will also find that a run is a great way to see a new town or even meet other runners.
There are running clubs online, online coaching and contacts for a running club where ever you may visit so that you can connect, stay motivated, and learn from what others are doing.

Find new events to run
A quick tour of iplayoutside.com will allow you to find nearly all road running events within the mid-Atlantic region. You can search by distance, type of race or proximity to you. A great tool - Runners World has a good race finder as well and remember that many times a marathon race will also have several shorter distance events planned around it (half marathon and 5K or 10k)
www.Coolrunning.com has a race finder
www.marathonguide.com has a great race finder
www.race360.com is also a race/event finder
Again, a great local resource is www.iplayoutside.com and most are there