Following on from the previous post about walking here I consider the longer term advantages of doing less, but doing it consistently.
On the surface ‘doing less’ sounds counterintuitive, but doing less and being able to keep running without injury is much better than ‘doing more’, ‘making progress’, ‘seeing a huge improvement’ at the time and then, as so often happens, getting an injury and losing all those gains.
This is a strong correlation, actually it is probably direct causation – overtraining leads to injury.
It took me many years to fully appreciate the long term effects of steady, slow and easy training, but once I experienced the massive gains that come from doing this I am a complete convert.
To illustrate my point the following two screen captures show my tracking.
The first graph shows a period where I was trying to ‘get going’, really ‘putting some effort in’, making ‘good progress’, and then… the crash and burn from when I got an injury.
See how my increase in load impact didn’t really do much to improve my base fitness, but just opened me up to injury?
That was a pretty bad injury. Weeks went by where I couldn’t do anything. The drop off in base fitness devastating. All that hard work just drifting away. This is just an estimate, but I guess one week of not running takes two to three weeks to recover? That’s regardless of any direct losses caused by the injury. It all stacks up and can put you back a long way.
Compare the graph above with the following graph where I took the training intensity down a notch or two after yet another injury.
The difference is huge. The load impact is really nicely balanced and is slowly increasing over time in direct relation to my base fitness.
The focus of the training has changed from the micro to the macro and rather than being about how much effort is put into that particular session, the effort becomes about consistently turning up every session .
The numbers on the right hand side of the graphs are a % of your typical level training activity. The following definition is taken from my sports watch app:
I Excessive (≥150%)
Recent training may be overreaching or excessive
I Optimized (100%-149%)
Productive training is increasing Base Fitness
I Maintaining (80%-99%)
Moderate recent Training Load, maintaining Base Fitness
I Resuming/Performance (50%-79%)
Resuming represents increased Training Load is improving your fitness.
Performance represents you are ready to take on significant physical effort
I Decreasing (0%-49%)
Low recent Training Load, Base Fitness declining
Personally I think the 100% to 149% window goes way too high, but of course this app was not designed for the heavy demands of fell running, it is designed for more typical and much safer and lighter running environments.
There is no way for anyone to know where your personal limits are, but of course, anywhere around the 100% mark is going to work.
At 110% it may take longer, but you are much more likely to be able to keep that up for a much longer period than say, 130% where the risk of injury will be higher.
All of this comes down to personal decisions, experience, self knowledge, training goals etc.
Some of you may be familiar with Aesop’s Fables and the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. It’s a little different, but replace ‘nap’ and ‘sleeping’ with ‘injury’.
A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.
“Do you ever get anywhere?” he asked with a mocking laugh.
“Yes,” replied the Tortoise, “and I get there sooner than you think. I’ll run you a race and prove it.”
The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.
The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.
The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.
Of course, the moral of the story is that ‘slow and steady wins the race!’
Sure, fell running can be about racing (there is a whole community of people who love this side of the sport), but for many people including myself, we just do this for the love of it and never enter a race.
The same message holds true though, even if we just run alone, surely we always want to be out running rather than sat at home nursing an injury, right?
What do you think? Is your experience different? Do you disagree?
Until next time, keep on running, slow and steady!