So, you want to become an endurance athlete... Congratulations! You've taken a great step to becoming a happier, healthier person. I'm writing this post to share my experience, advice, and observations. I was a beginner myself once, and I've helped multiple people beginning to participate in running and swimming. I'm obviously not an expert, but hopefully this helps you.
I'm assuming you're already a healthy, average person. If not, see "Health Tips/ Weight Loss Advice."
For the true beginner:
Once again, take it slow! Gradually get into these sports. The biggest mistake people make is to try to train too hard, too fast. You'll injure yourself, and it'll take you longer to reach your goals than if you took it slow in the first place. Then you'll probably start trying to get back into it too soon and have your injury nagging at you or reinjure yourself. This is especially a problem in running because it's high impact and most people aren't used to the repeated pounding running causes on your joints. Do yourself a favor and start slow. A good guideline is the 10% rule. This means that in any given two weeks, try not to increase your mileage more than 10%. If you can only do a 1 mile run, try to do that 4 times in a week (hopefully not all in a row!) for a total of 4 miles. If you feel the urge to do more, just do some walks on your rest days, especially if you're feeling sore. Give yourself time to recover, or you might get injured. The next week, run the same or maybe try a 1.5 mile run or 2 mile run on one of the 4 days for a total of about 5 miles. The next week you should definitely be ready for a 2 mile run on one or two of the days (again, hopefully not in a row!) for 5 or 6 miles. The next week, depending on your soreness level, 6 or 7 miles, and still try to achieve this with 1 or 2 mile runs with rest days in-between. It's been about a month and the 5th week, you should bring your mileage down just a little to about 5 miles before continuing to increase the next month.
This brings me to my next point: periodization. Periodization is the concept of putting your training through cycles. These can be macrocycles or microcycles. I consider micro-cycles to be weekly or monthly. A weekly microcycle would be a long run on one day, a couple days of medium length, and a couple days of shorter, recovery distance, and a couple days of recovery/active rest (like walking or crosstraining for the advanced.) A monthly microcycle involves upping your mileage for 3 or 4 weeks, and then lowering your mileage maybe 10% to give yourself some time to recover and allow yourself to break through any plateau you might hit. I personally consider macrocycles to be over a year. This includes about four stages, endurance base building, the incorporation of some faster workouts, a buildup of faster workouts/ race pace work (mixed with endurance work... you are an endurance athlete after all!) and then a racing cycle where you have to balance recovery with endurance and some race-pace work. When you're ready for periodization with speed work, look up strength running (I have the link in my favorite websites!).
Now that I've mentioned speed work, I need to mention anaerobic/aerobic training. You may think faster running gives you more bang for your buck as far as time and effort go. Many beginners train at a pace that has them huffing and puffing because they're out of shape, and then continue that indefinitely because they think it's normal. When you are huffing and puffing and your heart is racing, you're training anaerobically. This means you're burning mainly carbohydrates for quick energy and your heart is working very hard. This kind of training is hard on your body and can lead to a high amount of inflammation as your body tries to compensate and heal or even injuries when utilized too much by both inexperienced runners and elites. Since you're just beginning, you'll find much more benefit from training your aerobic system. When you're training aerobically, you are burning fat primarily and working your heart without causing excessive inflammation You're going at a moderate pace but it's not like you're struggling to maintain. A guideline to know if you're training aerobically is to check whether you're able to talk full sentences before you get too out of breath. Try saying "My name is ___ and I like running." Maybe "I eat big hills for breakfast and this is cake!" Forgive the corniness, inside joke. The point is you will motivate yourself and check whether you're aerobic. Sometimes I sing. You're obviously going to have to take a breath in the sentence but you shouldn't be gasping for air. This is going to give you the most health benefits and make your easy mile pace much faster. Elite athletes can run easy miles at 6 minute mile paces because they have amazing cardio conditioning. Try looking up Sock-Doc's advice (check for the link in my favorite websites post) for using heart rate monitors if you have the money... they're a good resource! The sock-doc is awesome in general.
If I figure out more I want to post or any of you have questions that prompt another post, I'll make a part two. Now get out there, and have fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment