Means to an End

by John Schrup

We all put in great amounts of time and effort to prepare for race day.  Everyone does.  We run a ton, we do our GS, our yoga, our Pilates and, when required, we’ll run in the pool (yeah, I can’t think of anything more boring, either).  We essentially ruin our Saturdays with long, fast workouts that put us on the sofa, drifting in and out of consciousness, barely able to operate a remote control.  Our weekday morning workouts leave us over-cooked, our neurons firing intermittently out of exhaustion and depletion.  Your co-workers ask if perhaps you had a late night, you know, wink wink nudge nudge?  Your son inquires as to why there is half eaten roast chicken in the hall closet.   (Not that I’ve even done that.  I just heard about this one guy who did.)

We make big efforts so that we can put it all on the line for one single day.  One.  Single.  Day.  It almost doesn’t seem fair, does it?  You get up absurdly early every morning for six months so that you can do your workouts, or meet your teammates for a run.  You beg off the end of the week happy hour because, well, you have to run for three $%#@ing hours in the morning!  Your kids know that you’re going to be late to the opening game of the soccer tournament because you’re at breakfast with your teammates, or standing in the shower, motionless, because you’re too tired to lift your arms to reach the shampoo.    Big efforts all around!  For one single day.

And then on race day, it is 85 and sunny, or you wake up with a cold, or your calves cramp (that’s NEVER happened before!) or any number of things that can happen on that one single day, and all that goes to shit.

Now what?

Well, nothing.  Nothing at all.  The odds are that it isn’t going to be a perfect day.  The chances of things going the way you dreamed and planned are really, really small.  You take what that day gave you and say thanks.  You give thanks for the lesson of the day.  You give thanks that you had the opportunity to wake up and do this comically difficulty thing.  And then you get 24 hours to bitch and moan about it to anyone who will listen, and then you get up and carry on.  Nana korobi ya oki, the Japanese say.  Fall down seven times, get up eight.

But we can’t expect it to be that easy, can we?  It’s not all Zen and shit.  I mean, we are results driven and we expect results.  And to add to the familiar post-race depression that invariably sets in, now we don’t have anything to show for our efforts.

Perhaps you can alleviate some of that let down if we change the goal, change the focus.  Yeah, we still want to do well, particularly after spending all that money on travel and hotel and whatnot, but perhaps if we looked at the race as part of the bigger picture we wouldn’t be so miserably bummed when it is all said and done.  I suggest to people in my groups that they make the training the goal.  Make the training the focus.  Try to make your training block as close to perfect as possible.  (Likely you won’t, because perfect doesn’t exist, at least in this context.  But your odds are greater that you’ll have a great training block.)  In your next marathon training block, make each day the most important day of your training.  That is to say, put as much focus into your 45 minute recovery run that you put into your 30K specific fartlek.  Pay attention to your diet over the 20 something weeks of the training in the same way that you do in the week leading up to the marathon.   Learn how to run a workout on feel, rather than letting your GPS control you.

It works.  It just does.  I don’t know why.  And what we’ve found is that you’re much more likely to have a great day on race day.  You’re more appreciative of the day.  And then picking yourself up off the floor for the eighth time isn’t so hard.

Rogue Core … Like Nothing You’ve Ever Experienced:

Morning, noon or night?

Are you a die-hard, up-with-the-sun runner, or do you prefer to do your workouts in the evening, after the workday has finished? If you’ve dabbled in both, do you notice a difference in how you feel and how you perform?

Though no thorough studies have been completed at this point, it is widely acknowledged that most people can get their heart rate up significantly higher in the afternoon or evening when compared with the morning. Is this because your body is still adjusting from a period of sleep during morning workouts? Or maybe it’s higher in the evening because you’ve been busy digesting food and (likely) ingesting caffeine all day?

Whatever the cause of heart rate differences, the real item up for debate is what it means for your workouts. Are you more efficient in the morning? Or are your evening workouts more beneficial since you can work at a higher heart rate? The jury seems to be out, as you can see in this article, published by the New York Times.

Take a look, and let us know your experience. Have you ever noticed a difference? Which time of day is best? Or is it a trivial thing for the average runner (or anyone) to even think about?

To stretch or not to stretch? … That is the question!

And we have an answer … Stretch properly!!!
by Darren Brown
The more appropriate question would be … to stretch statically or dynamically? Over the past year, we at Rogue have tried to pass on tips about some of the non-running work that you can do to improve your actual running. There has been the introduction of strides, foot drills, recovery, core strength, etc. One of the more important, but also most overlooked and frequently skipped tasks we have introduced is our rope-stretching routine. The rope stretching routine we have introduced in two different forms and while the motions are the same for each, the way you complete the stretches varies … and matters!
The first form is dynamic stretching, used primarily for pre-run warm-up. Dynamic stretching consists of multiple repetitions of a stretch, held for a short duration, usually lasting no more than a second or two, while avoiding a bouncy or jerky movement. The sought-after result of stretching in this manner is not actually as its name implies however. You are nottrying to stretch your muscles to a completely relaxed and loose state. You are instead simply trying to get the muscles warm by providing them with extra blood flow, preparing them for the exercise ahead. By using this form of stretching, you are allowing your legs to keep the natural bounce and “pop” (as many runners call it) that allows us to run more explosively and, as the attached study now shows, efficiently.
The second form of stretching is static stretching. This stretching is primarily used post-run or pre-bedtime. Anytime that gaining recovery is the main purpose for stretching, static stretching is the right choice. Static stretching consists of fewer repetitions of a stretch, held for a prolonged duration, and lasting upwards of 30 seconds. As the stretch begins to settle in its hold, it is appropriate to deepen the stretch slightly by placing more tension on the muscle group you are working. This can be done within a repetition or from rep to rep. Static stretching loosens muscles and allows them to flush out and recover quicker and with greater ease which is great for post-run, but can be detrimental to efficiency pre-run.
By stretching more appropriately, and more frequently, it is an easy way to see your overall running improve without actually putting in more miles. While the debate remains as to whether stretching “prevents” injury or not, one fact has been proven (as seen in the following article) … stretching the correct way not only improves performance, but stretching the wrong way will actually decrease performance.