Tuesday, June 11, 2024 – Hard:Easy ratio

Hi Everyone!

First up, huge congrats to Chris Fortin who ran in the Buttertart Trot Half Marathon and came 2nd in his age group and third place overall with a 1:25!!! I’ve said before, sometimes the breakthrough in racing and fitness is in consistently running times that used to be unattainable. It’s not in always getting a PB, but more in raising your floor. Some people argue that raising the floor (what you can achieve on most given days) is more significant than one-off results which are hard to replicate. But either way, once you’ve become consistent with what you can do on any day, the ceiling becomes closer, and punching through more likely.

I’ve been thinking about a lot this week, but I’ll start with this one: the hard/easy/moderate ratio. We’ve all heard that only 20% of our runs should be “hard”, and the rest easy to moderate. The reason for this is that running hard is physically and mentally demanding and from decades of experience, this is where science has landed as the pattern that humans can tend to tolerate in running. This is used as the guideline for the ‘maximum’ heavy load we should do. Remember: we can only work hard and improve based on our ability to absorb and recover. I think it’s the latter parameter we’d be better off looking at when devising a training schedule. Not “how hard can I work”, but “what is my ability to recover”. This is a much more fluid and hard to pin down parameter – that is the problem. We like to plan out our work and we devise a schedule and formula which functions on our best weeks and months.Then, when recovery becomes compromised, we have a hard time adjusting. So we keep pushing, and hard becomes harder, easy is no longer so easy, recovery goes even further down, our performance suffers, and we’re left scratching our heads.

I think many of us could benefit from giving ourselves a little more grace on training when life stressors ramp up. I am not saying this just to be compassionate: I am saying this as a coach, in order to maximize your performance. I will tell you one other thing: it is much MUCH easier to maintain fitness than it is to build fitness. You can maintain fitness by doing as little as 50% of what you did to build it. So by not pushing hard all the time, and taking an extra easy day or two, you are not losing fitness. You are absorbing the work you did previously and/or maintaining where you are.

Just speaking from experience here, but here are some things that might secretly be zapping your ability to recover: a bad night’s sleep (this might take a few days to recover from), emotional stress (dealing with parents, kids, poor workplace dynamics), poor nutrition (a day or two of being too busy and missing a meal can really impact your ability to bounce back), mental fatigue (I have been told and repeat: don’t take on a new job and a training goal at the same time), and just plain aging (the formula shifts as we get older and we have to adapt to what we can currently absorb). Digging deep physically and running “hard” through all of these stressors requires a little more planning and extra recovery time.

Luckily, “easy” runs can actually improve your recovery, and keep you in that 50% zone of maintaining fitness. Things that assist recovery: social connection and community, being outside in nature, movement of your body. All of these things also help promote better sleep and a more relaxed autonomic nervous system.

1. The more and the harder you work, the more you should plan in or allow yourself to enjoy your recovery. Every week should not and probably won’t look the same. Some weeks might allow for three harder sessions, and some one or none. That is still progress. Adapt as needed. Just keep moving.

On to tomorrow’s workout! Lakeshore and Leslie: 6:05 Drills, 6:15 GO! (I’ll be out to cheer again but am racing on Thursday so will just be doing a pre-comp warm-up)

Let’s do a downwards ladder (credit Annick who helped author this wrkt):

1 mile, 1200, 1000 (jog to Carlaw to start 800), 800, 600 (jog to cone to start 400) 400. 2 min rest between everything except the 2 that are 200m shuffle/jogs.

We’ve been going pretty hard with our Wed workouts lately, so allowing you to tap into your energy as to what you need here for pace. If you need a little recharge and are feeling flat, start at tempo and you can either keep it tempo or pick it up as you feel. If you’re charged up and brimming to go, start at 10K pace and squeeze them down as you go.

If traveling and doing this by time, how about a nice descending ladder: 6-5-4-3-2-1 with 2 min shuffle/jog in between. Effort level as above.

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna