Lift Heavy Things (part 2)

In part one of Lift Heavy Things, I did my best to share with you why you should begin a weight training program during your off-season. Hopefully this helped you make the commitment to head to the gym and get started. But now you realize you have no idea what to do or how long it should take. Remember, as an endurance athlete your goal in the gym is to develop strength to be able to apply more force to the pedals, pavement, or water... that's it. Your training program should focus on the function of the muscle and as such here are a few things for you to consider as you get started:

1. Use Multi-Joint Movements- in order to save time and hit as many muscle groups as possible use big movement exercises. These are three joint movements such as a squat and leg press for lower body or lat pulldown and bench press for upper body. When pressed for time or just starting out, do these four exercises first!
2. Focus on the Muscles that do the Work- Don't go into the gym and start using machines or doing certain free-weight exercises that are not sport specific. You are wasting your time and all of your hard work will not carry over to improve your overall ability in your sport. Think about the biggest muscle that is used to do most of the work. If you are unsure ask a trainer.
3. Copy your Movements- As you are working pay special attention to where you place your feet and hands. Try your best to put them in similar positions to the sports you are training for.
4. Work on Correcting Imbalances- Throughout your season you work hard and push your body to its limits. As such, you train and race through soreness and even minor injury in order to meet your goals. But in doing so your muscles get out of whack just like the tires on your car do over time.
5. Connect your Muscles- It is great to develop the strength of your upper and lower body, but if you do not also develop your core those forces will not get utilized. Your back and abs are your lever point when applying force and if your mid-section resembles a slinky then the forces get absorbed and not transferred into work.
6. Pay Attention to your Time- Your time is valuable so don't spend all day in the gym... maybe an hour to an hour and half at most. Focus on big multi-joint movements to get the best bang for your buck and add in core work. Also, your weight training workouts are a supplement to your winter training endurance workouts... not in addition to. Don't get burned out before the season even begins. 

I hope this helps. Don't forget... if you are in the Roanoke Valley, you can start coming to my classes at the Gainsboro or Kirk YMCA in January. If you have any questions for me or are interested in joining me at the YMCA, feel free to email me at edward.h.shepherd@gmail.com.

Lift Heavy Things (part 1)

It is now getting crazy cold outside and you should be ready to start moving some of your workouts indoors. In my last post I shared with you some ideas for what you could get in to during the off-season. One of those very necessary workouts should be lifting weights. A lot of you don't care much for it, but it is a very important part of building a strong foundation to your 2014 race season.

You may be reluctant to head to the gym in the off season because you are unsure of what machines to use. This may be true, but it is not a good enough excuse to leave weightlifting out of your winter training plan. All good gyms have instructors that can help get you started or if you are in the Roanoke Valley you can start coming to my classes at the Gainsboro or Kirk YMCA in January. The point is, make it happen! Weight lifting is not going to replace your fitness or sport-specific training, but supplement it to (1) improve integrity of joints, (2) correct imbalances, and (3) improve muscular strength to help you sustain a larger workload over time.

A lot of people say they don't want to lift too much weight because they don't want to "bulk up." Well here is a news flash- that will never happen to most of us! As an endurance athlete, you will never be able to lift enough to counter the amount of endurance training you do to cause that to happen.

 

So why lift at all then? As an athlete, you want to recruit multiple motor units, which means more fibers are firing, causing an increase in force production and strength. As an endurance athlete, you can have a relatively small number of motor units, but with weight training you gain the ability to recruit more of those motor units in order to help with the workload. What this means is you don’t gain more muscle, just recruit all of the  units in the muscle you already have! By starting small and working up over the next few months you will be surprised at the gains you will see. All of the hard work in the gym will pay huge benefits when you are standing on the podium!

 

This is part 1 of a series I will be blogging about for the rest of December on the need to weight train. If you have any questions for me or are interested in joining me at the YMCA in January, feel free to email me at edward.h.shepherd@gmail.com.

Off-Season = Cross-Training

 As 2013 comes to a close, it is now time to keep your levels of fitness from diminishing in the winter months. I love to race, but as the season moves on I find myself wishing I could do something that is not sport specific to racing. That is why I love the off-season just as much and in some ways even more! Now is the time to have fun and experiment with new ways to stay in shape. Here are a few transition activity ideas you can try:

Head Indoors:

There are tons of opportunities for cross-training available to chose from at your local gym.  Don't be afraid to get a gym schedule and check some of them out. Guys, if you think these classes are easy or too "girlie" for you... get over yourself. I have just started attending a circuit class and it kicked my butt into humbleville! These classes have some of the fittest people in the gym in them and will give you a run for your money in the challenge department. If your gym has a pool and you are not already swimming on your own, check to see if they offer a masters class or a set time for free swim.

The winter months are also a necessary time for you to get into the weight room. If you were lacking some of the power you needed to really get a strong pull as a swimmer or push a bigger gear on the bike, now is the time to work on that. A lot of times this can be intimidating for endurance athletes because of self perception, but at the end of the day if you want to be a better athlete then here is where your off-season training must begin.

Misery Loves Company:

If you are like me, riding outside when it is cold is not a pleasant experience and one that I don't mind avoiding. Unfortunately if one of your off-season goals is to improve your time trial ability you will need to figure out how to train in spite of the cold. How about getting together with your buddies and have a group trainer ride? These can be just simple rides or structured training sessions using a video series such as those offered by Endurance Films. They offer a variety of videos that are challenging and in a group setting are a lot of fun!

Group trail runs are also a great way to keep up your running. I love racing on trails, but with some convincing from my run coach I stayed away from them for the most part this year. I did make an exception for the Into the Darkness race which almost sent Coach Pincus over the edge, but lucky for me I survived. Trail running in the winter is a good break from all of the miles pounded out on the pavement and a great change in scenery. Yes, your pace will be slower but in the off-season that is just fine. This will allow you to relax both physically and mentally. You can't go hard all the time so this is all about enjoying running while recharging your mental motivation to want to go hard when it counts in the spring.


Just do Something:
Ok... you worked hard this year to get yourself in shape and do the best you could at the events you entered. It would be a shame to let all of your effort go to waste and have to start all over again next year. Take your current level of fitness and try to carry some of it over to next year so you can come out stronger than ever. I am not saying you have to develop an elaborate winter training plan, in fact don't do that. I am saying just do something and have fun doing it!

Finishing out the Season

So... how did it go in Richmond? Even though I didn't break my goal of running under three hours, I would have to still say it went great! My good friend Hunter French and I hit the road Friday afternoon to meet up with JJ White at the event check-in and packet pic-up. Once we arrived, we roamed around and checked some of the booths of interest to get what freebies we could before heading out to fuel up for the Marathon. After a great meal and feeling the need to go to bed at 7:30 we all finally retired for the evening and BOOM faster than I fell asleep, it was time to get up and get ready.

After getting everything set up including my Hammer Nutrition supplements, Runwell gear, and visiting the bathroom a few times, we hit the road. It was supposed to be only a 20% chance of rain, but we quickly figured out that was definitely not the case. We made our way to the Marriott to meet up with the Fleet Feet Roanoke crew and cheer them on and then it was go time!

Well... as if the rain wasn't all ready enough, right off the bat it started off crazy. I go to find bag check and am told its four blocks away and I have four minutes to go before the start! Great!! So now I am doing my best football dodging moves to find the bag check and make it back. After getting to the check in and heading back to the start line I realize I am not going to make the official gun time so I just relax and take my time to move in with the crowd to go over the start line and activate my chip. I hit the line and now I am officially running the Richmond Marathon for time. Even with the rain I feel pretty good clipping off 6:40 pace miles with ease all the way to the river. As I start making my way through mile ten, I get hit with a major urge to attack the first Port-O-Potty I can find. The problem is there isn't one in sight and I am getting desperate! As I begin fearing that some unsuspecting neighbor is about to get a very bad surprise, I finally see a row of green heaven and break into an almost full on sprint to the first open door I can find.

Two plus minutes later, I am happy again but now my legs are not in agreement with my request to run and getting back up to speed takes a bit. I manage to push forward at a pretty good clip until about mile seventeen where now my hips are beginning to rebel. Between miles eighteen through twenty-three both hips are aching just as they did in training and all I kept telling myself is "Do not stop to rest... its a trap!" I knew that if I listened to my legs request any chance I had of going under three would be finished for sure so I pushed on at a now much slower 7:30 pace. Just as last year, once I started making my way back into the city any pain that I thought I was having began to take a back seat to the feelings of accomplishment I was being overwhelmed with. As I topped the hill and headed down to the finish line I high-fived anyone in the crowd that was willing and cheered the whole way down. I was so glad to be done no matter what my time was I wanted to celebrate! An official time of 3:04:05 was not the goal I set for myself but it was still a PR and a damn good time so I was pleased with my effort in spite of the obstacles.

Richmond Marathon Week = Nerves and Excitement.

Well... it's almost time. Time to intentionally hurt myself for what will hopefully be less than three hours. I can honestly say I am totally nervous about doing this. There is no way I will be near the leaders for this one, but what makes this such an anxious event for me is this is the first time I will be running a Marathon with a goal time in mind. 

Anything can happen while running a Marathon but I am confident that I will achieve a Personal Best time on Saturday, even if I hit "The Wall" after mile 20. My fitness is there and the training was done... that combined with my current PR time means I will do that. But I have set the bar very high this time for myself. I will be going for something I have never done or attempted before thus the nerves and self-questioning. As my friend Colin has told me over and over this year... no matter what I say, I have to consider myself a runner at the paces I am getting to. Even with all of the joy I have experienced this year running, training, and developing new friendships it doesn't make doing a Marathon like this any easier!

You can track my progress by clicking on the picture.

Saturday will be a huge test for me, physically and mentally, but I’m as ready as I can be to do battle with myself to achieve my goal. I am Anxious to get started and Excited to get it over with! The good news is this has been something in the making over time. I have done the Richmond Marathon three other times and the course has hardly changed so I know what to expect. I have had a ton of people cheering me on all season and that has been truly appreciated more than you all will ever know. I have also become a part of a great organization in Runwell that supports a cause I believe in and been invited to be a part of the Roanoke Valley Elite Track and Field Club which is a huge honor. So like a sleeping volcano, here I sit trying to appear unassuming and calm while underneath the emotions and energy of it all are building within me waiting to be unleashed. I am ready to stare myself down and prove to those voices of doubt that I can do this. I will do this.

#DoWok in October for November Goals

Well I was really hoping to get to Duathon Nationals in October, but that was just not in the cards this year so I decided to turn all of my attention towards running.  After several second and third place finishes this season, I started off the month by getting my first running win at the Johnny CASA 5 Miler even while battling through a cold. I followed that up with a third place finish in the Mountain Junkies "Into the Darkness 4 Miler" the next weekend which I did despite the objection from my running coach, Finn Pincus. Why did he object? Because I was in the midst of training to do a personal best at the Sports Backers Richmond Marathon and his concern was I could get injured. Lucky for me that did not happen!


I have continued to up my mileage each week in October as well and train with RV Elite teammates Steve Crowder, Ali Kassens, and Andrew Parkins. They have helped keep me focused and motivated to push myself towards my Marathon goal. Steve has helped pace me through some of my long runs and give me advice. Ali is training for the Philly Marathon which occurs the very next day so we have been pushing each other on the speed workouts... good luck Ali! And Andrew just did the Chicago Marathon in a blazing fast 2 hours and 39 minutes! I am very grateful to God to be surrounded by great team members. And I have to say thank you to Hammer Nutrition for providing me with the proper nutritional supplements designed to help me work towards my ongoing pursuit of achieving optimum performance.

Now it is the beginning of November so the taper has begun and the reality of it all is starting to set in that I am actually going to push myself as hard as I can in a Marathon! Yes, I have done Marathons in the past but never to the brink of breakdown so I am starting to get very anxious and yet excited all at once. I am just ready to get it going and I am sure next week I will be even more wound up... so I have to say thank you to my lovely wife for dealing with me as I begin to act like a kid before Christmas wondering if he will get what he asked from Santa. It will all be over soon and then I can relax a little bit before I begin gearing up to do it all over again next year. In the meantime, I just hope my Marathon goes a little better than the stages below. And for all of you out there that are doing one or have done one, I am sure you can relate.

Racing with Humility

This weekend I competed in the Johnny CASA 5 Miler Zombie Run in Rocky Mount, VA and have to say that I had a great race since I won, but was almost 80% sure I wasn't even going to race Friday night! So... let me explain. 

I have been hard at it for the past month and a half either racing or doing other endurance adventures every weekend and on top of all of that, I am trying my best to train for the Richmond Marathon. This past Tuesday I did an 18 mile run and was able to keep a 7:20/ mile pace quite comfortably even after a good swim workout that morning with Coach Tanya so I was very pleased. Unfortunately I woke up Wednesday and could tell I was catching a cold which led me to take a rest day and I planned to only swim on Thursday to try my best to recover as much as possible. My training had been coming along quite well and I was really hoping to push at least a 5:45/ mile pace in Saturdays race.

Thursday morning I woke up at 4:30 AM as usual to get ready for swim practice and it was all I could do to get myself out the door. I still felt horrible and my head cold was trying to get in my lungs. I made it through practice with some encouragement from my coach and made sure I stayed on top of all of my Hammer Supplements in order to help my immune system. That night I got to bed early and after work on Friday I jumped on the treadmill to do my pre-race day paces workout in order to get ready for Saturdays race. Immediately my heart rate went trough the roof and I felt like I was dying! As I finished the warm-up I even questioned skipping the interval sets and completely bagging the race as I tried everything to get my heart rate down and bring my run pace up. I made it through the paces workout and as I looked at the data from my upload I realized part of the reason my pace was so messed up is that my Garmin was struggling to correctly track my footpod because according to the satellites I was standing still. That made me feel better about my pace, but I was still very concerned about how hard the workout felt. So... reluctantly I decided to go ahead and race but because of how I felt, I only committed to trying to keep my previous 10 miler pace of 6:10 as long as I was able to stay with the lead group. 

Saturday morning I felt a little better, but still moved at a snails pace in order to conserve as much energy and minimize all efforts so I could throw everything at the race. I was still sticking to my game plan of being a defensive racer in hopes of staying with the front group. I really wanted to have a good showing for Roanoke Valley Elite and Runwell now that I was totally focusing the rest of my season on my run training and because the defending Johnny CASA winner was Andrew Parkins, an RVE teammate. As I got ready for the race I knew that the local favorite, H.T. Page, was my main competition for the day so I was excited to finally get to run with him again but was also anxious to see if I could keep up, much less beat him. He and I trained together last fall on the trails and up to this point I had yet to beat him. He is by far one of the fastest masters in the valley and is a noble competitor in every race. He is a local celebrity!

After my warm-up I made my way to the line and could hear some of the runners talking and pointing to H.T. as the person to watch for and to stay on. I did my best to just blend in, keep my head down, and be unnoticed. Johnny Nolen, the race promoter, went through the introductions and then just like that the horn was sounding and we were off. I immediately jumped out front with H.T. and Timmy Moyer as we headed out of town and sped towards the turnaround. As we started up a climb near the end of mile one, Timmy took to the front but was not able to create separation so he eased back up allowing the group to stay together. Unfortunately he must have put out more effort than he thought and before the 5k turnaround was already off the group. At the 5k turnaround I was feeling fine sitting on H.T. but was jealous of those that would be soon finished and even H.T. kidded with me after the race that he had wished I had done the 5k! 

At the 5 Mile turnaround H.T. was still in the lead with me glued to his hip and moving at a comfortable pace of just a hair over six minutes. I was both pleased and surprised at how I felt and even thought about upping the pace a bit but because I still had a bad cold and out of the great respect I had for my running partner I decided to hang back. I never felt like I was in any trouble and cruised the first hilly four miles working out in my head when I would try to make my move. With the lack of confidence about my own ability tied with my respect in the ability of the person I was running with, I decided to hold out no matter what until the final quarter mile and as we topped out the final climb I lit up the burners. I had never gone head to head with H.T. before so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I knew right away I had created a gap and I committed everything I had to pushing all the way to the line and what do you know I won! I was both pleased and humbled to have run with such a great guy and finally beat someone that I had looked up to for so long. Throughout the entire race he was cheered on by runners and spectators the whole way! It was great and I was glad for the experience. 

So now it is Sunday and I needed to put in some recovery miles but because my wife was doing something with our church I had to run on the treadmill again. I knew I would be tired from yesterdays effort and I still felt pretty rough. Just like on Friday my heart rate immediately shot through the roof! I was now starting to get a little concerned and right about the time I got ready to stop the workout I noticed that the incline setting on the treadmill was set at 5.5%! I quickly fixed the incline and just like that my heart rate went down to an acceptable level. Thanks to my lovely wife, I was hit with a hilarious dose of humility! It turns out she had been adjusting the incline during her workouts and I was the lucky recipient of the increases unknowingly during mine. And with a devilish snicker her response was... "see I actually helped you win." Yes, I guess so.