Diary of an Old Pair of Legs June 2016

Running - 270 km this month [1410 km. total for the year]

Ascent 860 mtrs. [955 mtrs] ave Training pace 6:02.6 mpk.

Cycling- 155 km [345 km]

My Event Calendar [July] Event: Venue: Target time:

Larian Keamanan Pengakap Padang Merabok, KL 0:49:59

Pirates of Carey Island Pulau Carey, Selangor None

This month saw me pushing the bike numbers up due to an Achilles and calf niggle that stemmed from a displaced patella (knee cap), on the opposite leg.

How our bodies compensate and throw us a curve-ball when something isn’t quite right can often lead us to wrong conclusions. I was getting no improvement from treating the symptoms rather than the cause. The cause was only found once I paid a visit to my trusted physio, not more than five minutes on the couch and, ouch, she found the real problem.

Thankfully caught early and treated properly with just a little more than a week of not running and I was able to toe the line at the Eagle & Child trail Half Marathon near Perth, Western Australia.

During this month I have been reading about one of our regions great female trail-runners, Marie McNaughton, a Kiwi residing in Honk Kong and a prolific winner. Her resent victory in the TransLantau – Hong Kong 100km event was not just another of her victories, it also gained her the women’s record for the Hong Kong Grand Slam of trail runs, with a combined time of 57h 52min for the Trailwalker, Vibram HK 100, North Face 100 and the TransLantau 100.

But, even this great accomplishment was not what caught my eye. No, it was the way she ran and won her race that started to make me think, think not so much of her race but how I run my trails.

I am no 100km runner, and I doubt I will ever be, but from what I have been reading this young star runs all her trails, of whatever distance, in the same manner. She is noted to be an incredibly even paced, even, slow starter, as in the TransLantau. At the first check point, Chi Ma Wan at 7km, Marie was in forty-fifth place. Between then and the finish line her competition fell, one by one, by the wayside. Not just taking the women’s crown at the end but finishing in an incredible sixth place overall and almost two-hours in front of the second place women.

Time to consider.

Negative splits. For elites, but, for you and me?

I think it is quite probable that we are all aware that just about all the great runs have been achieved with negative splits, and, I am sure that we know that it is generally the best way for elite runners to run their races.

However, is it the best way for us mere mortals, those of us that turn up and perform to the best of our ability, week after week, in each and every race we enter?

Well, it would seem to me, that it is our bodies, or more correctly our brains, are what prevent us from achieving the negative splits we may desire.

Just at the point that we wish to push on to achieve our goal is the very moment when our nemesis, fatigue, makes an appearance, and lets us know, you are too tired, your legs are heavy and you hurt all over. So, who hasn’t been there?

As you may know I am quite new to trail running, having only realised the splendour of this element of our sport around a year or so ago. But, along with a myriad of other things I have learnt, I realise that, even more so in trail-running than in road and track-running, Negative Splits will lead to Positive Results for the non-elite athlete. I would go as far as to say that in trail-running a negative split is a must do to be competitive. On some occasions, due to course structure, the negative split may not be a time factor but a measured and increased effort in the second half of a race.

In road-running I believe that we are all guilty of being at least a little time-possessed, everything is generally set against a target finish time, with mid-point splits, or even, as I have run marathons, with one-eighth splits. This, for the non-elite athlete, is very demanding on our ability to judge and hold a pace and should a section drop below par it opens up the door for self-doubt and that spells disaster for the remainder of your race.

For this very reason I personally have taken all my split times off my sports watch and have just started experimenting with running my road races purely by feel, so we’ll see where that gets me.

However, on the trails it is very, very different. It is rarely possible to set a specific time target due to all the varying factors that make up a trail-race. And, arguably, the running is harder due to undulating ground conditions, the effects of weather and just the unevenness of the surface. All this in a way takes the pressure off rather than, as you would probably expect, add to the race pressure.

My view is that if you cannot accurately deduce a target time for a course you can never be behind the clock, therefore all the time pressures are released. Now it’s just you, the course and the adventure ahead so start easy and build into your effort. You will never win a race on the first ascent but you sure can lose it.

Usually it's good to be out in the fresh air.

So if, like me, you wish to become an accomplished negative split trail runner it’s easy all you need to do is practice, practice, and practice staying strong at the end. Once you have done that practice some more and eventually it will be second nature.

Here are a few training elements I have worked into my schedule.

Every other LSD I make the last three kms my fastest, progressively building the pace so that I finish the last half km at race pace.
Replace an occasional mid-distance, around half race distance, easy run with a progressive run. Using your training element target time as your base, start slower but smoothly increasing your pace so that you reach half distance at your target pace and full distance at 5 – 10% below race speed.
Progressive hill repeats. Find a hill at around 6% gradient and run up around 3 - 400 mtrs at around 75% effort, jog back down to recover. Run as many repeats as you feel comfortable with [not too comfortable], I usually run 3 sets of 3 with a minute of total rest between sets. Each effort should be slightly faster than the previous effort.
Clock face run. I have only just incorporated this into my training but I do think it has potential. During a fartlek session set a time say twenty min, aim to build up your time every two weeks until you are running a full hour, run at around 75% effort for 5 min, then increase the pace slightly for each subsequent 5 min.