Category: Coach Tips

Coach Tip of the Week: Warm Up & Cool Down, Mindfully

On By bobshebestIn Coach TipsLeave a comment
Monday… Time for a Coach Tip o’ the Week! I’m pulling from 25 years in endurance sports so you think I could be more consistent! Anyway, here’s a good one for you:
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WARM UP & COOL DOWN, MINDFULLY
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Back in February, 2002, I was studying Dr. Phil Maffetone’s book, “Training for Endurance.” I highlighted the following paragraph:
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“Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you don’t feel like you’re getting much of a workout that the warm-up and cool-down doesn’t count as part of it. Tremendous health benefits are obtained through these aspects of your program. An over-trained athlete has arrived in that state because of a lack of warming up and cooling down. Nagging injuries sometimes disappear when a long enough warm-up precedes the workout. Even racing is improved when the body is properly warmed.”
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I’ve internalized the importance of these two practices, especially the warm-up, especially at an older running-age! I often say to athletes, “let the workout come to you,” or as some Kenyan runners like to say, “wait for the body to give you that green light.” And on countless occasions, when I’m questioning whether I should be running when something hurts, I just extend my warm-up, mindfully finesse my way through the session, and voila!, the issue I was worrying about vanishes (well, sometimes). Consistency with running frequency tends to keep everything feeling quite good; shorter sessions more often is better than longer sessions less frequently.
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These days I often take the dog for a walk before heading out on a run, since walking is a great warm-up activity. And if I’m racing (remember racing?!) then the warm-up takes center stage; the shorter the race, the longer the warm-up! For a 10k turkey-trot, for example, I like to get about an hour warm-up before blasting off the start-line. The first 30min of that warm-up is easy. Then, once warm, I’ll throw in some bursts of intensity at increasing intervals, up to race intensity—let the body (and mind) know what’s about to go down. After that, it’s to the line, where I’ll usually top off my warm-up with 100 calories or so. Contrast that with racing 100 miles, where I won’t really warm-up at all; because that’s the purpose of the first 30 miles of the race itself!
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Give yourself permission to extend your warm-up and cool-down. One trick I use to promote this healthy habit is to delay starting my watch so it doesn’t capture the walking part of my warm-up. I walk until I FEEL like running. Then, on the other side, turn off your watch at the end of the run so that you can do a walking cool-down and it won’t affect your run’s average pace. Win-win situation! You’ve conducted an effective warm-up and cool-down AND you’ve captured all the running in the middle. Nice job!
Get warm before you blast off but also remember to cool your jets.
Coach

 

Reflect It And Reinforce It

On By bobshebestIn Coach Tips, Sport PsychologyLeave a comment
Now that the dust has settled from our move, I’m getting back into the habit of sharing a Coach Tip of the Week. I’m grateful so many of my athletes have stayed on despite the cancellation of so many events. Races are starting to happen again and folks are reaching out for coaching again. I’m hopeful things keep moving in the right direction, safely.
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This week, think about what you’re reflecting to the world around you. This has been a theme in my own head the last few months. Environment has a BIG impact on our lives. Everything that’s going on these days also has various affects on our well being. Still, we have the power within us, at any moment to choose what we reflect to the world.
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Well-(and ill-)intentioned people make incorrect assumptions about us all the time. Labels. Always with the labels. I’m trying to “flip the script” on that nasty little habit too. It’s reactive and not proactive. We breathe these instances in, pause… and proactively choose HOW to respond to each of them. It can be both exhausting and demoralizing. I try to remember that fancy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote, “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” Fancy indeed, but the OPPOSITE of exhausting!
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“First be a good animal,” Emerson wrote. A person who’s taking good care of themselves is better equipped to consistently reflect positive energy back into the world, BECAUSE they actually have the resources within them to DO so. Good sleep, good foods, plenty o’ water, limiting toxins, and regular (even short bouts of) exercise give us the strong BASE required to firmly stand our ground, boldly reflecting what we mindfully CHOOSE to reflect back into our chosen environment. Remember, fatigue makes cowards of us all!
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It’s the same in an event. When I come into an aid-station, I’ve learned it’s important to reflect joy. Joy is POWER late in a race. Joy is FLOW. And by choosing joy, you’re setting the stage for flow. And when pain and misery come creeping in to replace the joy of those light and free early miles, what do we often say or hear from others?…
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“Fake it ’til you make it.”
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…CHOOSE to pretend you’re strong. CHOOSE to pretend you’re having a good time. CHOOSE to smile. CHOOSE to finish what you started. CHOOSE to persevere. CHOOSE to be strong. Make it so. Doing this every single time becomes habit. It becomes who you are. You’ve reinforced it 1000’s of times over. Reflecting strength becomes the backbone of your constitution. Give yourself goosebumps!
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We are what we reinforce. Every single run we do is an opportunity for growth. Every run, an occasion for deliberate practice. The ART of becoming BETTER at moving over uneven terrain. “That which we persist in doing becomes easier,” wrote Emerson, “not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to DO has increased.” Reflecting calm, quiet confidence reinforces it. And little deposits add up!
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Be IN the moment and NOTICE what you’re reflecting to the world around you. Even when you’re alone. Even a HINT of smile is better than no smile at all. When you pass people on the trail, TRY to leave them better than you found them, by reflecting the best version of yourself; that person you most want to be—the ideal. Keep working on turning your energy into action. Reflect and reinforce. We are literally years in the making. Growth is truly infinite but change doesn’t happen overnight. It happens, in Emerson’s words, “at nature’s pace.”
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Enjoy the rest of your week,
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Coach

Cadence is KING

On By bobshebestIn Coach Tips, TrainingLeave a comment

Good Morning!

I hope the weekend was good! This week’s Coach Tip is fundamental to optimizing run performance:

RUN EVERYTHING WITH A QUICK CADENCE.

Always running with quick leg turnover will do three things for you: you’ll spend more time in the air with less impact forces all while being less likely to take a header and eat dirt. So, it stands to reason you’ll not only save a TON of energy over the long haul ’cause your efficiency high, but you’ll also arrive to the finish line FASTER, wondering why in THE hell you haven’t made cadence center-stage years ago. It’s a little thing that makes a BIG difference.

I define “quick cadence” as something in the neighborhood of 180 steps per minute (spm). That’s 90 left foot-strikes per minute, or like I tell athletes, ~15 left foot-strikes per 10sec. Count how many left foot-falls you’re getting in 10 seconds, sometime. Probably best to measure cadence on a smooth surface. Some GPS watches measure cadence. You can even go so far as displaying it on your watch but after playing around with 180spm and getting a feel for it, I’d have you focus on internalizing what 180 feels like rather than obsessing over a number on a screen.

I’m most interested in cadence after progression runs and RACES. I do check it out after long runs but notice it’s always under 180, because long runs are NOT races! I do want to see ~180 or higher in my progression runs and races at 100k or less. After a 50k in the Marin Headlands last month, my average cadence (according to Suunto) was 186. That DID feel right too, since my goal, even on the climbs, was to keep steppin’—a little above 180 on the downs, a little under 180 on the steepest, most technical ups, and right at 180 on the flats, which had to be less than 5% of that course.

So, if cadence is constant then STRIDE LENGTH is variable. On the flats, stride length is relaxed and smooth. On the ups and downs, all you have to remember is that cadence is the constant and therefore VARY stride-length accordingly. If you’re running down a technical descent, keep those legs turning over! If you’re on a long climb, shorten that stride length to the degree that you’re hitting about 15 lefts/10sec while keeping you’re breathing in check. The fitter you are the more of those climbs you’ll be able to RUN, maybe even going from a 15-18min/mi pace on the ups to a 12min/mile pace or faster. Think of what this optimized cadence is going to do for your run times!

A quick, relaxed cadence will keep you in the air longer and that’s what we’re looking for. We want to maintain momentum and capitalize on the free speed that gravity offers on the downs. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Inertia, baby!

As it turns out, a quicker cadence actually works to accumulate LESS physical stress on the body. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive, I know. For example, my 186spm over a 5hr 50k with 16,000′ of elevation change, netted me some 56,000 total steps for the event! It stands to reason that leg turnover was something I was clearly focused on throughout that entire race. I’ve also been wondering to what degree my shoe choice affects overall running economy. When you’re committed to a fast run cadence you can go with a lighter shoe (7-8oz) since you’re more lightly striking the ground at the mid-forefoot. Fast cadence + light shoe = optimized human locomotion.

Another BIG bonus for always running with a quick turnover is you will fall LESS, simply because you’ll catch yourself quicker. For example, when you catch a toe, your other leg will already likely to be out in front of you. I’m not saying you’ll never fall again, but I’ve noticed that I fall less when I’m ENGAGED with my running and high engagement means high cadence. You have a big engine. Keep those pistons pumping!

In conclusion, I’d like to remind you to take any cadence data with a grain of salt. Relax. As long as you’re checking in with your cadence regularly, that’s a powerful thing you can do for your running. The fitter you become the more climbs you’ll be able to run, albeit with a much reduced stride-length! In the meantime, we accept the fact that a lot of our runs we’ll see an average cadence under 180spm, especially when we’re trail-running. I know I’m hiking a lot these days on my easy runs. For race-day though?! I’m putting on my dancing shoes and trying to RUN everything I can, especially if the race is 100k or less.

#pointpositivecoaching #cadence #optimal #runningeconomy #grain_of_salt #pistons #runtheups #turnover #keepstepping