The Steady State Run

“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.” 
—Alexander Graham Bell 

Despite the exclusivity of his gender-specific language, Bell makes a valid point—steadiness is key to the development of skill, of fitness, of race performance.  I tried to find a comparable quote to convey the same concept (minus the gender exclusivity), but Aesop’s “Slow and steady wins the race” is both too familiar and boldly false.  Slow never wins anything.  Steady, yes, but never slow.  A slow pace may have its purpose in training, but never in a race.   

A steady effort builds tolerance to fatigue—both physical and mental.  A steady effort builds confidence in the approach to a longer race.  It empowers the aerobic engine, increasing capacity to sustain a relatively fast pace for a longer duration.  And it is one of my favorite workouts.   

The McMillan Running pace calculator is an effective resource to use when determining current fitness training levels in relation to goal pace efforts.

Next to the easy run, the steady state run may have the widest range in pace.  It is comprised of a 20-second range between the easy run and the tempo run (also called lactic threshold run).  On the fast end it corresponds roughly with my half-marathon goal pace, and on the slow end it corresponds with my marathon goal pace—or ten seconds faster and slower than what I can current run for a half-marathon.   

There are coaches who refer to this steady state range as half-marathon pace or marathon pace.  The confusion exists when athletes—say, high school cross country runners—wonder about the relevance of a half-marathon pace when they are racing a 5k distance.  However, a runner need not race a half-marathon to benefit from training at such a pace, and calling it “steady state” can eliminate this confusion. 

Relative to the 5k race effort, the steady state is about 35 to 55 seconds slower per mile.  Start with a short easy warm up of ten to fifteen minutes or so.  Longer warm up of twenty to thirty minutes is not as necessary since the workout effort is not very high.  Determine prior to the workout which range you want to run—the half-marathon goal pace or marathon goal pace.  You can afford to run a longer distance for the workout if choosing the slower goal pace.   

Early in a training schedule, assign yourself a manageable effort that serves as an initial benchmark—say, fifteen minutes of steady state running on the slow end (marathon pace).  Measure your effort throughout the workout.  Listen to your own breathing.  Take a mental note of how labored the run feels and then compare it to the workout data after the run.  Write your observations in your running journal.   

The temptation the next time out is to increase the speed of the steady state.  (I am particularly guilty of this.)  Instead, hold fast to the pace but increase the duration.  Each week (or every other week) alternate between the fast end and slow end of the steady state pace.    

The purpose of this workout is not to run to depletion.  End the run prior to exhaustion so that you feel refreshed—perhaps even able to run another ten minutes at the sustained effort.   

Two weeks prior to this post, I ran my first steady state effort of my training schedule.  I assigned myself 30 minutes at the middle of my steady state zone, keeping my expectations reasonable, but also willing to drop down to the low end of the zone if my fitness allowed it.  What I learned from this workout was encouraging—my pace got as low as 7:11 in the final mile, nearly ten seconds faster than the low end of my steady state zone.  Next time, I will increase the duration, but stay within the desired pace.   

In the end, not only is this a workout that prepares for a half-marathon or marathon race, it generates aerobic strength, which is the base of any race distance.  Over time—usually somewhere between 20 and 24 weeks—the aerobic capacity develops to a peak performance.  

• 
  The Batesman Chronicles

  Not only is it Lou Pinella Hawaiian Shirt night, but it’s also the end of the school year for these four teachers.… https://t.co/GKPuVKhP9e

  Jun 21, 2019, 8:35 PM
• 
  The Batesman Chronicles

  RT @CrossProb: if you're going into your freshman year of hs and planning on running cross country run this summer, you dont have… https://t.co/P7ezX6dUla

  Jun 20, 2019, 12:42 PM

The Progression Run

“Change is the watchword of progression.” 
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American poet (1850-1919)

The concept of the progression run is pretty simple—begin at an easy pace and then increase effort steadily through your run until you reach a pace that feels a bit more difficult than “comfortably fast.” 

It’s a classic example of an “unstructured workout”—much like a fartlek run—and differs from a “structured workout” in that the discrepancy exists in the definition (or lack thereof) of the workout bout and pace. 

Example Progression Workouts:

• Select a route that has three physical markers—three different signs, or three turns—and progress effort through each of these markers.

• Have a starting pace and a finishing pace. See how well you can gradually increase the pace from beginning to end.

• Run shorter progressions of five minutes each, then repeat two or three times.

A structured workout is one that defines the specific distance of the bout, along with the desired pace target, and rest interval.  An example of a structured workout would be 4 x Mile @ 6:53-7:06 w/ 90-second recovery jogs.  (This is my current tempo interval target.) Notice the defined elements to this workout.  I like structured workouts because they force me to focus on the immediate moment—this current repeat that I’m running.  I find success in shorter segments separated by a brief recovery.  When I get to the end of the workout, I’m always surprised by the amount of volume I run.  A structured workout like this will train the body to run a given pace over a total distance that is often longer than the target race. 

Instead of being defined by assigned bouts and paces, an unstructured workout is determined by feel.  The definition of when to increase or decrease effort is subjective, patterned by our whims or perhaps a rough predetermined schedule.  In a race situation, you won’t have the luxury of racing in accordance to structured bouts, so it is common to slow down or “settle” in the middle third of a race as the body fatigues.  A progression workout combats this tendency and trains the mind and body to increase pace as fatigue sets in.  When you think about it, a race is the ultimate unstructured workout—a continuous effort that is not broken up with recovery—and a personal best is often the result of running a tactic of increased progression. 

When running a progression workout, keep the targets vague and based on feel.  What effort “feels” easy?  What effort “feels” like 5k race pace?  A 50-minute progression run can be divided in three parts—20 minutes easy, 20 minutes moderate, 10 minutes comfortably fast.  Feel the change in effort as the workout progresses.  The shift in gears may be subjective, but are no less intentional than what you might run in a structured workout.  The body’s aerobic capacity is not shaped by structure or the lack of structure, but by the sustained effort.  As runners, we can tend to be overly compulsive with workout structure, with target repeats, with objective data.  These are important factors, to be sure, but learning to trust the subjective elements of a hard running effort is just as important. 

Defining "Easy" - The Base Aerobic Effort

“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”
—Samuel Johnson

The cornerstone workout to every base-building phase—honestly, to any phase in your training schedule—is the “easy” run.  But I’m not comfortable with that word “easy.”  For me, when I think of “easy,” I think “effortless” or “slow.”  In this sense, the term “easy” sounds no different than “recovery,” and recovery is certifiably slow—and must feel too slow in order to meet its training purpose.  That should not be the case for “easy.”  The trick for me is to define that word easy before I go for a run, to prevent myself from running too fast, which is something I’ll do unless I hold myself back.  Running the base aerobic workout too fast is a common fault among runners—beginners and experienced runners alike—and can force the need for longer recovery (which can be discouraging) or lead to over-training (which can be traumatic). 

Tricks to try to keep your Easy Run easy:

1. Carry on a conversation with a running partner.

2. Whistle or Sing!

3. How many times can you say the ABCs in order without taking a full breath?

4. Try a reverse progression. Start out at what feels like a comfortable pace, then get slower each mile until half way, then allow yourself to progress back to the pace you started.

There are other words for the easy run that may be of help—endurance run, aerobic run, distance run, base volume run—but still we are stuck in the indefinite world of semantics.  Runners looking for a quantitative measure of “easy” can find themselves in a quandary of relative data.  Regardless of which training calculator you use—whether it’s McMillan Running, Jack Daniels, or Hansons—the common measure based on heart rate is anywhere from 50% to 80% of maximum heart rate.  Not only is that a wide range of effort, but it still is of little help to me because I have no idea what my max heart rate is. 

I know it’s somewhere in the range of ~180-ish, but using the calculations based on my age (51), it would be either 169 (220 – current age = mhr) or 172 (208 – (0.7 x age) = mhr).  Neither of these measures feel accurate to me because I can run comfortably fast at both heart rates for a decent amount of time.  (During my last marathon, I ran the final three miles at an average bpm of 172.)  There are machines that determine maximum heart rate, but most of us do not have access to such technology.  The best I can do is determine my max heart rate based on experience. 

But what if you’re new to running?  What if you have not measured your experience? 

Here’s my solution: call the “easy” run whatever you need to call it in order to satisfy its purpose.  In the course of a training program, the easy run will comprise of half to two-thirds of all training sessions, and its purpose is to expand the aerobic volume over time without taxing the more immediate need for recovery. 

I know my workout will have met the purpose of an easy run when I pay attention to how my body feels at the end of it. 

For instance, I know I have run my easy workout too fast when I finish with the feeling of being depleted—or of waking up the next day knowing that I cannot run the faster workout that I had planned. 

Likewise, I know I have run my easy workout properly when I feel refreshed, when I have worked up a good sweat but still feel like it would not be a stress on my energy system to do a 20-minute core and strength session, or run it again (if I had to) in a six to twelve hours.

As a runner who is addicted to running with my GPS watch, I force myself to take a break from my obsessive attention to performance data by superseding how I feel for what I did. My training calculator, based on a recent race effort, says my current “easy” pace is in a range of 7:47 to 8:48. The discrepancy of effort in that range is vast.  On the slow end it feels like walking; on the fast end, almost a race effort.  No other training pace has as wide a range as the “easy” effort, which is why I recommend trusting how you feel at the end of a run over running a specific pace or effort. 

Track your “easy” effort and keep a record of your impressions in a running journal.Over time, your collective assessment of how you feel at the end of an “easy” run will be a more accurate factor in determining how well you have accomplished the workout’s purpose.