Training
Listen When You Run
By Tim Neary
Run with your ears , because if these two things sound right , you ’ re probably purring along , in both training and racing .
1 Your breathing
If you plan to run an easy training session and you can hear that you ’ re breathing heavily , you ’ re going too hard . Slow down until your breathing quietens . Now you ’ re in the green zone and running slow enough on your easy day so that you can run fast enough on your hard days . This is an important training principle , because if you get it wrong , your training return on investment will be too low , and you run the risk of injury – especially if you ’ re over 40 , and even more so if you ’ re over 50 .
The same applies in a race . If your strategy is to run negative or close to negative splits , and it should be , and you ’ re breathing heavily in the first two quarters , you ’ re going too hard and should ease back on the pace until your breathing is nice and deep and steady . If , however , you ’ re in the final quarter and you ’ re not breathing heavily , you should pick up the effort and pace to go for the finish . It ’ s a race , after all .
Of course , this all applies just as much to a social runner in a social running group . If you ’ re breathing too heavily early in the run , consider that it might be that the group is too quick for your current condition . Similarly , if you ’ re a returning or late-start runner , and you ’ re in the base fitness-building stage , you never really want to move out of that green zone . If ( when ) you do , stop and walk until your breathing comes back down again , then resume easy running . You ’ ll find that quite quickly , in just a couple of weeks , your run sections will increase and your walk sections will decrease .
I like to use the sound of my breathing to guide my efforts , particularly when I ’ m not wearing a heart rate monitor to gather data ( so I ’ ll not be looking at it while I run ). I listen out for three breathing zones :
• Green is silent and long rhythms – that ’ s easy running .
• Yellow is raised and shorter deliberate rhythms – that ’ s medium-effort running .
• Red is heavy and short rhythms , which is hard running .
Hills are an exception , and I don ’ t mind the sound of my breathing increase when I ’ m going uphill – even when it ’ s a green day . But I don ’ t want it to go into the red zone – yellow will do the job – and I want it to return to silent green on the downside . The quicker it returns , the more I know I ’ m getting some form . Hills are also a great way to build confidence .
2 Your Footfall
The sound of your feet landing can tell you so much about how you ’ re tracking . If you ’ re dragging your feet , you ’ re probably doing too much and overloading your quads , while your glutes and hammies are not pulling their weight . You need to rectify that . If you ’ re dragging one foot , it could mean you are carrying a niggle , or perhaps incubating an injury . Most injuries are a result of overloading and under-recovering . The tricky part is that it doesn ’ t have exact coordinates , rather it ' s a zone we move into , and it ’ s not always easy to pick it up when we do ... but one of the ways is to listen to your footfall .
If your footfall is uneven , it could indicate that you ’ re favouring one side – probably for similar reasons to those I ’ ve talked about above . Obviously , some people have naturally uneven gaits and will have their own unique footfall patterns , so the trick here is to listen out for changes in what you normally sound like , and figure out what ’ s behind them .
I like to keep a high cadence and land on my midfoot , so when I hear a nice steady tick , tick , tick sound , I know that I am running with good form , my glutes and hammies are putting a proper shift in , and my head is upright and still . Then I ’ m purring along . I pay particular attention to this when I ’ m going downhill , as I can start to overstride and heal-strike if I lose concentration once I ’ ve crested a hill . And that often leads to problems …
Tim Neary ran his first half marathon at 24 years of age and over the next 30 years he went on to run hundreds more halves and more than 60 standard and ultra-marathons , including his first love , the Comrades Marathon . With a degree in the arts and supplementary qualifications in coaching , fitness and mental health , he helps runners over 40 to get onto ( and stay on ) their feet . More info at https :// runningtim . com .
80 ISSUE 151 | www . modernathlete . co . za