Training
Keep Firing in the Freeze
By Ray Orchison
There are two ways to approach winter from a training perspective : Stay tucked under warm blankets and sleep the winter away , or toughen up , get out of bed and set your body up for a few early spring PBs .
There ’ s nothing quite like hitting the snooze button and rolling over under a warm duvet on a cold or wet winter morning . You ’ d be forgiven for hitting snooze every now and then , but the problem is when the snooze button becomes the norm … You see , the human body is an incredible machine . It only maintains the structures it believes are needed for survival . In other words , use it or lose it ! So , within seven to 10 days you lose your sharpness or racing edge when you stop training .
It ’ s not a problem following a hard season or key event . In fact , it ’ s normal , as we allow our body to recover and repair itself before we begin to build up again . However , when you stop training for two to three weeks and longer , you begin to lose base fitness . This means that your endurance systems , which have been built over months of hard work , together with your muscles , begin to atrophy or waste away . So , if you go into full hibernation during winter , you come back into spring requiring lots of hard work to get your systems back to where they were before .
Keep Ticking Over
The better approach to winter is to allow yourself a few easy weeks with one or two extra lie-ins , but keep the body ticking over at a maintenance level . Yes , you won ’ t be firing on all cylinders , but you should maintain a level where , given a few weeks of focused training , you ’ ll be race-ready or pretty close to it .
The type of sessions will depend on what you ’ ve built over the months , and the areas you want to work on . If you ’ ve improved your speed , strength and endurance , then at this point you ’ ll possibly reduce your speed and endurance , and work a little more at maintaining or even building your strength . If you ’ ve greatly enhanced your endurance , then this is a great opportunity to maintain a certain level of endurance while working on building your speed . Basically , winter is a great opportunity to work on your weaknesses while maintaining your strengths .
Motivate Yourself
This all sounds great … until that alarm goes off in the cold dark hours and suddenly all motivation goes out the window . It is extremely difficult to get out of bed on a cold or wet morning when you have no purpose for doing so . So , one of the best ways to get motivated is to have a goal in place . For a newish 10km runner , this might be to run your first half marathon , or it might be to move up to the full marathon distance . For an advanced athlete , it could be looking to PB at 10km or the half marathon . Winter also gives us a great opportunity to spend a little more time at the gym and to eliminate any muscle weaknesses or imbalances .
The worst possible thing you can do when the alarm goes off is to start thinking about it . The more you
think about it , the more excuses you will come up with . When that alarm goes off , don ’ t think about it . Just turn it off and get up ! The other alternative is to put the alarm far away from the bed , so you have no option but to get up to turn it off . Once you ’ re up and out the door , it ’ s usually not as cold or as bad as you thought it would be , and before you know it , you ’ re back from your session , standing under a warm shower , feeling good about yourself and glad that you got out there and did it .
Ray Orchison is a South African-born running coach and therapist . He has completed the Comrades Marathon eight times , with a best of 7:08:52 , and also boasts personal bests of 33:55 for 10km , 1:14:17 for 21.1km and 2:48:00 for the marathon . He has completed USATF and NAASFP coaching courses , and provides personalised training programmes to his clients . Now based in Perth , Australia , you can find him at https :// runetics . com . au .
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