My Running Journal, 031610

This morning I was supposed to run 2 miles, but I didn’t. Zero miles in zero minutes.

Instead, I sandbagged. Which is probably a good thing right now, given that, since last week, I have basically been working out everyday since Thursday, and right now five days of work outs in a row is right at the maximal level that I think I can sustain without hurting myself. So when my alarm went off at 0545 this morning, I woke up, hit snooze, and groggily decided to sandbag the run today. Give my calves a rest day.

Not that I am taking the day off, I just didn’t run this morning. No, I have a Crossfit class this evening. So I will get my workout in.

Which leads nicely into what I have been thinking about. I started Crossfit to increase my overall fitness. Part of this whole process has been researching various styles and philosophies of training. Most of the training advice regarding prepping for long distance work involves “LSDs,” otherwise known as “Long, Slow Distances.” The idea being that you train your body to run long distances, well, by running long distance. Which makes sense. As you become accustomed to running longer and longer distances, your brain begins to make the rest of your body more efficient at what it is doing. Your footfall, stride, pace, it all comes together over time. In addition to the basic mechanics of covering long distances, your body begins to change the way it handles food and energy storage. Improving your aerobic stamina generally only comes about by training your aerobic metabolism – and that means long, slow(ish) workouts. The training cycle that I have been following is designed to do that – once I start the actual marathon training cycle, I will begin to run farther and farther each week – increasing my regular runs and then doubling that distance once a week. Which seems to be the standard design of most of the training calendars that I have come across. 18 or so weeks of progressing towards 26 miles.

Now that I have started Crossfit, and have come across the idea of Crossfit Endurance, I am re-thinking that training schedule. I still have time left to reconsider it, as I still have about 12 weeks before I start the marathon training cycle in earnest. So I have a little while to make that decision.

The trick will be convincing myself that CE will work in place of LSDs. Because the last thing that I want to do is half-ass and try and do both. From all of the anecdotal evidence I have come across (i.e., forum posts and speaking with trainers), you can only really do one or the other in order to expect any results other than an injury. And really, half-assing anything is just asking for trouble. I’m still not entirely convinced about certain aspects of CE, but that may just be because I haven’t asked enough questions yet (or I haven’t taken a big enough swig of the CE Kool-aid).

My main question is one of pacing, and having a sufficiently developed aerobic metabolism. I was a gymnast in High School, and had pretty intense anaerobic training – short bursts of power and speed was what I was trained for. When I tried any sort of real aerobic workout, I basically broke down. I’ve been talking about this since I started – learning how to be efficient, how to pace. Metronome, cadence, stride length, etc. How can I develop my aerobic metabolism to the point where I can get to 26+ miles, without actually learning what it feels like to get to that point?

I don’t know. Some ideas are percolating, and I think I may start putting it to the test. There are several races between now and the start point of my marathon training calendar. My run distances right now don’t really come into the LSD category, since none of my training runs are going to be farther than six miles. So I may be able to test out the CE training process in the meantime.

We will see. I figure I’m running close to barefoot right now, what’s another little training modification?