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Training smarter

This is an excerpt from Running Past 50 by Caolan MacMahon.

I’ve seen many runners 50 and over continuing to do what they’ve always done, and when that stops working, they often feel frustrated and believe the solution lies in doing more—more miles, more speed work, more of something. But more may not be the solution.

Let’s take Joanna, a 55-year-old who is training for a marathon: She’s experienced and has trained through many marathon cycles, but this time she feels like she’s working harder even though her paces keep dropping. In frustration, she tries to run more and faster. She begins feeling deep fatigue and watches as her easy pace becomes more and more difficult to run. As she continues to push harder and harder, she basically digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole: Her times slow, her fatigue increases, her body begins to hurt, her heart rate both at rest and when active rises, she feels irritable, her sleep is a mess, she can’t seem to concentrate on anything, and she feels like she’ll never feel strong again. She wonders: Is this just part of getting old?

Next, we have Joe, a new runner. He’s 58 and has never run. He has a few pounds to lose, but he’s generally healthy and wants to stay that way. Both his parents died too young from heart disease, and he doesn’t want to follow in their footsteps. He starts running two miles a day, four to five days a week. He’s vexed because he can’t seem to run any farther or faster, and his shins and knees are starting to hurt. He just doesn’t know what to do next. He wonders: Is it just too late to start running?

The solution for both runners is better, smarter training. Smart training begins with listening to your body. Of course, a good training plan is key, but if you aren’t listening to your body, then you end up injured, exhausted, plateaued, and ready to give up in disgust. Too many people believe you need to beat your body into submission if you want to get fitter, stronger, and faster. You can thank Friedrich Nietzsche—who famously said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”—for encouraging this self-destructive tendency. Maybe this applies to some things, but when you approach training this way all the time, it will certainly leave you a broken mess.

So, what should you be listening to? Let’s take a look:

Resting Heart Rate

To start, you should be monitoring your resting heart rate. Every runner should know what their resting heart rate generally is, within a few points. This is your heart rate when you first wake up, but it’s also good to know where your heart rate typically settles when you’re just sitting and relaxing. If you notice your heart rate is a bit higher for a few days, it will benefit you to take some extra recovery time. This doesn’t necessarily mean complete rest, but you need to back off both volume and effort. If you catch this early, it’s quite easy to resolve. But if it’s been going on for a while, then you’ve dug your hole deeper, and it will take more time to get out.

Sleep Quality and Quantity

Notice the quality and quantity of your sleep. One of the ironies about sleep is that often your sleep becomes poor when you are the most fatigued: you have trouble falling asleep, you wake up often and can’t get back to sleep, and you wake up in the morning still feeling exhausted. Sleep disturbances often arise due to deep systemic fatigue. Often, doing less helps improve your sleep. And, as explained in chapter 1, sleep is your number one recovery tool.

Persistent Aches and Pains

Notice how your muscles feel. Some runners erroneously believe they should always feel sore. Many think that if you’re sore all the time, then you’re getting strong. Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. Yes, you will be sore after some runs or strength work. But the key to getting stronger is allowing your body the chance to repair following a stress. If you’re always sore, that’s your body saying you are doing too much of something.

Slowing Paces

If you’re running at the same effort but your paces are inexplicably slowing, that’s your body telling you that you’re doing something wrong. Most runners run just a little too fast too often. This leads to frustrating plateaus and chronic overuse injuries.

As you get older, you need to be even more attentive to your body. You also need to be more vigilant about self-care, both physical and mental. Adding gentle mobility work, restorative bodywork such as massage, purposeful cross-training, or even a good old hot bath can do the body good. The good news is, running actually helps you become more aware of what’s going on with your body. You’re less likely to dismiss some little ache or pain because you don’t want it to interfere with your life. When I was much younger, I would try to run through anything. Sometimes I got off lucky, and other times I ran myself into a nice injury that left me sitting on the couch berating myself for my own stupidity. Today when I feel something isn’t quite right, I’ll take an extra easy day, go for a swim, or make an appointment for a massage. I don’t want to lose time and consistency to an injury, and nipping it in the bud is by far the smartest thing to do.

With all this in mind, it’s important to recognize that the key to maintaining and improving fitness is consistency. Nothing is more important to your running than consistency. This is one big reason you want to stay healthy. Injuries interrupt training. Chronic low-level pain undermines your training and, more importantly, your enjoyment. Being in pain all the time, even if you can run, just isn’t fun. What is fun is feeling good and strong and able to do what you want to do.

Older runners may bring a mental advantage to their training and racing. Not only does physical activity help keep you mentally healthy, but as an older runner, you may have a mental advantage over your younger self. Age may not, by itself, bring mental toughness, but chances are that you have gained some mental tenacity through the trials and tribulations of life. You see in ultra-long-distance events that older runners fair very well against their younger, faster, and physically stronger competitors, often because they have the mental toughness that these grueling efforts demand.

Running also serves a social function. When you run, you’re out moving through the world. Even when you’re alone, you’re still among others. If you run with people or in a race, you connect with an active community that supports and inspires you. Through social interaction, you become aware of all the possibilities out there, the exciting things others do, and the things you do that introduce new possibilities to others. It becomes a mutually beneficial relationship where your life expands and your expanded life helps others do the same. It’s good to be around those with whom you share passions. With more older runners sticking with running and many more joining the ranks, you have even more people to share your passion with.

And while running is not the only activity that can bring these benefits, there are certain aspects inherent to running that make them easier to attain: I don’t need a team. I can go at my own pace. I can choose my own goal, be that a 100-meter sprint or a 100-mile endurance run. I can run anywhere—road, trail, treadmill, even a pool. I can run on my schedule. Running is an autonomous activity.

But I believe running is more than an activity, an exercise, or a workout. Running can also help you tune into yourself, your environment, your dreams, your pain, your ambitions, your hopes. Running gives you an opportunity to discover and exercise your greatness from where you are right now.

More Excerpts From Running Past 50

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