PART 1 - Before Lacing the Running Shoes - Fitness Running and Reflection
STOP! Summer is at the doorstep; the adrenaline is slowly gathering momentum, and the call from deep within the subconscious to get into shape for the fall-running project grows louder in the head. New shoes and outfits donned, out the door the runner dashes, eager to conquer the roads, hills, trails, miles, and track workouts. As a track and field coach, I, too, have eagerly escorted runners fleetingly into running and did not do due diligence on the following four key strategies.
The Four Key Strategies (Figure 1)
Before lacing the running shoes – REFLECTION
Before starting any running sessions – TEST
Before taking the first running step – BRIDGE
Begin the running journey – BUILD (Design, Training, Monitoring, and Retesting).
These four critical strategies deliver the following benefits for every fitness runner:
A safety net to perform a personal reflective inventory of daily and weekly readiness to run and train.
A framework for testing and collecting pre-exercising data to drive weekly running progress.
Monitoring the impact of volumes, intensities, and exertion levels on each running session.
Applying recovery tools and methods reduces the likelihood of musculoskeletal injury.
Before lacing the running shoes – REFLECTION
Be realistic; the fitness running project inserts itself into your spare time. Accounting for work, school, home, and family, the remaining portion is allocated to running.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines reflection as considering some subject matter, idea, or purpose. Reflection is a timeline process encompassing historical, present, and future information from hard data points. The mindful runner employing a reflection paradigm enhances their running journey.
The Process of Reflective Journaling
To quote Dr Richard Kent (1), author of the book Writing on the Bus:
"Athletes in all sports and at all levels of performance keep training logs, journals, or team notebooks as one more way to learn extensively about their sport. Such organizing, planning, and reflection can play a pivotal role in an athlete's life. What's more, as communication tools, athletes' writing has the potential to be especially helpful for coaches."
Athletes past and present use reflective journaling as a powerful adjunct to their training sessions. With some applications, fitness and recreational runners can tap into this method for daily running sessions. Notable athletes who use reflective journaling include Emil Zatopek, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps and the GOAT of road running, Keyan Eulid Kipchoge.
A quick inspection of the above mindmap reveals how a reflective journal is helpful for the fitness runner to learn from each running session. Collecting data (e.g. distance run, how fast, how stressful), transforming the data into information and extracting helpful knowledge, the fitness runner learns how they are responding to their running program physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Again, referring to the mindmap, some valuable ideas are:
Visualizing
Reading sports articles, blogs, websites, and books/magazines (e.g. how to train, how to race)
Keeping a training log
The video below is a brief introduction to reflective journaling.
Video - Reflective Journaling
Additional information on practical tools and articles on reflective journaling is here (3), read (4), and this (5).
Learning
Learning is a relatively lasting change in behaviour resulting from theoretical and practical experiences within a given environment. It is acquiring information, knowledge, and skills to facilitate decision-making. Learning is a fluid process involving collecting, measuring, and analyzing each activity the runner interacts with during the running session. With the hard testing endpoints and utilizing real-time data from each run and training session, the fitness runner can create an individual, streamlined running/training process. Each incremental addition of running, training exercises, wellbeing, and nutrition data assists the fitness runner in effectively accommodating the running lifecycle into their daily activities.
As the learning environment of the fitness runner evolves, it facilitates:
Improve time management and planning skills.
Improve knowledge of how their bodies function
Improve knowledge of how to combine running, strength and flexibility exercises, and various recovery methods.
A greater understanding of how to feed their bodies for training, health, and recovery.
Evolving knowledge of training theory and practice.
The graphic below summarises the significant stages of learning that each runner works at mastering. Not all runners desire to progress to the "learn to win" circle. However, incremental improvements in the first three stages are necessary to keep running a productive and enjoyable activity.
Practical Application of the Reflective Journaling Process
Some broad reflective considerations for the runner are:
Historical reflection:
Do I have a history of running in high school, college, or otherwise?
What is my training history?
Have I been injured in the past?
Do I eat well enough to support the addition of running into my daily activities?
Current reflection:
What tests or information must I collect to create a daily, weekly, and monthly running/training plan?
Do I need to test endurance, and if so, what types (aerobic, anaerobic)?
Do I need to test speed, and if so, what types (maximal, submaximal)?
Do I need to test strength, and if so, what categories (maximal, strength-endurance)?
I am slightly overweight and have back pain at least twice a week. Should I test at all?
Future reflection:
What are my goals and objectives to start running?
Why am I testing at all?
Will I use the data collected to monitor my improvements in my health?
Will I use the data collected to guide my training to compete in community fitness runs or master's races?
The runner practices reflection as a daily component of each running session. Each former day becomes historical, each new running/training day is current, and the next day's running/training is future. An active iterative process drives data collection. Combining reflection from the personal and running environment creates a better life and running experience.
Critical areas for reflection that directly affect planning and executing each running session.
A runner can reflect on:
Wellbeing
Daily living activities
Training resources
Physical
Nutrition
Hydration
Meal preparation
Coaching
1. Wellbeing
a. Sleep: Considerations include
i. Early to bed; late to bed; number of hours and quality of sleep.
ii. The quantity and quality of sleep impact your training. During the restorative period, the systems of the body (e.g. muscles, joints, heart) recover from the physical stressors of training.
iii. How do I maximize repair, reset, and restore?
b. Socializing:
There is a tradeoff between optimal versus functional recovery, as social events and training are usually in the same post-work time bracket. How active a social lifestyle impacts the density of your workout.
i. Awareness of alcohol consumption – socially; type of alcohol, e.g. beers; number of times per week. Athletes and active persons consider the effects of alcohol consumption on a) hydration and hydration status after exercise and b) the body’s ability to restore glycogen in the face of depleted muscle stores. Read more here (6) and here (7).
ii. Dinner outings and accessing the kinds of foods (quality and preparation) that you like and that are a part of your daily diet.
2. Daily Living Activities
Work an activity that pays the bills, buys the food and running shoes. Running is a fitness activity to relieve stress from work, and running is an activity to boost energy to enhance productivity at work. Consideration for a few intangibles that can railroad a good running project are:
a. The job demands (physical, mental, and emotional).
b. The minefield of commuting – Bus, train, or car – is sometimes long and stressful.
c. Relationships: married or single; children or extended caregiver.
d. Household work: weekends or during the week. You may be thinking of doing your longest run on the weekends.
3. Training Resources
As a fitness runner, you are eager to get running. However, consider the surface(s) available for running. For example, if you have flat feet, running on the road without proper footwear or assistive devices like orthotics in your shoes can cause lower limb injuries (shin pain, shin splits, plantar fasciitis).
a. Surfaces:
Running on paved roads subjects the feet and legs to high-impact stress.
Grass or grass park surfaces are easier on the feet and legs. They are an excellent alternative for easy runs, light days, or periodic foot and leg therapy sessions.
Uphill running is excellent for working on acceleration, improving endurance and running form. The considerations from a) and b) above apply here also.
Downhill running using a gentle slope for speed training.
Running track – A 400m running track is convenient for interval and speed running sessions.
Trails (woodchip, dirt) or the beach are alternative training and running surfaces for all running sessions.
b. Gym:
Many fitness runners need to pay more attention to including strength training during daily and weekly running sessions. Whether commercial, home, or bodyweight, resistance exercises focusing on the legs can increase leg strength, improve running speed, enhance running economy, and prevent injuries.
Reflect on the benefit-to-cost ratio of inclusion or non-inclusion of strength training as part of your running sessions.
4. Physical
a. Past medical history:
i. Surgeries or fractures involving the legs.
ii. Muscle, tendon or ligament injuries involving the lower limbs.
b. Current medical history:
i. Conditions such as asthma, diabetes, pre-diabetes or allergies.
ii. Physical challenges include resolving ankle sprain, knee, or low back pains.
iii. Foot type – if you are flat-footed, seeking assistance from a physical therapist or podiatrist who works with runners is necessary to prevent overuse injuries (e.g., shin pains/splints).
iv. Body composition: Are you a few pounds over or just about the right weight; are you short, medium height, or tall?
c. Recovery methods – can you access ice baths, hot and cold showers, warm baths, or massage?
5. Nutrition
a. Reflect on balancing your nutritional needs between days when you run and when there is no running. Each running session demands more fluids and electrolytes than non-running sessions.
b. Are you prepared to replace processed, ultra-processed, and junk foods with healthy foods and snacks?
c. Will you follow a special diet, e.g., Ketogenic, Low-Carb, Mediterranean, or Paleo?
6. Hydration:
a. Do you like drinking water, do not like water, or
b. Do you prefer all sports drinks during exercise?
7. Meal preparation:
a. Do you like cooking, do not like cooking, or cannot cook?
b. What about using smoothies pre- and post-run sessions?
c. Supplements: Do you take supplements? Do you need to take supplements?
d. Are you comfortable with your eating habits and know they can sustain the increase in energy demands from your running project?
8. Coaching
a. If you are a newbie to running and clueless, are you willing to work with a coach or advisor?
b. Alternatively, will you take on your running sessions as a self-coach runner, figuring it out as you go?
On completion of your reflective process, extract the relevant information, for example:
What running/training happens
An eight-week self-instructed jogging program to lose weight for some new clothes or
A 12-week endurance running program with coaching input to lower my 5km personal best by 2 minutes.
When running/training happens
It is 3 – 5 days per week for 1 – 2 hours, depending on the session, starting 90 minutes after I leave work.
It is 3 times per week for 30 – 45 minutes during lunch with a quick shower afterwards and re-fueling 90 minutes later.
Where running/training happens
It is typically road running only,
It is a choice of road running, grass and grass park surfaces available
It is grass and trail near home.
Why running/training happens
It is to lose weight 5 lbs. for my best friend's wedding in 3 months,
It is to lose 15 – 20 lbs. to lower my blood pressure and blood sugar levels by a couple of points,
It is to run a personal best in the local 5km race in eight weeks.
How running/training happens
I am coaching myself, winging it as I run along,
I am hiring a running coach to help me with my running workouts, and I will plan my own strength sessions at the local gym near where I live,
I am coaching myself and hiring a personal trainer to help me with my strength and dietary needs.
Takeaways
Reflection is a useful process to facilitate better and efficient designing of the running training program
Learning is an iterative process to extract the best from each training session and to improve future training sessions
References
Kent, R. (2014). Learning from Athletes’ Writing: Creating Activity Journals. The English Journal, 104(1), 68–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24484354
Derek Thiessen: Journaling to Stay on Track.
3. The University of Edinburgh - Reflectors' Toolkit (2022). https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit
4. Derek Thiessen: One Habit Every Athlete Should Have Started Yesterday (dailyathlete.ca)
5. Scott Megit (2020): 60 Effective Journaling Prompts for Athletes | Wanderings
6. Dr. James Morehen (2023): Alcohol and Performance: How Should Athletes Approach It? Alcohol and performance: How should athletes approach it? (scienceforsport.com).
7. Adam Crook (2019): Alcohol Awareness: Alcohol and Athletes – Alcohol Awareness (alcoholcampaign.org)
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