Tapering For Races

Tapering is the term used for reducing your mileage or effort level in the run up to an event. Everybody has there own version of a taper, which may differ for different events. The point of a taper is to make you feel fresh on the day of your event, however some people do have a problem easing back, possibly believing that they will lose fitness if they do less in the days before a race. The truth of the matter is that you will lose very little, if any, fitness with a complete week’s rest so your event is more likely to be affected by overtraining than under training, in the final week. Of course if you race weekly your overall fitness will probably suffer if you do a full taper before each one so it is important to distinguish which events are important and either don’t taper for the less important ones or reduce the taper. One must remember that some races are goal driven and others are merely a means to an end.

As an athlete with nearly 24 years experience behind me and one who’s always looking for something, legal, that might move me up the rankings, you can imagine I’ve tried various things for my own taper. I’m still not sure which is best because I’ve been successful with all of them and not significantly more successful with one more than the other. So my ‘important message’ from this blog is find what suits you, to ensure that you are feeling good at the time of your important races, don’t worry too much about the minor races. Be prepared to change the taper for different races and most importantly; should circumstances prevent you from carrying out your planned taper, don’t panic, you can do more damage by doing too much rather than too little.

But what are these tapers, I hear you ask. Well here’s a few examples of what I and people I know have used.

I do know some people who run every day of the year, Ron Hill being a famous example of that. My old mate and former training partner Charlie Dickinson would often go weeks without a rest day, though you could guarantee his run the day before a race would be easier. I have run every day of the week on occasions. Usually it’s down to circumstances, such as this week where I was heading to Edinburgh for the weekend so did a Friday morning run, even though I was planning to run the Edinburgh parkrun on Saturday. I knew the weather forecast wasn’t good and therefore there would be a chance I would not be able to run at the weekend, plus the parkrun was more a social visit than a race.

Through the majority of my life as a runner I have taken the day off the day before a race. I suppose that’s not strictly true because if I had a midweek race I would always run on the previous day and often on the lunchtime of the race. However as most races were weekend races I would generally take Friday off, though I would transfer this to Saturday if it was a Sunday race. This worked well for me as I got to rest the day before a race but even if I wasn’t racing I got a day of rest. Through out my, normal, working life it actually always felt like I was working a 4 day week. Monday to Thursday I trained twice a day and worked a full day’s work. Friday I would just work and Saturday and Sunday I would just train. So although I was doing something that can be adjudged to be hard work on 7 days, I had a reduced workload on 3 of those days, hence a 3 day weekend.

At one stage I started to take Thursday off and run Friday, race on Saturday. I even went through a phase where I would do a short run on the Saturday morning, before a race in the afternoon. They both worked, but I don’t do them anymore. I went through a phase whereby I just ran steady runs, no quality, the week before a race. I’ve taken two days off, completely, before a race. I know of people who like to do a few reps the day before a race, and I’ve tried that too.

When I ran my marathon my pre-race training week looked like this:

Monday – 46 minute run (approx 6 miles)

Tuesday – 3 x 1600m at marathon pace (actual times 5:38 / 5:37 / 5:39)

Wednesday – 30 minute run (approx 4.5 miles)

Thursday – 20 minute run (approx 3 miles)

Friday – rest

Saturday – rest

Sunday – London Marathon – 2:34.

These days I’ve found something that works for most races, I have a different taper for championship races. I don’t taper for parkruns. My current, general taper is.

Monday - Full quality run session plus core session

Tuesday – 6-8 miles steady, plus kettlebells

Wednesday – Reduced quality session, i.e. 16 x 1 min at 85% effort, plus core session

Thursday – 6 miles plus upper body weights (I don’t do legs this close to a race)

Friday – core session

Saturday – Race

This doesn’t take into account any client work I may be doing, so I sometimes have to factor that in and adjust accordingly (or if it’s a major championship that I want to win I will say no to clients towards the end of the week, unless it fits in nicely with what I was planning on doing myself). That probably means little without knowing what I do on non taper weeks, my 2^nd quality session would be longer, my steady runs would be longer and I would include another cardio burst within my gym sessions, I would also include legs in my Thursday gym.

So this week Carole and I ventured up to Edinburgh, my favourite city in the UK. We had a great time and, yes, the weather did affect my running. Though I do have one word of complaint, TRAMS! What on earth is going on? Somebody had the idea of building a tramway where there is already a successful bus service. Ok so that provides an element of competition, but the tram works and all the disruption that goes with it started before I left Edinburgh, over 3 years ago, and it’s still going on. Worst, I haven’t got a clue how much longer it will be going on. It’s made a real mess of the city centre, and it’s inconvenienced a lot of people. No trams in Northwich, though we do have an interesting one way system!

 

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

Aiming For Gold, Am I On Target?

I’ve just started week three of my 12 week plan, which I’m hoping will lead me to success, and I thought it was time to assess how things were going. The sessions I’m doing are not that different from the ones I’ve been doing for the last seven years, with the exception that I’ve included some specific paced work. I’d come to realise that, although I was training hard, I wasn’t pushing myself as hard as I’m pushing my running clients, so what I needed was a faster version of me to push me more. Problem is I don’t know one, sure I know plenty of runners that are faster than me but I was looking for something more than a fast runner, I needed someone to plan the sessions with my goals in mind and be there every step of the way to ensure I kept to the program, even if I didn’t feel like it, and talk to me when things were starting to hurt, to psyche me up and help me to believe I can do it. And then I found him, he was there all along, yes it is me! All I needed was a pacer, for that I’m using a treadmill, the rest of it I can do myself.

What I’ve done is look at a twelve week period, leading up to the Surrey 10000m Championship in 1993, taken the track session I was doing once a week and replicated it on the treadmill. Obviously I’m a different person to the 28 year old me so I’ve made some sensible adjustments, but it’s still aimed at stretching me. Back then I was comfortably running 2:40 1k pace and won that race in 30:33.7. My aim this time was to get comfortable at 3:00 1k pace in order to get back to the 32 minute 10k time I ran two years ago.  

The first week seemed to go well, I was nervous because running at 20k/h pace is fast on the treadmill. I tentatively started at 19.1k/h but by the end of the session I was running reps at 19.6k/h. At the end of the week I ran my fastest 5k for almost two years. Last week, because of all the stuff going on, I couldn’t get to the treadmill but still had the memory of the race pace so felt like I managed to run hard enough on the road. I’ve just finished this week’s treadmill session, I started higher than two weeks ago and by the end of the session I was running at 20k/h. Target achieved but now I need to run all the reps at that pace, and do more of them. This is particularly good news as I’ve struggled to shake off the cold I had, just over a week ago, and this week I’ve started struggling with hay fever. As you can imagine my confidence is currently running high and I can’t wait for my next race, though I know I still have a way to go, luckily I still have nine weeks left. 

The really good news for me is that, despite the odd tired muscle, I’m not getting the aches, pains and twinges that I’ve been having for years. And that means training is once again becoming a pleasure, I can almost picture myself running like I used to back in the 90’s, or was that a dream I was having last night! Actually the good thing about running in the gym is that I have a mirror in front of me, no it’s not for checking my hairstyle, it helps me to check I’m running relaxed and with good form, it also means I can talk to myself without making a noise. I’m really happy with the way my running is going, at the moment, and it’s bringing a new sparkle to my relationship with running, I’m back in love with it, long may it continue. 

I’ve been reliving the past quite a bit recently. Firstly I’ve been reading the book about the Manchester Marathons by Ron Hill and Neil Shuttleworth. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it but have been fascinated by it. It starts off in 1908, when it really was an amateur sport. 30 people set off on that day, only 15 finished. In those days it seemed to be a case of everybody setting off together and then trying to run each other into the ground, very much like my early days in club athletics, nobody seemed to really appreciate what marathon running was about, often stopping to take tea breaks along the way. It progresses through the years and we get into the 60’s and 70’s when British distance runners were amongst the best in the world. It’s interesting to read Ron’s thoughts and feelings, particularly when he was expected to run a trial for major championships, despite his achievements. Good also to read about people I have come across, such as Bill Adcocks. There was one year in the 70s I recognised Lionel Mann in a picture and then he got a write up in the text, running sub 2:30, Lionel was at Belgrave when I was, but much older than me, he was also chef to the Queen. Into the 80’s and I’m starting to recognise more names from the era I grew up in, particularly Steve Kenyon who’s name always stood out when there was a distance event on the tv. I’m up to 1984 and know that I’ll come across many more people I know in the following chapters, I already had a sneak preview and saw friends Bashir Hussain and Jackie Newton. The other thing that’s prompted my looking back with pleasure has been the constant stream of pictures coming from the Ray O’Donaghue production line. Ray has published many pictures on facebook from many generations. It’s been great to see people in action who I only knew from 20 years after these pictures were taken, plus there’s the odd one of me when I was younger and faster. I can’t wait for Ray’s video of the 1993 Surrey 10000m to appear, I know Mike Boyle’s looking forward to that too. On a more recent note Lee Riley sent me a couple of picture, more up to date, of me during his 400m world record attempt.

So to finish off some more pictures of me, I'm really not that vain, honestly.

The Start of the 2005 Surrey 5k Champsionship, at this point I was in a good position.

I had to wait until I was a Master before I could get in front of a superstar such as John Downes. Think I must've spotted the camera and put in a spurt.



Lee running under 60 seconds for 400m, with 40lb pack. That's me doing the timing.




I only smile when I'm running

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

No Spain, No Gain

You’ll know that during the year I take the occasional trip abroad. These trips are generally in the interest of doing some specific peaking with my training, and generally involve some training in hot climates. I used this tactic to good effect two years ago when I specifically went to Turkey, mid summer, to train hard in hot temperatures. I did some of my toughest sessions in temperatures above 30C. It worked, I got the bronze in the European Masters 10000m, though I was surprised how much hotter it was in Hungary than it was in Turkey. The place I generally go to is Spain, to Ciudad Quesada. It’s there I went to this weekend, as I have some important races coming up.

But first let me take you back to what has been going on these last two weeks, since my last blog. Well last week was a bit hectic as I picked up a number of new clients and had some returning occasional clients, all in a 4 day week. So a bit of juggling around to fit everybody in and also try to get in my own training, which meant I had no time to write a blog. So I couldn’t tell you about Katy’s marathon.

Katy was running in the Manchester marathon and had asked me to help her to get under 3:45. Katy put in a lot of hard work and on the way she’s been running well at 10k and the half marathon. Come the day it was a shocker, persistent rain and very cold temperatures, but despite that Katy ran really well, achieving her goal with 3:39.45. Understandably she was well chuffed with that, after she’d thawed out, and so was I. Ray, unfortunately, had to curtail his plans because of the flu like symptoms he was suffering from, earlier in the week, but we did manage to pay a visit to the exhibition, on the Saturday. There I caught up with some old friends and spoke with Ron Hill. Despite the fact that I do some work for the companies he set up I’ve not spoken to him before. He comes across as unassuming and can be seen at many events across the North West, I bought one of his books too, just haven’t had any time to read it yet.

With Manchester out of the way I have my next interest in the Edinburgh marathon. I’m sure I’ll know lots of my Edinburgh friends taking part, but most importantly for me another of my clients, Rich, is heading there to run it. I did some work with Rich around last September/October, getting him used to how hard he’d have to train. Since then he’s been using my schedules, but coming close to the marathon Rich wanted a session. I worked out something I thought would be appropriate and it worked, giving him just the boost he needed, a few days later he did his Killer Session, successfully. The session I did with Rich pushed me close to my own limit, I’ve not been doing that length of session for a while and Rich is not that much slower than me over 10k. So the next day I was intending to do an easy 8k on the treadmill, at Cottons. But I found myself with a little more time so decided to run 10k instead. I set off easy, as planned, but I’m still not happy on the treadmill and, unlike all the other people running alongside me, I didn’t have earphones. The only way I could think of to relieve the boredom was to get the run over quicker. I didn’t want to run any less, I’d set my mind on 10k, so that meant I had to crank up the speed. So I cranked and I cranked and I kept cranking every time I felt too comfortable, and, despite the easy start, I did a good negative split and ended up with a 35:21 10k run.

Then it was off to Spain. We’d decided to see how a long weekend works so flew out of Manchester on Thursday evening. This meant we arrived at Alicante quite late, along with two hen parties and a stag party. It was quite a noisy flight but this time I had my head phones in and relaxed whilst listening to Wishbone Ash. I trained hard in Spain, I can feel vitality coming back to me, it’s nearly two years since I hit my Over 40 peak and since then I’ve had niggle after niggle. For now I seem to be managing the knee niggle, the main culprit, and I’m getting faster and fitter, and this is bringing the confidence back to me. I’m beginning to believe I can achieve again, watch out there’ll be some SMART goals coming soon, maybe even some THICK ones.

Then, all too soon, breakfast in Spain in 24C was a distant memory as we arrived back at Manchester to a windy 12C. And then back to work, a session with Ray, now thankfully on the comeback from his illness, and another week of cramming clients into four days. And that’s why this is such a short blog.

Written by Roger Alsop

http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/

Supplements

As a Personal Trainer, and probably like a number of other people in the self employed sector of the fitness industry, I receive an awful lot of calls for people trying to get me to sign up for various things. Many of these calls are related to the use of supplements. Now I have no specific problem with supplements, I’ve even used them on occasion but I don’t use them as a matter of course. I think that people should make their own informed view on whether supplements are for them or not, I’m not there to promote any particular brand but I’m happy to give general advice. I’m don’t get paid to sell supplements and, in fact, generally people want me to purchase the supplements and sell them onto my clients. But I’m not a selfish seller at all costs kind of guy, I will purchase things on behalf of my clients but only when I feel that I can get them a better deal, on something they want, by getting it via me. In fact it’s one of the things my clients tell me they like about the way I operate, i.e. I don’t try to sell extras to them all the time.

Now I’ll openly admit that I do have my own nutritional planning programme, that I will sell onto clients and anyone else, but I don’t push it onto clients, there are other dietary planners out there, but I believe the product works and I do use it myself. I also do a certain amount of work for Ronhill and Hilly, for which they provide me with kit, they don’t expect me to push there products onto my clients either, but I do wear the products in public places and will happily endorse them to anybody who’s interested as I really do think the products are great and innovative, I just wish they made trainers too.

Well I’ve digressed a little but only to make the point that I’m not paid by anybody to sell supplements and I have no bias towards any particular products out there, the following blog will summarise my feelings about supplements. I’m not currently taking any supplements, and haven’t for some years but I know plenty of people who do. Whether they need to take them I’m not sure, we all have our own knowledge of what our body is up to and can make those decisions ourselves.

I first came across supplements as a child, though in those days they were called vitamin pills. All of a sudden my mum started bringing home sanatogen vitamins, horrible hard round sweet tasting things, and we would all have one each day. My dad, being bigger and older than us three kids, got to eat the horrible bitter tasting red ones which were big enough to make them hard to swallow. I didn’t envy him. As a child I didn’t really know why I was taking the vitamins, I just did what I was told, perhaps our diet in the 70s wasn’t as good as it is now, I didn’t even have my first Indian meal until I was 17.

When I left home I was still a student and, naturally, I didn’t really care much about healthy things, I didn’t take vitamins, did very little exercise, ate badly and drank too much too often. I did have a good time mind you. Luckily I survived any abuse I gave to my body. As a young man starting out a work, I continued to drink too much too often, I ate better, still not great, and I started to get involved in sport, occasionally.

It was only when I started to train properly that the question of whether to take supplements came up. I actually remember one of my training partners Adam Armstrong (incidentally Adam was an actor who appeared in Grange Hill, Crimewatch and various other things – in fact I must relay the story about Crimewatch latter in this blog, see if I can write it as funny as it was) telling me that one of the 800m runners we knew had been taking creatine and was complaining that it was making his legs heavy. In actual fact it was probably the fact that he was training harder due to taking the supplement that made his legs tired. Around 1992 one of my training partners, Nutritionist Alex Luce, asked me if I’d take part in a study he was working on. I said yes as long as it didn’t include taking any banned substances and didn’t impact my training. Alex didn’t tell us what the study was at the time but it was a study on the effects on vitamin c on the athlete.

I thought this was a great opportunity to help one of my training partners while gaining the benefits of taking extra vitamins, I even didn’t mind trying to swallow these gigantic pills every day, until I found out I had been taking the placebos. I’m not sure what the results of the study were but I was progressing better than everybody else, even with the placebo effect. As a thank you Alex did give me a proper consultation and, because I was having a few bowel problems, he gave me a detox and suggested a course of vitamins and minerals. This seemed to resolve the problems I was having, which I consider were stess related. I took these vitamins and minerals on and off for a while, whenever the problem returned. I also took iron supplements when I was feeling run down, as I’d previously been diagnosed with slight anaemia and extra calcium when I got a stress fracture in my foot, but I’ve not taken any supplements for years.

Due to my lack of supplementation I can’t really give you much information or recommendation on particular types. I don’t take supplements because I believe I can get the nutrients I need from fresh ingredients, though not everything you buy in the shops is fresh and therefore it may not be as nutritious as it could be. Food can be stored too long and lose some of it’s nutritional value and it can be overcooked with nutrients being lost in the process (I generally steam or stir fry my veg as I believe it is better nutritionally). I’m lucky in that my lifestyle is such that I am in a position to take care with what I eat but others may not be so fortunate. It’s worth considering supplements if you feel you’re not able to maintain a healthy diet because of your lifestyle or you are feeling run down, however, ideally, supplements should not be taken in place of normal nutrients they should be taken to supplement them and the bulk of your nutrients should still be gained from natural ingredients. 

If you are going to use supplements, make sure you understand what benefits you will get and if there are any side effects. Also be sure to check out what is in the product, particularly being sure of any hidden ingredients (this is particularly important for athletes who may undergo drug testing). Of course there is the worry that supplements can become contaminated during production but if they are made by a reputable company that is unlikely and of course natural food can also be contaminated.

I’m currently in a phase of hard training, in fact I’m training harder than I’ve trained for a long time and I’m feeling tired. Therefore I’m using a lot of the nutrients I’m putting into my body, do I need to take supplements? Well it’s a good question, I’ve been carrying a bit of a cold for weeks and it is affecting my breathing a little but taking supplements doesn’t necessarily protect you from colds and I do eat well. I feel like I’m replenishing all the nutrients I need but maybe I’m missing something, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad decision to take some. If I did take them the one thing I would ensure I did would be to check the register of banned substances, yes I know I’m not going to be selected for London 2012 but I do still compete at a reasonably high level and don’t see the point of getting banned because of carelessness. Plus I like to know what I’m putting into my body. But in truth, I think I just need to eat a bit more, I’m burning calories at a pretty high rate (over 300 for 10 minutes workout) so I’m stocking up with more food and ensuring I take breaks in my day to eat.

This weekend I went to the Heaton Park parkrun. Heaton Park was the scene of my first parkrun, back in March, when I finished 8^th in 17:25. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve raced so I was thinking about going to Pennington Flash but then Ray got in touch and suggested Heaton Park, as it was going to be the last run on the course, before they changed it to another one in the same area. I was happy to try it, I figured I might get a chance to run faster on the, mostly, pathed course rather than the multi-terrain test that Pennington is. As it has been some time since I ran there I went to the website to remind myself of the course and found that it had actually been won, on a number of occasions by people running slower than 17 minutes. So there was a possibility that I could win, but then again there were a considerable number of winners who had run significantly under 17 minutes and a number of sub 16 minute winners with a course record of 14:49, so there was a good chance I wouldn’t win. But it wasn’t the win I was interested in, I was keen to get another sub 16 minute run under my belt and having run 16:56 at Pennington I thought I should have a chance, particularly when I saw my old mate and Santa Claus world record holder, Paul Simons, had a 16:58 timing. Paul and I go back a long way, we used to compete against each other in the British League when he was Shaftesbury Barnet and I was Belgrave, and that has continued over the years in road relays. Now us two ‘Londoners’ are both based in the North West we see each other at various races and are still finishing within seconds of each other. So I was confident of a sub 17 minute run, although I did notice that Tommy Prenders had only run 16:50 and he had a 16:40 clocking at Pennington Flash.

We were a little late setting off and only arrived at the car park about 10 minutes before 9:00. Not the sort of preparation I normally like for a race but this was a parkrun and I’m pretty chilled out about them, I treat them as time-trials rather than races, so as long as I get a chance to warm up my muscles I’m ok. Mind you there was no need to panic anyway as the presentation of t-shirts before the race meant a very late start. Before the off I, almost literally, bumped into Ron Hill. Although I do some work for Ronhill and Hilly I’ve never actually spoken to Ron before so I introduced myself.

It was a nice morning, sunny with a bit of a chill in the air. It was warm enough standing in the sun, so I wasn’t too bothered by the delayed start. As we walked to the start line I looked ahead and wasn’t really sure where we were going to head, as the path appeared to fork. I asked the chap next to me and he pointed out the route and then said ‘but you won’t need to worry unless you’re in the lead’. I didn’t say anything at the time but I was thinking to myself that it was a possibility. As we set off I did indeed find myself in the lead. The course was well marked with arrows, unfortunately, with age, my eyesight is starting to fade at a greater proportion than my leg speed and I was approaching the signs quicker than my brain could register the direction to take. Thankfully there were plenty of marshals and they were a big help on the three occasions I had to check the route.

After the initial small loop it was nice to pass the start line again in a clear lead, to generous support from the spectators. As I came close to the start of the hill for the second time I noticed a bunch of runners on the corner. I recognised Andi Jones and his wife, it looked like a group of Salford Harriers ready for a training session. Needless to say they let me pass then started their rep session, running in the same direction as me. It brought back memories of my old fartlek training in Richmond Park, where we had a 5 minute rep on part of Ranelagh Harriers cross country course, occasionally there would be a race on as we were kicking off our rep. It was good fun as it gave you a load of runners to chase but I remember one occasion when a guy worked really hard up the minute long hill to try to hold onto me, only for me to stop at the top. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap today I let them go past without upping my pace and then I was on the hill.

The last bit around the lake seemed to take an age but I’d checked my watch and was confident of running sub 17. I relaxed, perhaps a bit too much, and then the finish which seemed to stretch on forever. I crossed the line in first place in a time of 17:04 and it was hard to hide my disappointment. I know some people can’t see why I would be disappointed with winning but my focus wasn’t on winning, it wasn’t a championship race, I wanted to run sub 17 to give me a booster for the next race. But, as always, the disappointment was short lived and I started my jog back around the course to thank the marshals and cheer on the other competitors.

Ray came through, running yet another pb, he seems to be setting them every week now. Next was Carole, leading home Ron Hill. She’s quite proud of the part she played in pacing Lee Riley in his training for the marathon world record, now she’s outpaced another multi-world record breaker, albeit a septuagenarian. And then Sharon came home in a course pb. So all 4 of us had set course pbs, with Ray setting an absolute 5k pb. Not a bad day on reflection. The disappointment of not breaking 17 minutes was soon forgotten as I thought of the fact that I have 7 parkrun wins under my belt this year, not bad for a man approaching his 47^th birthday rather more rapidly than he would like.

All in all, though it’s not been my best year, the two months out through injury have definitely had an impact on my fitness levels and this is the first year since 1993 that I haven’t won a championship medal of any kind. But on the bright side I’ve helped others to achieve great things; Ray only has to wake up to set a pb, Lee has set 3 world records, and I have a number of other clients who are on their way to something great in the near future. And, more importantly, I am enjoying my running, even if it is a lot slower than my memories tell me I used to run. I know that I have the capability of running a good time in a race, it’s just a matter of when, so onto the next challenge, the next race is a 10k.

This weekend coming is the British and Irish Masters International Cross Country Championships. I’ve run it for the last 5 years, 4 times for Scotland and once for England. This year I didn’t make the team, but I know most of the runners who did, so I’d like to wish them a good run and enjoy the Scottish hospitality.            

Now for the tale about Crimewatch. In our little training group we had a guy named Vic. Vic had a certain amount of talent when he was younger but family responsibilities took him away from running. I’m not entirely sure what brought Vic back to running but he was a good man to have in the group as he was a good judge of pace and would lead out one of the sub groups perfectly, he was also full of interesting stories and had a great way of telling them. Vic also like a drink and would often go home after training, collapse into an armchair with a few tinnies and fall asleep in front of the TV. On one such occasion he woke up while crimewatch was on and it just so happened that Adam was acting out the role of one of the criminals in a particular scene. Vic opened his eyes, saw Adam, heard the request for anyone who knew anything to contact the police and promptly phoned up the police. 

Rest and Recovery

Last Friday I was absolutely cream crackered, I’ve been in a hard training phase and I feel like I’m running well off it. However last week I started to feel that my body was getting tired. I looked at the training I’ve been undertaking for the previous weeks and, as planned, it’s seen my long runs increasing in distance, the pace increasing and the intensity of my quality runs has increased. Understandably the overall effect has been to tire out my muscles. I’ve been doing some intensive training on an uneven grass surface and this has brought on aches around my ankles and knee. Non of this appears to be a problem but it’s time to take a little step back, ease off, allow my body to rebuild and come back ready for more intensity. So I made the decision to take a week off.

Now I should explain that a week off in Roger Alsopland does not mean a week sat on the sofa watching the sport, though I have to admit to having overdosed on that last weekend – and who can blame me, with the Tour de France, F1 German GP and the MotoGP. No a week off for me means a week off high intensity training. In fact it actually means 5 days off. I’ll still run but the runs will be steady, I’ll notice things that pass me by when I’m in full flight. I’ll still do my kettlebell exercises but I’ll do less sets and I’ll still work on my abs.

I was going to start my break last Friday but today (Tuesday) we’ve got the painters in and there’s a requirement for me to be here, some of the time at least, so a perfect time to ease off. Of course this meant that I had to run hard on Saturday and Monday and boy was that a struggle, plus I’m booked in for a session with Ray tonight and now Ray’s getting fitter that means the session gets harder for me. But come tomorrow morning, my break officially begins, and I’m feeling good already.

The other thing that’s tired me out a bit is that I took delivery of another kettlebell last week. I decided to jump straight up to a 12kg and yes, I know that’s miniscule to all the big strong guys and gals who use much bigger ones, but this is me, have you seen me, I’m the skinny guy in the Dennis the Menace singlet (mind you that could be any of Herne Hill Harriers distance runners, except ALG). So I’ve jumped from a 7.5kg kettle to a 12kg one and what a difference. I had fair warning, watching the poor post woman deliver it to my door, but I was keen to use it as soon as I could and threw it, pretty literally, into my regular session. And that’s when I realised what a difference 4.5kg makes. Actually the exercises weren’t a problem, I managed them ok, though I was aware of the extra weight, it was just the effect it had on my inner thighs for the next 3 days.

But this blog’s about resting and recovery, not kettlebells. Rest is important, for the body to recover, whatever the exercise. If you continue to train at a high level you’ll end up getting injured. Text books will advise you to rest the day after a workout, but generally that won’t mean complete rest. The way weight training generally works is that you will work certain body parts one day and whilst they are being rested you work other body parts. But you also need rest between sets, which should vary in length depending on whether you are building strength, muscle bulk or endurance.

As I’ve just mentioned rest does not mean that you should slob about, though if that is your preference so be it, in between heavy weight lifting you should be keeping your muscles working by gently stretching them. As a runner we would generally train hard on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with steady runs on the other days. Once again I fly in the face of convention by training hard on Mondays and Wednesdays, it just suits me.

There are some people who never seem to take a day off from running, most notably Ron Hill, who even runs when injured. My old training partner, Charlie Dickinson, once told me he ran every day. At the time I was running well and found it hard to believe he wasn’t affected by constant training, but it affects us all in different ways. I myself always took Friday off. When I was a Mon-Fri worker this worked well as I could get into a regular pattern, it also meant I effectively gave myself a 3 day weekend; Mon-Thurs = work and train, Fri = work only, Sat-Sun = train only. However that all went up the spout when I moved into a shift work role. Now I’m training other people I don’t always get the chance to rest completely as I run or exercise with my clients, but I treat that as active recovery.

Active recovery is doing an activity different to what you would do on a hard day. So an easy run will help you recover better than doing nothing, or you might choose to go for a bike ride or take part in some other activity. It will help you recover, as long as you don’t give it the same intensity which you give to your main sport. And that’s where it’s all about finding the balance.

Obviously these are general conventions and there are people, who are well trained, who can push themselves day after day, take the Tour de France as an example, but even they will need a rest at some time. I myself sometimes train hard every day on holiday, but I do this by training less time or distance, e.g. I may do 25 minutes of intensive training each day instead of an hour one day of high intensity and an hour of easy work the next.

To become the best it’s not just about how you train but also about how you rest.    

Not only was I worn out but I was noticing my shoes were starting to feel a little less cushioned. I keep my trainers a long time but that’s because I use a different pair for different sessions, irrespective of what some conventions say – see I’m doing it again. I wear adidas supernovas for my intensive training, I have done since I bought a pair for the 2003 London Marathon. Where do I go when I need a new pair of trainers, I go to Belgrave Harriers, who still have some stock of older trainers from adidas. They no longer have my size as I just bought the last two pairs so I’ll be shopping around again in a few months. I also purchased another Herne Hill Harriers singlet, this time from Herne Hill Harriers, Belgrave don’t stock them. This one is on it’s way to New Zealand where my old mate Paul Coughlan will be wearing it. Paul is (or at least was) a distance runner, but he’s not skinny.

Last week they ran Pennington Flash the opposite way round, it would be interesting to see how that went. I was intending to turn up but both myself and Carole were exhausted we decided not to bother. Ray wasn’t available anyway so it wouldn’t have had the same picnic excursion feel about it. I don’t know when I’ll be back there next but I have just entered another 10k, I need to start setting some good times if I’m going to be considered for the England squad.