Flashes of Panic

It’s been a little while since I put up the first section of this, covering base training, which is essentially spending a lot of time running at whatever pace is comfortable. The problem with base training (or LSD, as it is sometimes called: Long, Slow Distance,) is that, as one coach put it, “Long, slow distance leads to long, slow runners.” You can get faster just by running a lot, but ultimately the only way to run fast—to “maximize your potential,” as they say now as a concession to the fact that “fast” is relative—is to run fast.

You can’t just jump in from base work, though. Speed training stresses the body differently than distance training. So Lydiard’s system builds in stages of transition, each one building on the stage before. The idea of stages is slightly deceptive; in a way, they blend in to each other. When I was in Pennsylvania, my coach started incorporating hills very early on simply by sending us out on loops designed to hit every climb he could find; the twenty-two mile loop which was the staple of the marathon training season included at least four climbs nearly a mile in length, and over a dozen long enough and steep enough to force a change in pace. That course is a monster, incorporating all of the Phone, tougher even than my twenty-four mile loop into the hilltowns from Northampton.

The thing is, when you run hills a lot, you start getting used to them. The ones that were tough enough that we knew their names, the ones which would drag experienced runners to a walk, became just another boundary to push back after we’d attacked them half-a-dozen times. That was when we got to hill sets.

We ran hill sets the way high school kids do: pick a steep hill, sprint up as hard as possible, jog back down, repeat until your head spins. We would do four to six sets of “short hills” which were thirty-second sprints up a steep hill, then three or four “long hills,” a more involved circuit involving a four-minute charge up a less steep but much longer hill, cresting the hill and continuing on the flat ground, jogging back along the flat ground and sprinting down. (Doing this on a cross-country course was preferred, but low-traffic roads were acceptable in the winter.) This was followed by another set of short hills, then we staggered home.

Lydiard’s hills, as demonstrated in the seminar, are nowhere near as violent; the runner isn’t even trying to run fast, but instead runs fairly easily up a very steep hill, concentrating on lifting their knees well. The incline, in addition to providing increased resistance (the runner is lifting their own weight, as well as pushing it forward) also forces the runner into a different stride: they put more weight on the front of their foot earlier in their stride, and the heel drops more (being lower on the hill) which stretches (and strengthens) the calves and achilles tendon. The runner is also more likely to fully straighten their leg as they push off, which generates a tremendous amount of speed. (Check any photo of a world-class track runner in the middle and long distances in full flight at the end of a race; they’ll have their take-off leg fully extended behind them, to the point where they appear to be balancing on their toes. This is the part of my running stride which plantar fasciitis has taken away from me, and unfortunately I was quite good at it.)

(Much more on form in the next installment.)

Hills are intimidating. They’re hard, when you’re starting out, and there’s a natural inclination to avoid them when you can. I avoided them well into my college years, because I would be feeling tired and beat up some days, and wouldn’t want to take on the extra effort. Eventually, I learned that the hills were, in fact, making me stronger; now, unless I really feel like I need the rest, I will seek out hills wherever I can find them. I mentioned this in my “about the author” tag in my column about the Lydiard seminar, and in response I was sent a draft of a column about hills which is going to appear in the February RW. (If I told you any more about it, I’d have to kill you.) The theme, however, was this: if you make a habit of running up hills wherever you find them, you’ll find yourself getting faster. And, eventually, getting ready for the third phase of drills, which are really hills carried to their logical extreme.

Now playing: The roar of aircraft engines, in flight from Hartford to Chicago. I’ll post this when I have time to check the links.