On today's episode of RUN with CoachParry, we chat Chris Binneman who is a CoachParry Online Training Club community member. Lindsey guides Chris on how to set goals and adjust his training programs for as he gets older. They also discuss Chris' issues with cramping and how to tackle the UP run for Comrades.

We want to hear your story and want you to share your journey with us, use #BiogenJourney and #coachparry on any of the social media sites and you could stand a chance to win 3 months access to the CoachParry Online Training Club. This week's winner is Mark McTaggart! Welcome to the team Mark!

The next Comrades Bonitas Online Success Seminar is taking place on 25 March 20:00 (GMT+2) and has a special focus on nutrition. It is free, but be sure to register on coachparry.com/webinar . If you missed the last one here is the link to the recording.

Transcription

 

BRAD
Welcome back on to this edition of RUN with Coach Parry. My name is Brad Brown. And it's great to have you on board with us once again and we get to share another pretty cool story on today's podcast. Someone who is a member of the Coach Parry Online Training Club, and his name might ring a bell, we're catching up with Chris Binneman. And if you wondering why does it ring a bell, you would have heard his name on the podcast just a few weeks ago. We spoke about him and some of the success that he's had.

He posted a very, very cool post in our forum about how he had struggled to break four hours for a marathon. He was following another training programme in the build up to the Brighton marathon last year and came very, very close, but had always struggled with niggles and the odd injury heading up to races and decided that he was going to buy one of our 12 week training programmes, the marathon training programme, and follow it for the Cape Town marathon last year, which he did to a T. And for the first time he said in forever, arrived on race day injury free and feeling fresh and good. And he ended up running a sub four hour marathon two weeks before his 58th birthday, which is an amazing story and we're going to chat to Chris a little bit more about that, and also some of his other goals. Lindsey joins us on today's podcast too. Let's head straight into our chat with the coach and Chris Binneman. Chris, welcome.

CHRIS
Thank you very much.

 

Chris's running background

 

BRAD
Chris. It's great to have you on and before we get into our chat, a couple of weeks ago I read a post of yours on our podcast that you posted in our forum about your experience with what we do here at Coach Parry and I got serious goosebumps when I read it because the story is so, so cool. So tell us a little bit about the sort of build up to Brighton marathon and your prior running and the stuff that you were doing before you picked up the 12 week programme from us?

CHRIS
I was using a programme from the official Two Oceans coach, which I picked up many years ago when I started running the Two Oceans 21 k. Used the programme then and then when I went on to Comrades and the Two Oceans 56k, I started using the other programmes in that suite. I just found them pretty challenging. They were five days a week and some weeks there would be three sets of interval training combined with fairly long runs and I found that the time was a problem. Five days a week is quite tough and as I'm getting older I'm finding it more difficult to do that extra work. So I was looking for something for a four day a week programme and that programme popped up and I thought well let me give it a bash. And as I said you in my post that if I take something on then I take it on full time and that's it. So it worked very well for me. It was the first time that I ever arrived at a race without a little niggle somewhere. It was just amazing.

BRAD
Yeah, I mean that's something we talk about often, is arriving maybe slightly under done but physically in good nick. You aren't, as you say, battling with a niggle and that makes such a big difference. But tell me a bit about your running history. Have you always been a runner throughout your life or how did it start?

CHRIS
I've always been a runner throughout my life. I started when I was training for under 15 rugby, I was running five K's and I ran five K's until I was 50. And my son was at school and he said to me 'Dad, I'm going to run a 21', I said 'which one are you doing?' and he said Two Oceans. He went off and did it. And he said to me, 'Dad, next year, why don't you do with me?' and I've always wanted to do 21. So okay, I'll do it. I did that one and the following year, I did another one. And then it just started from there. But then he said he's going to do Comrades. I said okay I'm not doing Comrades, I never wanted to do Comrades in my life, why would I want to do it now? So I thought about it, and I thought, yes this is great, I'll do it. So then that year, I did my first marathon, Pietermaritzburg, I did my first Two Oceans, I did my first Comrades, and I did my first Amashova. So I had quite a year.

BRAD
I love it. I'm going to ask you a weird question now, because we have this argument often with cyclists where you'll tell a cyclist you've run comrades, and they go, Well, I've done the Amashova. Let's clear it up. You've done both. Which one's harder?

CHRIS
Comrades by far. No comparison.

BRAD
There we go. We have it officially. Chris, I find it amazing, you might be one of the first South Africans we've ever spoken to that at some stage said 'I never want to run Comrades', although you've been sucked in now. That's quite weird. I don't think I've ever spoken to a South African who didn't want to run Comrades.

CHRIS
Yeah, it's true. And especially since I was a runner, but I just decided I didn't ever want to do it.

BRAD
Yeah, and like Lindsey said, you lived on the route practically. So it's amazing. I'm flabbergasted to be honest.

CHRIS
I used to watch it every year but I just didn't have an interest in running it.

BRAD
Maybe it's because you saw the pain and suffering firsthand.

CHRIS
That's probably it.

 

Lindsey's Initial Thoughts

 

BRAD
Love it. Alright, cool. I'm going to hand you over Lindsey. Lindsey, you've got Chris's training background little questionnaire that you send out with your one on one coaching stuff, just your initial thoughts on what Chris has done and where he is right now?

LINDSEY
It's pretty cool that Chris found running again after high school. He did list one of his PB's from when he was a youngster. And he was a pretty useful runner. I think that's actually important in the scheme of things because you were more than good, I mean, you were pretty swift when you were a youngster. And that's probably what's allowing you to still run pretty decently now. I mean, if you've got a fairly good natural ability to run so, yeah. I think your goals are, your questions we'll touch on those just now anyway, you want to improve on that sub 4 that you ran at Cape Town marathon. You want to run under 11 hours for Comrades and I certainly feel like that's absolutely doable. And you've made a pretty good change.

Look, there are different ways of achieving goals and I don't really want to knock the way other coaches do it. But certainly as you get older, you need to space out your intensity sessions if you're going to do any out further. So, you know, the weeks where you've got three, I think that's why you did spend a lot of time getting injured, leading into the races your were training for. And that's probably also one of the major reasons why you weren't achieving that sub 4. So the programme now obviously is a much better balance for you, the one that you're following. Four days a week gives you adequate time to recover. You've had a pretty positive marathon. And I think as I discussed with you in the forum, adding a little bit of intensity in there once a week I think will provide some positive impetus but we don't want you to get hurt and injured so you just want to monitor that and if you can feel it pushing you over, too tired, then we pull back again.

Because the other thing that's going to lead to major improvement is consistency. And yes, you don't have five or six years to keep running faster. But now that you're clearly training on something that is working for you, you should have a year or two still in you and you can improve before age really does start to force you to slow down. But by training correctly, you can slow that process down so that the slowing down isn't quite as marked and it's rather just you know, little by little by little.

The way my dad gets around that, just to give you something to stay motivated for in the future, is that my dad doesn't worry about PB's anymore. Now he's 69 so he works towards seasons bests. So he starts running at the start of the year, and after a break he'll run a whatever the time is for a time trial, for his first 21, and then for the rest of the he'll be chasing, just improving that and as he gets fitter and stronger, he'll then chase season's best rather than chasing personal bests. And then my last comment before I hand over to you to ask the question. Absolutely I believe that now that you're training much better for you and you're responding so well to that training, that you absolutely do have the ability to run under 11 hours for Comrades.

 

Facing the Comrades Up Run

 

CHRIS
Because I've never done an up run it's quite daunting because I know what's involved and having run down I know that I'm going to have to run back up that thing. The fact that I haven't achieved the times that I wanted on the down run is also sticking in my head. So that's a bit of an issue for me. As well as the fact that my family are saying to me that I'm mad because then I'm going to be in my 60th year. I really want to do an up run. And once I've done the up run I'll be satisfied that I've achieved what I wanted to achieve.

LINDSEY
Look, I'm extremely confident that you'll finish the up run. Not least of all because I just feel like you'll have much better tools to do it. And I mean, if this year was a down run, I really feel confident that you would run under 11 hours. Even more than on the down run, the real trick for you is going to be getting past your house kind of fresh. That the part of the route where you're just going to have to be patient. Your speed says that you are fast enough to run under 10 hours for Comrades. But I also know again, having lots of experiences with coaching older runners and my dad in particular, that as it goes longer then there is a drop off. So it would be unrealistic to set out on a 10 hour plan.

And I understand why it's daunting, is that again, as my dad gets older, he can still maintain pretty good person flats and downs, but the biggest loss is on the up. So I totally understand why that is daunting. However, having said that, based on your running ability, you can do a hell of a lot of walking in that first 36 k's, and still be fine to get under 11 hours, because the trick for you is to get over Inchanga and then be able to run most of the way to Pietermaritzburg. And by doing lots of walking, you will enable yourself to do that, and then your natural speed will kick in, and you'll be amazed. You could conceivably run most of the second half at close to Bill Rowan, you wouldn't be that fast, but you'd probably be around 6:15-6:20. And by doing that, you should be able to get home between 10 and a half and 10:50 on the day.

 

Dealing with muscle cramps

 

CHRIS
Yeah. The other thing that's always been a problem for me is cramps. Often cramps in marathon distances, I don't get it during the race, I get it afterwards. So 15-20 minutes afterwards, I cramp in every single muscle you can think about. And over the years, I've actually use my body as a scientific experiment, because I've actually said, 'Okay, what am I not doing?' so then I'd fill up on the liquids and that doesn't work. So then I would say, 'Okay, now you need to put the electrolytes back so I out the electrolytes in', then I thought to myself, 'well, maybe I need to eat something on the way', so then I put that in as well.

Eventually, I got to a point now where I don't have [***15:56] whereas in my 2016 Comrades I cramped from Tollgate to finish, and I walked just about the whole distance. So from being on time for an under 11 I ended up at 11:31. So cramp has always been an issue for me. And I think that was also something that held me back because in the back of my mind, I always know I can't run too fast because when I get to the end and I start cramping then I've got a problem.

LINDSEY
Look, for marathon and ultra marathon, although it's not nice running in fear, that conservative approach is actually quite good, to be honest. So I wouldn't change that. But in Comrades in particular, that's again, just another reason why quite a lot of walking early on I think is going to save you a lot of walking late on. I'm glad you've solved that cramping issue.

I'm fairly similar to you, I very seldom cramp in races, but afterwards, I can sometimes be seen in the corner, I'm not sure if it looks like I'm break-dancing or flapping around like a seal, but I can't lie down because then my back cramps, I can't sit because my hip flexors cramp, I can't stand because my hamstrings cramp. It doesn't last too long, which is why I haven't been too concerned about it.

CHRIS
My one lasts a long time. I remember I did the Peninsula in 2016 and I think I got a 4:04 and I finished and I was fine. Then I decided I'd go down to the water to put my legs in some ice water and I cramped for about half an hour.

LINDSEY
Yeah, so you know, it's not quite the same. And of course you in your your questions that you asked me, you talk about how difficult it is for you to get started after a marathon. In the marathons where that happen to you, I would say those cramps essentially add an extra two to three days onto the recovery because those cramps, the muscles actually work harder, although it's involuntary, they're working harder than the hardest you can think of working in a gym. And then that is why you get so incredibly sore after those marathons.

 

How long should you rest after a marathon?

 

You're doing the right thing, essentially, to answer one of your questions that you said like 'how long should you rest after these marathons?' And I'd say after a hard, where you've races marathon, you shouldn't even think of running in the first three days, probably the first week. But again, because it's what you've been training for, I always say that, you know, it's like think about your job, everybody needs that holiday to freshen their minds up.

This is the same. Your body and your mind needs that holiday. So you've put in all that effort. You've said yourself, you commit completely to this thing. So at the end of that process, I would say two weeks is exactly what you need. Then the third week, a very gradual build up, and then you purr along and get onto a consistent level until you've locked on your next target. And then we increase the training again.

CHRIS
Yeah. One of the things that I mentioned is that I'll do that sort of maintenance between races, between the training programmes, and then in the first two weeks of the training programme, I find it really, really difficult. I get tired and sore, and I think it's the body adapting, I don't know,

LINDSEY
It's a little bit of that. But what I would do is, is keep that maintenance going and then give yourself two weeks before the programme starts. So you want to almost get, in the first week, 25% closer to the programme, in the second week, 50% closer to the programme, and then you go on the programme. That will also just help too, so that the programme isn't such a big jump.

CHRIS
That's great. Thank you.

 

Going too hard on your training runs

 

LINDSEY
Cool. You had quite a few more questions. Let's go through this. So this is actually a good one. Because, it's not going to help you right now, but it will help you make better choices. So I'm just going to read it. You said you're a little concerned about the training for Manchester, because everything was going well until Saturday, where you had to do two hour 45, and you decided to run from Kloof to the Suncoast. Now for people who don't know Durban very well, but have run Comrades, that's basically all the downhill of the down run all in the 28 K's.

So it's a ton of down, it was very humid and you ran down Field's Hill essentially, not on the highway but just on the side, over Cowie's and all that down through Westville, down to the beach. So your legs were extremely sore on Sunday, which is absolutely no surprise to me. They were more painful than after running a down Comrades. And that was probably because, although it was easy run, the intensity was still quite a bit, or you would have gone down there quite a bit faster than you would on Comrades race day.

Okay, so then you've spoken about the training you did through the week and that a lot of it was actually in pain, because you're sore. So for me, that effort that you did, because of the stiffness that it caused, means that you essentially did a race. So you should have treated this week very much the same as you would have treated a race. And I would have gone for three days without running. If you've got a stationary bike at home or access to the gym, then fine, I would have done 20 to 30 minutes of spinning on those days and that would have helped the recovery along a little bit and it probably would have meant that by Thursday, you would have felt fine, but I would have skipped the intervals and run easy. Then by the weekend, you probably would be fine to do your long run.

So now I kind of feel like what's next and going forward. It's Friday, and you kind of just want to get a sense of how much better you are feeling and exactly how tired you are. You may need to adjust that training run, to be honest on Saturday. And if you really are still extremely tired, I'd maybe look at doing two hours rather than three hours. And the pace that you're running them at is pretty consistent. You're running those at 5:45. So actually, absolutely fine. And you can go all the way to sort of 6:05-6:10-6:20. You can actually go all the way to around about 6:20.

So that's actually what I'd consider doing this weekend is if you can get in a 3 hour run, that'll be quite useful in terms of the marathon you're training for. So I would look at running, if you normally run at 5:45, I think somewhere between 5:55 and 6 means that you should get that three hour in quite comfortably and then next week, be sort of back on on track and feeling good.

CHRIS
Today, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm not feeling so tired. So I think I'll be okay tomorrow, but I'll judge it and just adjust the pace I think.

 

Insights on the race profile

 

LINDSEY
That's it. Aim for the three hours adjusting the pace slightly. But if you do feel truly awful then just cut that down too. Then the last question, do I have any insight into the profile of the race? The profile on the website seems to have a steep but short hill at half way, and the beginning has a long pull, but I can't tell the gradients. Can you advise on a pacing plan? So is it a point to point races? Or is it circular race?That long pull, do you make that up with a nice down at the finish?

CHRIS
It's a circular race. So it goes out and around the area and then comes back and more or less ends where it starts.

LINDSEY
Okay, cool. Alright, so bearing that in mind, I would use, I don't know exactly how long that pull is, but certainly use the first five or six of that almost as part of your warm up. So don't worry too much about pace. Run it nice and easy for the first five kilometres, then you'll have a pretty good idea of what that pull is. If it's what I suspect from overseas races that I've run, it'll actually feel more like a flat road. So you'll be able to groove pretty close into the pace that you are planning on running for the whole race.

That short hill at halfway, I'd basically try and get over it with as little damage as possible. So that may mean just taking a short little walk halfway up it and not pushing myself too much. Then using the little short down that you'll get after that to get back a little bit, not all, of the time that you lost. And essentially maintain a fairly conservative, pretty close to, or just under, your target pace, till about 30-32. And then hopefully, you'll have a similar experience to what you had at Brighton, you'll be able to finish strong. Plus, you'll have that slide downhill gradient, which will then allow you to claw back the rest of the time that you've lost to the little conservative bits and nail that 3:55.

 

Chris's experience with Coach Parry

 

BRAD
Cool, Chris. It's been great catching up, thoroughly enjoyed that. And best of luck, we're going to be following your progress and will obviously touch base in the forums. Just on what we're doing over at Coach Parry, you obviously been a member for a while, buying that programme. Your thoughts on what we're doing? Tell me about your experience.

CHRIS
I think it's great. I think the advice that you guys give is fantastic. I listened to your podcast the other day and definitely what I was hoping to get out of it - I got out of it. So all these interviews that you do is very, very good and very helpful. As long as you take on board, whatever you've been told, I think you can find success. A lot of people ignore what they've been told and they don't get success. So it's up to you to make the programme work for you.

BRAD
Absolutely. And isn't that the case in every aspect of life? Chris, we love having you in there. Thank you so much for being part of of the community. And yeah, best of luck. We look forward to catching up again in the forums.

CHRIS
Thanks a lot. Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Lindsey

LINDSEY
Good luck, Chris. Enjoy it.