On today's episode of RUN with CoachParry we help put a plan in place for James Collins - one of our CoachParry Online Training Platform community members. James is struggling with a niggle from Comrades and has big Two Oceans Ultra goals for next year and so Lindsey helps James with some training plans and they discuss some other aspects around hill and power training.

Remember to share your story with us using #BiogenJourney and you could win 3 months access to the CoachParry Online Training Platform.

Brad shared another one of our community member's Success Stories during the podcast. If youre looking for some guidance with your training be sure to check out the CoachParry Online training platform 

Transcription

 

BRAD
Welcome on to this edition of RUN with Coach Parry. I'm Brad Brown. It's brilliant to have you on board once again. Coming up on today's show another have our one on one fly on the wall coaching calls and we join up with one of our members, James Collins, who is working toward Comrades 2019. So if that's your goal, you're definitely going to want to listen to this podcast. I think there'll be lots for you to take out of it. The coach Lindsey Parry joins us once again as well. Let's head over to James and the coach. We head to Durbann now, it's another one of these trifecta calls, I'm in Cape Town, the coach is in Joburg, and James Collins joins us from Glenwood in Durban by the sea. James, how's it?

JAMES
How's it, Brad, good morning.

 

James's running background and goals

 

BRAD
You are in the heart of Comrades country, James, please tell me you didn't start, like most of us, start running to run Comrades.

JAMES
That's exactly what I did. And yeah, from zero to 90 in one year.

BRAD
It's the curse I think of living in and I don't want to say in Durban because it's such a South African thing. But what an amazing achievement. All our international listeners are going 'man you are a madman that is absolutely crazy'. Tell me a bit about, were you pretty active growing up? I mean, what was the deal? Did you potter around and then one day decide, you know what, I want to run Comrades?

JAMES
I've always enjoyed sport and so I've done every kind of thing, pretty much got involved in everything. Was never super good at anything, but always, you know, second team or something like that so reasonable enough. And then I always just like being active and my wife actually a couple of years ago said hey, we should try this Comrades thing. And so I have to blame her to be honest. And she actually she got injured pretty early on like our first 10k's she got quite badly injured so she had to give up. But I managed to keep going and continue. And just kind of fell in love and the community here, of course living on the Comrades route, everybody's so supportive. And yeah, it just kind of keeps you going and doesn't make you want to stop. So you have to finish the thing.

BRAD
Yeah, absolutely. Isn't that always the case, I remember my first big cycling race that I did, a mate of mine tried to suck me into it. And I said, I'd love to do it but I don't have a bike. So he said I've got a spare bike for you, you can use my bike. So I ended up taking his spare bike, and then he chickened out and I ended up doing it. And that's how my sort of journey started. So it's quite funny how often that someone ropes you in, they don't end up doing it for whatever reason and then you get stuck doing it. Tell me about goal wise, what's the plan? What are you working towards?

JAMES
Goals wise, my main goal this year is Two Oceans. I just want to try and get that done and try and actually enjoy it. The first two I did were pretty hard for me. Like I said in the questionnaire sort of afterwards, I wanted to stop running. But yeah, in the first half is normally fine, actually to the top of Chappies is normally alright. But then it gets hard. So that's that's my main goal. At one stage, I thought I could maybe try and push it for under five hours. But I don't think that's going to be a reality this year. Just seeing how things are going. But yeah, and the big goal, also to do a three and a half hour marathon at some point, and the sub 20 5K. So those are kind of my big goals.

 

Lindsey's initial thoughts

 

BRAD
Nice. Well, now that you you've brought out the fighting talk and the gloves off, I'm going to hand you over to the coach. Lindsey, you've got James's sort of questionnaire that we send out for these coaching calls to give you a bit of background, initial thoughts? And then I'm sure you've got a couple of questions for James, and then we're going to open it up for James, I'm sure he's got some questions for for you.

LINDSEY
Yeah, so I looked through everything. And in terms of where you are of ability lies, none of your goals are unachievable. In fact, you probably should be there about anyway. Perhaps some of the injury stuff has hampered you, or maybe a little bit of inconsistency, possibly at Oceans, maybe it's a little bit of route management, but really your 5k points you to a sub 3:30 marathon fairly comfortably, which in turn points itself to a fairly comfortable sub 5 hour Ocean.

So I think for you, it's really finding the balance in the training to stay healthy and uninjured. And really just get that consistency in and then all of your goals are achievable. And perhaps on race day, having a slightly better race plan so that you don't get to the top of Chappies and the wheels come off. But just to give you an idea, even if you don't go under 20 minutes for five K, which on the face of it is probably your hardest goal, but definitely doable. If it stays where it is now, I mean, you definitely sub 45 10K, sub 1:40 half marathon, and a sub 3:30 marathon.

So you know, everything is there, it's just really about finding that rhythm where you can get in 12 to 20 weeks of really good consistent training without having to break down with injury or get sick. So talk to me a little bit then about, you said you just had some needling for what you thought was just a bit of tightness, but actually turns out it's a bit more than that, and that probably also affected your latest marathon. So what was the diagnosis there?

JAMES
Just over use, I think. Actually kind of started in Comrades, and I sort of been running, I guess most of Comrades I actually ran with quite a bit of pain. But I took a long recovery time, took the three weeks off that you normally recommend and really built up pretty slowly. And I guess I just sort of got used to running with a bit of pain, but it didn't really hamper performance to much. Like I've done a PB for my five K and all that.

But obviously, when it came to the marathon, my muscles decided, Okay, no this is just too much to handle. And so although I didn't crash and burn on the marathon, I just got progressively slower, like each K I just got a few seconds slower and slower after halfway. So I actually didn't think it was too bad. But I noticed afterwards really that I was hobbling a lot, but it didn't take too much to recover so I don't think it's a serious injury. I think within a couple of weeks, I would be okay, to kind of resume normal training and all that.

LINDSEY
And then also, one of your comments you made to Brad, you said you think things aren't working out in terms of sub 5 at Oceans. But I mean, we've got plenty of time between now and Oceans. So with the ability and the fact that this sub 21 5k was at the end of October, meaning the speed really is good. And the speed is there to run under five hours. So meaning that really your focus between now and Oceans should just be getting as pain free as possible. And then from there, you just want to be consistent. So you I mean, if you got some other questions?

 

How to build endurance

 

JAMES
Yeah, I guess my main question is really how to build the endurance side of things. Because as you say, the speed's there. My cardiovascular fitness seems really, really good, I would say, I hardly ever feel like exhausted after a race, but my muscles tend to complain. My muscles get tired, they feel weak.

LINDSEY
So look, that could be a symptom of still being a pretty new runner. So I mean, that's not completely abnormal and, it's not always good to use myself as an example, but here is a good one, I mean, I've run my whole life, but when I started running, or training reasonably seriously for Comrades about 10 years ago, for me, that was the hardest part of it. Any runs over 25 K's, those days actually probably 30, but when we got to those sort of length runs, I always found that my feet got really, really sore. And I didn't understand it. And now when I think back on that sometimes, I'm like, it was just literally the fact that I just hadn't been running long enough. Because now, your legs just, you know, the only time they really get sore is when you're being crazy and running a really hard marathon or ultras. So that is going to come with time. You've been going just about two years now.

JAMES
Yeah, just two and a half, probably.

LINDSEY
So you've got to keep doing it. And you've got to keep running the long runs. What sort of pace are you running your long runs at?

JAMES
Probably about 5:50. I did a pretty comfortable 32 at about 5:36 before my marathon, so about four weeks out. And that was quite comfortable actually it felt quite good.

LINDSEY
Yeah, so you're doing that at exactly the right pace. So that is often also part of the problem, that those runs are too fast. And then that can lead to having sore and tired legs on race day. But more importantly, it actually hampers your cardiovascular, but for your current level, that's basically spot on. I mean, you you want to be running around, you could go to about 5:15-5:20, but there's no rush to get much quicker. You're around about the right area. And so now it's just going to be about putting that in week after week after week of the week. And then you should be a lot stronger come Oceans. And then you are the forums, so we've got to get in there and then plan your actual race properly. And at /oceans, it's very easy to do the first 28k's too hard because the first 20k's are super easy. And then the race gets quite hard for the next 28.

 

Using cycling as cross training

 

JAMES
Yeah, absolutely. A question maybe about the muscular stuff, would cycling help?

LINDSEY
Look, it would.For me, cycling is really good cross training for running and it has good carry over in that it makes you stronger at hill running. So in a way, if you're running enough, cycling actually becomes good hill training or strength training. Where it doesn't help though, because of its low impact nature, it's not going to make your legs more robust, you know. So that kind of thing where you feel my legs are getting sore, it's not going to do that.

Look some actual physical strength training in the gym would help that, you've just got to progress through it. I mean, I wouldn't go straight into the gym and start doing box jumps, but some sort of jumps and some eccentric loading. That'll definitely help. But the thing that's going to help the most is like literally just getting in those 30-36k runs week after week after week after week. That's going to make the biggest difference.

 

Running for longer for fewer days a week

 

JAMES
Okay, that's good. And then in terms of running, is it better, in your opinion, to kind of have those long runs and just run fewer days in the week. Just to give my body more recovery time?

LINDSEY
I'm not a fan of very many people doing more than five runs a week. And typically I've found that 4 days a week for most people with a little bit of cross training is probably the best bet. Look where you getting now where you want to start targeting running sub 20, I would say you probably need to run, well minimum 4, but I would say you are aiming for 5 runs in a week.

And I would have one of those runs at around about an hour and a half mark, and one of those runs at the 30k plus as your kind of stock run. One run that's fairly short, but involves some intensity, so be it hills or intervals or fartlek or tempo run and those type of things. And then the other two are going to be in the kind of 12-15 kilometre range around about an hour to 1:15 maybe a little bit longer. That would bring quite a good balance to your week. That's kind of where you looking for.

 

Taking a couple of weeks off your programme due to injury

 

JAMES
Alright. And then if I have to take a couple of weeks off, just in terms of getting this injury sorted out, the plan going forward, like in terms of the marathon training, what weeks should I leave out in terms of that programme, because I know it's a 12 week programme, which I should have started this week, essentially. But if I had to chop off a couple of weeks?

LINDSEY
Yeah, so it would depend how many weeks but if you're talking about a week or two, I would slide into the programme and it won't be too much of an issue. I mean, you just come off of running a marathon. But if we're talking three or four weeks, then I would start at the beginning of the programme and probably follow the first two to three weeks as they are on the programme. And then from there I would then move to the appropriate distance from the race.

 

Does running hills lead to injury?

 

JAMES
Okay. Another question just about hill stuff. I know the hill sessions and running hills, I guess my question is, is running hills, steep hills just at a normal pace, is that a concern for causing injury or is it only really hill sessions where you run too steep, it's a problem?

LINDSEY
No and glutes injury, once you do have a bit of a glute injury, then certainly running lots of hilly routes can contribute to that and it can irritate it. But again, for me it comes down to once you've sorted that out, is we all tend to run the hills that little bit too hard. And that's probably largely responsible for why there is a risk if we do too many hills, especially on the downside. So I would say that that's not a major concern for me, but I would almost put in just that extra conscious effort to to slow down a little bit more when running hills, especially in the very long training runs.

 

Running with power

 

JAMES
Okay, and then power wise, I heard your podcast last week just about running with power. My Garmin watch also has power, but it seems like super variable like it's so, not inconsistent, but it just varies so much so quickly that it's hard for me to kind of pace myself with the power thing.

LINDSEY
So you should be able to smooth it out, change its sampling rate so that it gives you the average over a bit of time. But that is one of the sort of advantages of power is that it does change very quickly. So especially when you move from flat to hill, or downhill, it does change very suddenly. But that is its actual advantage. So I've read a couple of reviews about the the Garmin power, and accuracy is a difficult word, but what the reviews did say is that it was consistent.

So in other words, if you go and run at a similar speed on the same hill, week on week, you're probably going to find that the power is the same. So the fact that it changes so quickly is really it's advantage. So when you hit the hill, it's telling you slow down, if you are you heading out on a run, and you want to run 350 watts result as your average, and you know that's an easy run for you, when you hit the hills it's going to hit 420 really quickly. And then you're forced to slow down and bring it back to 320.

JAMES
And kind of like what I think Garth was saying that on the uphills though, it seems like you have to slow down so much to bring it even and on the downhills, you really have to belt it to try and keep that power even.

LINDSEY
Yeah, so it's not exact but for me, that's why I kind of work in that same track, that's why if I'm trying to run for me and easy average is 270 watts, then on the heels I'm looking at about 285, maximum 290. And when I come down the other side of the hill, I'm looking at about 260 to 265. So there is a little bit of leeway there. But you can still keep it pretty much around that little tight band.

 

Doing time trials every second week

 

JAMES
Okay, and then another one actually, I've been part of this kind of research study, which has required me to do a time trial every second week. And that kind of goes to the end of Jan, but as a training thing is it good or bad to kind of have that fast race so often, because I've quite enjoyed having that kind of every second week.

LINDSEY
So five to eight k's even is fine. But when you do that I would cut out, so I would make that my speed work for the week. So then I wouldn't have my interval session on a Tuesday for example and do the Parkrun on the Saturday. Parkrun would be my hard run that week. So essentially, you'd be doing intervals or speed work or whatever workout you're using to improve speed every second week, and a time trial every second week.

 

White line fever

 

JAMES
Okay, and then a bit of a random question. I'm not sure if you might know the answer to this. But I found with Comrades, like at about, okay, well, I had a pretty tough time from K 20. But from like, 60 to 80 I was like totally finished and then suddenly at 83k I could run again. But with no real additional fueling or anything. And with Oceans, what makes it so hard is kind of I'm in that stage, you know, where I'm really feeling terrible when the race finishes. Any suggestions to overcome that or improve?

LINDSEY
So look it's probably more linked to like white line fever, you just know, the finish line is coming, I'm not passing this ball to anybody. So that probably has a much stronger psychological than physical component. And it's not uncommon, I mean, if you think back to your five K's that you quite enjoy running, in a five K it's kind of around about the three k mark, I mean, you really are struggling but you also know that you're close to finish but you really have to hang on quite hard for three or four minutes and then suddenly you're feeling a lot better charging for the line.

You're stuffed but you lose that sort of, you know, do I want to keep doing this or not. In a 10k it comes around six and a half, 7.5 k's and then by eight k's you normally sort yourself out. Part of the problem with Oceans is that you hit the very hard part of the route, which is Constantia Nek. And then although from there, the running is easy, the camber is really bad and your legs are sore. It's quite hard at Oceans to kind of get yourself out of that mindset. And I find you tend to just start doing it as you come from the top gates past Kirstenbosch bottom gate, but then the finish is really tough.

That's why Oceans, you maybe don't get quite that same sort of mental, but the biggest thing for you at Oceans will be that we'll plan the race so that you get to the top of Constantia Nek feeling like you can still run. I mean, you're not going to be feeling amazing, but you'll feel like you can still run, and that your goal is still a possibility. And with that goal being a possibility, if you get to Kirstenbosch top gate, should have about 4/5k's left to run and your goal is still there, then I think you'll get that same sort of mental rush to go to the end.

 

Doing enough mileage for Oceans

 

JAMES
Okay, that's great. And so I guess tied into all that on the forum, we chatted about just kind of adopting the three and a half hour marathon programme up until PMB, which is at the end of Feb. And then switching over to Oceans, based on what we've chatted about today is that kind of enough mileage for Oceans, do you think? Or should I try and sort of adopt a little bit of a longer run on the Sunday? Maybe just to kind build up more?

LINDSEY
So I would tweak that a little bit, but without being crazy. And I'll tell you also, what just popped into my head now, based on your previous question and that is that you can actually qualify for Oceans right up to the 17th of March. Obviously, that's quite late, but what it does is it opens up for you the Deloitte, which is quite a fast marathon. You've probably run a better seeding time with less effort there than you would have at Maritzburg.

So depending on how quickly the injury comes tight, you actually may want to consider doing that, pushing that out a little bit and then yes, just keep talking to me on the forum. And as we get into those peak 4-8 weeks around the marathon, we will probably just push the long run up a little bit and get you, because I think on that programme you're on, it's more 25 to 30k's, and we'll want to get you to 30-36k's, in that sort of bracket.

JAMES
Okay. Sounds good.

BRAD
Awesome stuff, James. Yeah, I think that was pretty productive. And I'm excited to see what you can do. One thing I love about chatting to Lindsey, is he just breathes belief into everyone. So there's no pressure now, but that gold for Oceans is on like a scone.

JAMES
Okay, yeah. Got to try it.

BRAD
I love it. You're a member of the online community as well. Lindsey mentioned the forums, you've mentioned chatting as well. Yeah, we just we appreciate that you're there and hope you're getting tons out of it.

JAMES
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, you guys. I mean, I got so much out of everything that you offered free for, you know, for the last two years. And so I thought, well, what more can I actually get out paying and seeing, but it definitely makes a difference, you know, just having access to Lindsey and the coaches every single day, you know, any question that pops into mind, you can just put it on the forum and get an answer. So yeah, super helpful. And thank you guys, enjoying it a lot.

BRAD
Brilliant James, thank you. Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing what you do and how it goes. But stay in touch, we'll chat in the forums. Excited, man, I love chats like this, because I get fired up by just seeing anybody else's goals. So yeah, looking forward to seeing what you can do in 2019.

JAMES
Absolutely. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate the opportunity.