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Better Tactics By Joe Henderson

George Sheehan told in one of his last columns about standing with a college running coach as they watched 10,000 runners pass by in a road race. The coach finally turned to George and said, "This is ridiculous.

"There are only about 100 real runners in the race. The rest should be home watching it on TV."

Before going on to assure other runners that they're real even if they never finish near the top 100, George commented, "I suspect many coaches have this attitude. They want to focus on the best. They do not have time for people who can't make the team."

Remnants of this archaic thinking still exist in coaching. But it isn't the dominant view, if only because so many of today's coaches run themselves-and not often fast.

Pat Connelly represents the majority. As the coach for a team of serious athletes, he wants the best possible results from them. But Connelly also makes time for the slowest runners as the coach for Los Angeles Marathon trainees. His job with the L.A. Road Runners isn't just to teach them how to run the marathon, but first to convince them that they can do it and that doing it is a noble effort.

He must be saying the right things. More than 1,000 people sign up for the training each year.

Before getting into the program, these people have had to fight off the idea that they're too old, too heavy, or too slow to run like this. They had to stop thinking that they should stand aside and watch the real runners perform.

I spoke to one of these groups midway through its training cycle. "Don't look too long and hard at those skinny young speed demons up ahead of you," I said. "Look to them for inspiration, yes, but don't let them make you feel bad."

Some of us are better runners than others. But all of us are good.

For proof of that, stop focusing exclusively on who's ahead of
you. For a truer picture of where you stand, turn around and look behind.

Look at all the people there who go more slowly than you do in this race. In particular, look at the people who aren't there. Look at those who began training for this event and didn't get to the starting line. Look at those who say they'll run a race in a "someday" that never comes. Look at those who won't or can't run at all.

"Ninety-eight percent of winning," I told the L.A. marathoners, "is getting to the starting line. The hard part is making the commitment to run and then doing the training.

"You're taking care of that 98 percent now. By completing the final 2 percent on raceday, you'll become a very special person. You'll be the one American in 1,000 who can and will go this far."

This isn't an invitation to look down on the people behind you. It's a plea not to get down on yourself.

Don't disparage your running, no matter what your ability. Resolve never again to say, "I only ran X minutes for X miles," or, "I'm just a jogger."

Folksinger Woody Guthrie once wrote, "I hate a song that makes you think you're born to lose, no good to nobody, no good for nothin' because you're either too young or too old, too fat or too thin, or too ugly, or too this or that. I'm out to sing the songs that'll make you take pride in yourself."

Don't let anyone tell you you're "too this or that" to be a runner. Take pride in your work. Read the writers, listen to the speakers, and find the coaches who make you feel proud.

Taper Tactics

For too long, runners and running researchers didn't speak the same language. We runners didn't hear or couldn't understand much of what the people in white coats were learning.

Owen Anderson changed all that. No one now writing about running does better at translating technical data from the labs into practical tips for the road than Anderson. An exercise scientist, Anderson publishes the newsletter, Running Research News (Box 27041, Lansing, MI 48909), and writes a column for Runner's World and a couple of British publications.

Scientists are professional skeptics. Even our most time-honored practices don't escape their scrutiny.

Consider the traditional practices of premarathon tapering and post-race recovery. Anderson dissected them in an article titled "Are You Already 'Damaged Goods' When You Show Up for Your Races?"

He said that most runners take their last long run too close to the event and resume hard running too soon afterward. He quoted research papers as proof that the traditional two-week taper before a marathon and easy month after the race aren't enough.

He reported that Michael J. Warhol's team from Harvard and Tufts Universities had tested 40 marathoners at various intervals after races. Anderson said their leg muscles were in "a state of chaos" the first week after the marathon. The runners claimed to feel okay but were hurting at a microscopic level.

The damage had begun to clear after a month but was far from complete. Warhol noted that repair work continued for 10 to 12 weeks after the race. This evidence leads Anderson to recommend three months of postmarathon recovery.

If a long race causes this much chaos, might training for it also take a bigger toll than imagined? Anderson urged runners to rethink their spacing of the last long run and the race.

He referred to a study by Dutch researcher Harm Kuipers and colleagues. They tested three groups of 23 runners each, each group training and racing at a different level:

Six months averaging 17 miles a week. Longest run seven and a half miles. Finished with a 15K race.
Five months averaging 31 miles a week. Longest run 13-1/2 miles. Raced a 25K.
Seven months averaging 48 miles a week. Longest run 20 miles. Raced a marathon.

Kuipers found no muscle problems in the first group before the 15K race. Eight runners from the second group took these problems into the 25K, and 13 in the third group started the marathon with muscles already damaged.

The damage clearly appears distance-related. It was present in marathoners, said Owen Anderson, "in spite of the fact that the runners had completed a traditional taper just before the marathon, which had included only 12 miles during the last week before the race."

Anderson's advice on tapering? "One month of reduced training before a marathon is a pretty reasonable figure."

How much to taper? Anderson echoed Kuipers's finding that "15K runs produced muscle damage in only a small minority of runners, so eight- to nine-mile runs can serve as your longest runs during this one-month period."

If marathoners need this much taper, why do they allow so little? "Runners are traditionalists," said Anderson. "They tend to do things the way they've always been done."

Runners also are pragmatists who'll adopt whatever works. Give us convincing new information and we'll start a new tradition.

Warm-Up Tactics

July Fourth had barely dawned in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Already this was one of those steamy Midwest mornings when you can break a sweat just by shaking hands with another early-rising race worker.

The Fifth Season 8K wouldn't start for another hour. But runners were on these streets, doing the strangest thing. They were running.

They would call it "warming up." In fact, this was a reaction to adrenaline poisoning. They couldn't contain their excitement or wait any longer to see if they still remembered how to run.

These runners weren't elites who treat an 8K as a sprint and need to prepare for its speed. They were typical runners who step up in distance for this event, averaging two or three miles a day and now were "warming up" by running at least that far.

They would squander the reserves needed for a race of twice their
normal distance before it even started. They would start tired and finish worse from what amounted to a one-and-a-half- to two-hour workout.

This is so common a mistake that I'm tempted to warn most runners against taking any warm-up. I won't go quite that far, but will say that it's better to err on the side of too little than too much.

The shorter and faster your race, the more warm-up you need. You wouldn't dare try to run cold at one or two minutes per mile faster than your everyday pace.

So you run an easy mile or two before the race to find your rhythm. Then you take some stretching and add some striding at the top speed of the race.

This all takes about a half hour, and it's all necessary before short, fast racing. But when the race approaches or exceeds your normal
training distance and matches everyday pace (as the events usually do for most of us), then warm-up becomes minimal or even optional.

The longer the race, the colder I start it. I only warm up fully (as described before) for races of 5K and less, take an abbreviated warm-up (maybe just an easy mile) for an 8K or 10K, and do none at all for any race lasting longer than my usual training hour.

In the longer races, I not only want to save the running for when it counts. I also want to guard against starting too fast.

Warming up too well can leave me too loose and eager. It can lead me into an opening pace that I'll regret later.

This is especially true in half-marathons and marathons. Warming up before these events involves no running. It simply means getting out of bed at least an hour before start time, taking a wake-up shower before the race, then walking to the start to work out the worst of the kinks.

My first running steps come at the starting gun. They naturally come haltingly at first.

I don't hurry these steps, but treat the early miles as warm-up time. This is in keeping with advice that Tom Osler gave me long ago for running long races.

"Divide your race into thirds," said Osler, one of running's little-sung geniuses. "Use the first third for doing your strongest racing, and the final third for using whatever you have left."

Better to save for that end than to spend before the start.

Pacing Tactics

Look beyond the questions that surround the world-record-setting women runners from China. Look beneath the unbelievable times of Wang Junxia and Qu Yunxia, and see how those races were run.

Wang Junxia and Qu Yunxia paced their record races in textbook fashion. Their way can serve you just as well in your quest for personal bests.

You know that an even pace is most efficient. But must it be dead even? And must you check it for each lap or mile along the way?

Answering the second question first: No, the only split you really need to remember is your halfway time.

In answer to the other question: No, the splits for each half can vary up to one percent from dead even.

Owen Anderson's Running Research News lent support to the 51-49 rule. A study of record-setting races showed that the first half rarely took more than 51 percent or less than 49 percent of the total time.

An opening split above 51 percent puts a runner too far behind schedule to make up all the lost time later. A halfway split below 49 percent sets a runner up to lose too much time later on.

One percent either side of even pace doesn't give much leeway. It's less than five seconds per mile of the race.

So how well did the Chinese world records follow the 51-49 rule? Almost perfectly.

Wang Junxia and Qu Yunxia defied logic with the overall times they ran. But their splits nearly fit the expected pattern.

Wang negative-split both of her record races. The first half of the 10,000 took 51.1 percent of total time, and the first half of the 3,000 took 50.6 percent.

Qu's splits were positive in her 1,500. She ran precise 49.0-51.0 percentages.

The 51-49 rule doesn't just apply to world-beaters. It might mean even more to those of us whose training allows little room for pacing errors and to whom racing times are our main way of winning.

I've run hundreds of races, but only now have I measured any of them to the 51-49 test. The further I strayed from even pace, the worse the result-and vice versa.

My PRs for the 10 most-often-run distances, from mile to marathon, averaged 50.2 percent for the opening half. That's a deviation from even pace of less than one second per mile.

The 51-49 rule can help you in race planning and analysis. Before a race, multiply your time goal by 51 percent and 49 percent.

Say you expect to run a 40-minute 10K. Plan to run the first 5K no slower than 20:24 and no faster than 19:36.

After a race, divide your final time by the halfway split. If you passed 5K in 19:03 on the way to a slower-than-hoped 40:30 finish, you had a faster opening pace-at 47 percent-than you could maintain. Even out the splits next time.

Running even pace doesn't mean that the two halves will feel the same. The second half will always seem faster because you're working harder to hold your pace-and because you're passing all those people who couldn't hold theirs.

Improving your times as you mature as a runner doesn't necessarily require starting faster. Mainly you learn to hold the early pace longer, to spread your effort more evenly over the whole distance, to run the segments at near-equal pace.

Note, for instance, what has happened in the mile as that event has matured. Walter George set the first official record of 4:12.8 in 1886. Noureddine Morceli holds the current mark of 3:44.39.

George took only 48.2 percent of his total time to run his first half, then paid for it with a 51.8-percent finish. Morceli's percentages were 50.1 and 49.9.

The point is this: The closer any time-world record or PR-gets to the best possible, the more even the pacing must be.

Excerpted from Better Runs: 25 Years' Worth of Lessons for Running Faster and Farther, 1996, by Joe Henderson.

Additional Running excerpt.