The Wrinkled Runner
The Wrinkled Runner
Elevate Your Runs with Playful Drill Strategies
Hi Running Friends!
This episode explores mid-run drills that make running fresh, fun, and purposeful. We discuss techniques like fartleks, strides, tempo runs, high knees, and bounding, offering runners effective ways to enhance performance while enjoying their workouts.
• Overview of the importance of keeping runs fresh and purposeful
• Explanation of fartleks and how to implement them
• Introduction to strides and their benefits
• Utilizing tempo runs as a beginner-friendly drill
• Discussing the role of high knees in improving running form
• Benefits of bounding for strength and coordination
Resources:
Coach Jen Steele's Off-Season Boot Camp -my interview with Coach Jen is the springboard for todays episode, and I want to give her credit. Head to her website and check out her resources. You can also listen to our conversation from last season.
If you are looking for a coach to help you reach your running goals, even if it's just to start to run, take a look at my Coaching Services page on the website. I do virtual, in-person (Buffalo, NY area) and also offer single zoom sessions for those would just like to chat with a coach one time.
Find my additional outlets over at the YouTube channel and at wrinkledrunner.com. Sign up over on the blog for the once-a-month newsletter! If you would like information on utilizing a running coach, check out what I can do for you here.
If you have any running-related questions, please send an email to sherry@wrinkledrunner.com…I answer every one.
Hey running friends. On today's episode of the Wrinkled Runner, we are going to be talking about ways to keep your runs fresh and fun and also purposeful. We're going to be adding in some drills mid-run, during your run, and not only will that break up the monotony a bit, but it will also help you become stronger, faster, more efficient and teach you some of the things that maybe you're not doing in a warm-up. Maybe you've never done a tempo run before. Some of these things if you do them mid-run for not too long of a time, it can teach you how to do them, learn how to do them and then apply them when you're warming up or a pre-run drill, or a tempo run or strides at the end of your run. All these things we're going to talk about them today, and back in October I interviewed Coach Jen Steele and she's from California and I was talking to her about things that runners can do in the middle of their off season, as some of us call it, when we're not really in training for a race, when we're kind of taking a break but still getting out there, and she actually has a boot camp for those who are interested and it's a virtual boot camp, so I will link to her below.
Speaker 1:When I talked to her in October, she did it. I think she started in mid-October and I'm not sure if she does them throughout the year or if it's just kind of an end-of-the-year thing. But while we were talking, I was explaining how, for some of her clients, she gives them some things drills and exercises and things to do in the middle of their run. It's something they don't have to think about beforehand, but she has it prescribed, which I thought was brilliant, because for a lot of runners the last thing we want to do is, you know, do drills beforehand, warm-up, strength training, all of these things that I consider part of training, and I do them and I have my clients do them. But sometimes all we want to do is run, and so it can be hard to incorporate some of these other things. But if it's in the middle of a run, where you're already dressed, you're already doing it, you're already out there, then it can introduce you to some of the extra things that as coaches, we like to see our athletes doing. And if you incorporate them into the middle of a run just for a few minutes, then it might be easier for you to do them before or after or, you know, go out for a tempo run and we're going to talk all about this stuff. But I'll also link you to that podcast episode that I did with Coach Jen and, as I said before, to her website. So I'm going to walk you through a few different drills and you can choose maybe to think about doing one every week I'm certainly not saying to incorporate all of them into the middle of one run or even to do like one every run, every couple of runs. Incorporate one of these drills and think about how you might be able to use them as a warm up or delve a little further into running drills and how to use them.
Speaker 1:Delve a little further into speed work when we talk about strides and fartleks and tempos and just enjoy the process of giving a little kick to the middle of your run because, as I said, sometimes if we're going out for 40 minutes or an hour or longer, it can get a little bit boring and this kind of gives you a little snack, as it were, in the middle of your run. So the first thing we're going to talk about is a fartlek and, if you haven't heard about before, it's called speed play. It's a Swedish word for speed play and it's playing with your speed. So it's not something that is hard and fast. There aren't really any rules to it. You're kind of just taking off on your own. So you get to choose how long or short your bursts of speed are, when and how long to recover and when to decide. Okay, you're done with that particular aspect of the run. So it really gives runners autonomy when it comes to doing some speed work, which I think is super important.
Speaker 1:As a coach, I'm always telling my athletes my job is to make it so that you can make some of these decisions on your own, not just give you a cookie cutter plan or tell you exactly what to do in all situations, but to give you the tools so that you can go out and make some of these decisions on your own. And fart looks are a great way to introduce a runner to speed work that they make all the decisions about. So fart locks are a great way to improve your ability to transition between paces, because if you're in a race and you're on varied terrain, for example, and you're running up a hill terrain, for example, and you're running up a hill, you are probably not going to try and charge up that hill as fast as if you are going on a flat surface. And for me, who's older, running down a hill can actually feel harder than running up a hill, so it can help with that. It can also help you develop aerobic and anaerobic systems, because you're running fast and then you're recovering, and it can also teach you how to pick up your pace and all of that will give you better stamina and better speed over time as you incorporate these. So it is as simple as picking out something in the distance.
Speaker 1:Now here in Buffalo there's a road that is. It used to be super easy for me to get to, based on where we live, but now it's quite a trek. But I loved it because it was kind of a off the beaten path road, but it was. If you, if you live here in Buffalo, it's where River Works is. The utility poles are spaced pretty evenly apart. So when I wanted to do like a fartlek, I would run to this road and I would run in between the utility poles. I would run like hack to the one utility pole, stop and recover and jog to the next utility pole, then run to the next one that's faster and then kind of did that all down the road. But you can use a mailbox, you can use a parked car, you can use a sign, anything that you see in the distance, pick it out and then just run, run faster, pick up that pace. When you reach it, recover by going back to the easy pace that you were holding before. You can repeat this as often as you like during your run twice, three times, four times, whatever you can decide.
Speaker 1:When you're done now, when you're running faster, especially if you aren't used to doing speed work, here are some things that you can keep in mind while you're doing that, and that's why some of these mid-run drills are really, really good, because it forces your brain to think and it develops that neuromuscular thing that you want going on in your body. So you're gonna think about relaxing your shoulders, keeping your stride light quick, using your arms to drive your speed. Let them work with your shoulders, keeping your stride light quick, using your arms to drive your speed, let them work with your legs, feel how your arms are moving with your legs, stay focused on your breathing, but let it be natural and pick up that pace as you're going to, whatever it was in the distance that you're running towards Now, along the same lines of fartlex, is strides. A lot of times I'll prescribe strides or I'll do strides at the end of an easy run. It's kind of a cool way to just pick up your pace. You know, end your run fatiguing your legs a little bit more, which is what we want. In order to get adaptations in our running, our legs need to get tired and then, as they build back up during recovery, those adaptations in our muscles will happen. But with strides it's a little more, there's a little bit more of a recipe to it. So, instead of just running fast, you are going to do it over a time period. Usually I give about a 20 second stride. And if you do these mid run and you don't want to keep an eye on your watch the whole time because the whole concept of doing these mid run is like you're choosing when you're going to do these drills, so it's not going to be like a beep or you know you get to the end of a segment If you're, if you have a coach or if you build your own workouts it's just kind of oh, you know what?
Speaker 1:I think I'm going to do a few strides right now. So I would say build up over 20 seconds and you can count that in your head One, 1,000, 1,000, three, 1,000. You're going to take off, you're going to run fast and then, as you get to around 18, 19, you're taking the gas off until you get to 20. And you're back to your easy pace, easy jog. If you've really pushed it you might have to walk. Just keep moving, don't stop, just keep moving. And you stop, just keep moving. And you can do those three times and then have 90 seconds to two minutes of recovery, or when you feel recovered, when you feel like or you can see that your heart rate is back down to not resting but more of like an easy pace and you're not huffing and you're not puffing. You want to be recovered when you do the next stride. So when you do kind of these speed, play things in the middle of your run, you're going to be.
Speaker 1:If I chunk up a run into run, 1.5 miles at this and two miles at that, and then throw in these intervals and then a one mile cool down, whatever it is, if it's chunked it just goes by so much faster than you know. Go out for a six mile run much faster than you know. Go out for a six mile run, and this will help you mentally as well as physically with the things that you're introducing your body to. So the next thing we're going to talk about is a tempo run, and this isn't going to be an uh quote, unquote real tempo. It's going to be a five-minute tempo effort. It's controlled but it's challenging. So you're going to pick about a seven on a scale of one to ten for effort, maybe getting into eight, but I like a seven. For this. You should be able to speak in short phrases, but you're not going to be able to hold a full conversation for it. So this kind of mid-run tempo is a good way to introduce yourself to tempo runs without you having to do a formal run right out of the gate.
Speaker 1:When you're first starting to get into faster workouts, the tempo run is kind of a bread and butter workout, so to speak, but it can seem daunting if you have never done any kind of speed work before, because usually a tempo run is between 20 to 40 minutes, could be up to an hour depending on the person. But if you've never done speed work before and I'm telling you to go out faster a 7 out of 10,. When you're used to doing a 3, 20 minutes is going to seem like a long time. So doing a 5-minute tempo in the middle of an easy run kind of introduces you to the concept and gives you an idea of how to do this before you actually do a formal one.
Speaker 1:Now a tempo effort. This is to help you increase your lactate threshold and that's when your body starts to struggle with clearing lactate from your muscles. It's when you start to get really tired. If you're running really fast, that's kind of the point where you're just like oh my gosh, I can't do this anymore, I can't go anymore. But tempo runs can get our bodies to raise that level, raise our threshold, which makes us more efficient and it helps us maintain those faster paces for longer. It's also great mental training because it forces us to focus and stay strong even though we may be uncomfortable. So a lot of half marathoners and marathoners use tempo runs like all the time.
Speaker 1:Basically, you know, once a week there's going to be a tempo run in there. But even if you don't run those distances, even if you don't race at all, the tempo run can really benefit you because you're going to learn how to be kind of comfortably uncomfortable, and it just adds an extra little thing into your running. And when you do enough five minute ones, you can build to 10 minutes and then 15. And then by that time you're going to be ready for an honest to goodness 20 or 30 minute tempo run. That would be your run for the day. It would be a tempo run that would be prescribed. You know you'd go out for probably a mile, whatever the warmup would be, and then you would run for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes at that comfortably uncomfortable pace and then have a cool down so it wouldn't be a mid-run drill anymore.
Speaker 1:So a tempo will keep you at a steady pace for a set period of time. So it can also help you with pacing yourself, because if you go out too fast and the goal is staying at that steady pace, you're going to crash and you're going to burn. And if you get to the end of it and you feel pretty fresh, then you're going to know you went out a little too slow and you can pick up the pace for the next tempo. So to do a mid-run, five-minute tempo though, you're going to find a stretch of road or path or park, somewhere where you can maintain a steady pace. If you don't have an area like that, you're going to have to kind of just do this wherever, even just running around the block, you know, somewhere where you're not constantly stopping at a light to have to cross the street, that kind of thing and you're going to run for five minutes at a pace that you feel like you can sustain but that when you get to the end of it you're going to be glad you got to the end of it. You're still going to have more to run at the end of this because this is like a mid-run drill, but it's only for five minutes.
Speaker 1:So settle into a steady pace. Feel like it's a seven, keep checking that pace and if you're really starting to peter out, do definitely slow down. But feel like you're controlled. Stay smooth, you know. Don't be surging ahead and then slowing way down. Try to keep it as steady as possible.
Speaker 1:I really am really bad at pacing. I suck at pacing. So don't ever ask me to pace you in a race because I don't know. It's a big weakness for me. So this can help you learn how to pace yourself. You know a lot of people will start out too fast and you're going to get to minute three and you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to finish this, and that's fine. You know, if you're going out for a four mile run and you're doing this at mile two as your mid run kind of thing, mid run drill and you get to three minutes and you think you're doing this at mile two as your mid-run kind of thing, mid-run drill, and you get to three minutes and you think you're going to die, definitely stop, you know, and so that you can complete your run, I'm not asking you to not be able to complete your run. This is a tool to help you learn how to pace yourself in these things. So it might take you a few weeks or a few runs to kind of figure that out, especially if you have never done this before and you don't know what your tempo pace is. This will help you figure that out. So it's going to be a lot of experimentation, but it is a good tool to do that.
Speaker 1:So you're going to want to stay relaxed, keep that tension out of your shoulders when you run, no matter what run you do, and focus on running efficiently, running quickly. Think about not overstriding, which is when your front foot lands way ahead of your body. People think that having this big stride is good. Overstriding can lead to injuries. It can lead to what they call just kind of breaking. During your run. We want to make sure our foot is landing underneath our body. So all these kinds of things you're going to think about as you're running this tempo run.
Speaker 1:When it feels hard, this also will help you to stay mentally focused Back off. If you have minutes to go and it doesn't feel sustainable. Like I said, you're trying to find a five minute sustainable pace. But if it's getting hard, but you know you feel like you can do it, this is where that mental focus kicks in. And maybe have a mantra or you know, really think about what you're doing and think about if you get to the three minute mark and you still have two minutes to go and you think you can do this, but it's going to be really hard. This is where that mental comes into play when you're when you're doing these things. So after that is done, shake it off, shake it out, return to your easy pace and finish that run.
Speaker 1:The next drill we're going to talk about is high knees, so this drill is good for improving your running form, your speed and the knee drive, which is really important in running. It can help activate the muscles in your hips and your core, which is also important for powerful and efficient running. I have a lot of problems with my hips and so high knees is something that I do a lot mid run. This is one of the drills that I do mid run. Uh, because I'm I tend to be an overly horizontal runner. Uh, I don't pick up my feet enough. So like, if I'm running on a trail, for example, I am in all kinds of danger of tripping over roots because my feet don't pick up enough. You know you don't want to be like hopping as you run. You know so vertical that you're like a piston, but you don't want to be so horizontal either that your feet aren't coming off the ground, so it makes things like running on sand, for example, totally impossible for me. I don't know how people do that, but I run with my son twice a week and he's actually really good at having his feet pick up as he runs. So here in Buffalo we've had just a terrible winter as far as snow goes, which I blame myself, because when I sign up for the Buffalo Marathon which I haven't run the Buffalo Marathon since, I think, 2019. But I always say, if I sign up for the marathon because it's in May, I start training in January we're guaranteed to have a really, really bad winter, and that is proving to be the case, after a few winters of only having a few snowstorms and then the rest of the time really at least here in the city not much snow at all. But anyway, there's a lot of snow and there's a lot of ice, and he is holding himself up really well as we're running.
Speaker 1:On this, I am doing an absolutely horrendous job. I feel like I'm slipping all the time. I'm using, you know, my glutes a lot during these runs, trying to keep myself upright, and so this high knee drill is something that I like to do in the middle to make myself concentrate on picking my feet up more, and that way I can have a better shot at putting my foot down where it's supposed to go to avoid slipping. Also, as I get older, I am trying to avoid that kind of older person shuffle as I walk or as I run, and I do feel like this helps with that. So I only do this for about 30 seconds in the middle of a run because it is a drill and I am trying to complete a run. But I'm gonna lift my knees up to hip level while maintaining a quick cadence, so don't sink into your hips. You're gonna wanna keep upright and I'm gonna link you in the show notes to a good coaching video on how to do that drill, and I encourage you to watch that before doing this mid run, because if you haven't done this before seeing it done correctly, that's your best bet, because then you're going to learn how to do it right the first time, instead of having to correct it later If you go out and try it and then you watch something and you're like, oh, I'm not doing it right and there's a few nuances to it and it's kind of hard to talk about it with you not visually being able to see it. So I'll link it and that's just something that you can do in the middle of your run, just for like 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:Another 30 second drill that I encourage for the mid run would be something called bounding. So this is exaggerated running. It's kind of like you're leaping from one step to the next. It's a plyometric exercise and it helps coordination, build strength, power. It's helpful for improving your push off and overall overall running economy.
Speaker 1:When I think of bounding, I think of probably what's in your mind when you think of bounding, which is a deer. So you're gonna think like a deer. So for 30 seconds you're gonna take these long, powerful strides, driving your knees, pushing off the ground and kind of floating between each step. So for me, this is not something I'm going to do in the middle of winter, unless I'm on like true pavement, because you know, landing I'd probably fall on my butt. But really think like a deer and I'll link you to a video also showing you versus telling you. Again, I encourage you to watch how this is done before you go out and do it just based on what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Now, when you do this, you are going to look, let's say, interesting as you do this.
Speaker 1:So someone seeing you and not seeing that you're running beforehand and running again in a regular way after, if they just see you bounding, they are going to think that you run interestingly.
Speaker 1:But if someone sees you running and then you start doing your bounding and then you run, they're just going to know that you are doing something purposeful. So this is one of those instances where you're just going to kind of have to get out of your own way and not care what people think Either that or find some place that nobody else is and just do that for 30 seconds Bound. You know you're going to feel like you're doing something and you're getting to be a better runner by doing any of these drills doing any of these drills. So whether you choose to do fartlex or a tempo effort or high knees or bounding, you are adding something valuable to your run. So these drills not only keep things fun, but can also make you a more efficient runner over time. So pick one drill, incorporate that into a run each week. Notice how it makes your run more engaging and time goes by faster and for most runners it feels like they're doing something productive. But in the end it is to have fun.