I try to address a variety of topics at my humble blog; race results, training, trivia, and more. Posts on such topics get consistent albeit unspectacular traffic to the site. As you might expect, when I write about topless cyclists or other such salacious content, traffic goes up. But by far my greatest traffic comes on days when I post about cheaters. (The Open Letter to a Cheater post still has the house record.)
I like blog traffic. But I love dogs, so it's with great sadness that i must report the actions of Dozer, the 3-year old Goldendoodle who was seen crossing the finish line at the Maryland Half Marathon in 2:14:24. The full report can be read here. Sadly, it seems that Dozer has now been accused of cutting the the course. Apparently he ran out of his yard near mile 5 and joined the course there. Along the way, he drank water on the course (which is a cardinal sin if you're a bandit). He was even witnessed crossing the finish line and accepting a "finisher's medal.
The best cyclist in U.S. history is suspected of doping. The best bodybuilder in history is a known doper and now a known groper. But now it's man's best friend who is accused of cheating. Is nothing sacred?
***Addendum***. It seems that Dozer even has a Facebook fan page and is raising money for Cancer research. Bark on with your bad self, Dozer.
Intensity
I often talk to my athletes (or anyone else who will listen) about the importance of the intensity of their workouts. One of the biggest mistakes I see when I watch other athletes is that there's no real plan to their training. Their workouts are very similar from day to day. In almost all cases, the athlete would benefit from avoiding moderate intensity workouts, and doing either high or low intensity ones instead. Convincing a goal oriented athlete that they need to do a hard workout isn't usually too much of a challenge, but selling them on the benefits of easy workouts is another story.
There's plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this concept, and there's science too. This study found that runners who restrict their workouts to high or low intensity had greater performance gains than those who included workouts in the dreaded "gray area", which suggests that those moderate workouts may be less productive than easier ones, provided that they're complemented by hard work at other times. Whether you measure intensity by speed, power output, or rating of perceived exertion - each of which is valid ways to gauge it - the key is to remember that the easy training helps facilitate the hard stuff.
Trust me - I get the competitive thing. In my mind I race the guy next to me at the ATM to see who finishes his transation first. I race folks up subway stairs. I love to compete, and I appreciate the value of a competitive nature in my athletes. But turning training runs, rides, or swims into races is counterproductive for you as an athlete. I don't care if your arch rival passes you on a training run, or if a kid with water wings is tapping at your feet anxious to overtake you in the pool. Race at a race - not when training.
The key is to remember that workouts don't happen in a vacuum. If an easy day drifts a little and becomes hard - either because the athlete is feeling guilty, ambitious, nervous, etc. - then it will negatively impact the next day's workout, which is probably scheduled to be a hard one. Then what happens? The quality of their hard workout suffers, they feel guilty or frustrated about it, and the next day they try to make up for it during their scheduled easy workout. Notice a pattern? What ends up happening, is you have a chronically tired and frustrated athlete whose hard workouts usually fall short. By backing off on Monday - with either a rest day or a very easy workout - the runner is better prepared for a great workout Tuesday.
Posted at 01:31 PM in Coach's Comments | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)