B-Skips Demonstration

Recently I wrote on A-Skips, a great drill that can be used to work on knee drive. After mastering  A-Skips, consider starting B-Skips as well.

These are essentially the same thing with a twist: you hit a rhythmic high knees, but you then kick your leg out and bring it to the ground, scraping the toes back.

Here is Matthew executing the drill to perfection in slow motion (one must love the hat):


My video below isn't perfect, but it has the basic gist. My legs are not getting high enough (especially when bouncing off of my right leg which has a slight injury) and I was a bit timid to scrape the ground in my bare feet, but you need to with a bit of force. Once the slow motion kicks in you can get a better shot. Between the two shots you should be able to have the dynamics down.

What do these do for you? First you work on knee drive, much as with A-Skips, but then you work on your landing pattern, trying to get your landing under your hips. Next you engage the hamstrings a bit, getting the full flexor and extendor relationship in play.

Incorporate a couple 10-20 meter sets in before and after your runs, then think about it during the run, see if some of the cues you are learning can come into play. Helps with sprinting, forefoot landing, whole foot landing, as well transition from knee drive to landig.

Why You Complete Recovery Runs

As a coach of runners both young and old, online and in person, one of the biggest challenges I tend to encounter are the varying points of view regarding recovery runs. First off a recovery run (which I define as either an easy pace run where you run comfortably but with your foot on still on the gas pedal a bit or regen runs, runs which are purposefully slowed down by 30-60 seconds from a runners normal easy pace to respond to expected subjective feedback on exhaustion), is performed within twenty-four hours of a major effort. If you run a race, you run a recovery run the next day (and a cool down post-race); if you run mile repeats, you do the same thing.

The thing is, a lot of runners hate them—they would rather cross train, begging to get into the pool or on the bike or just take a day off. Some chalk them up as unnecessary volume, and just want to take a day off. They say their legs are tired and rightly so, 12x400 meters will sap the legs a bit. This exhaustion often leads to a decline in motivation, and thus complaints set in. There are coaches out there who focus purely on a long run, a decent paced volume day, and two hard efforts (key workouts) per week, skipping recovery in favor of rest. While that approach might be perfect for an injury prone runner, most research and coaching mantra points to the fact that increased volume leads to increased fitness which subsequently leads to increased results. The proper mix of speed and volume results in the best results, thus one needs to focus on how to get there.

That said, a recovery run is placed on the off days of the four efforts mentioned above. The day after mile repeats or a four mile threshold run, your legs should be fatigued (note I did not say sore). The runs come in a state of fatigue, you are not fresh, your legs are heavy as they have not had enough time to repair the damage caused by a key workout. Further, depending on your recovery routines, there is a good chance that your body might be glycogen depleted and that some byproducts of cellular respiration still linger in your muscles. Your system is not perfectly balanced and you would not want to race in such a state. But you need to teach your body to persevere. Running when conditions are not physiological optimal will help come race day or when it is pouring outside, snowing, or ungodly hot.

Physiologically speaking you will train your body to deal with pain. You will recruit extra muscle fibers, fibers that seek to compensate for the battered and sore portions from your previous day’s efforts. Down the road, these fibers come in handy, for anyone who has ever run a marathon can tell you, late in the race it becomes difficult to hold your stride. Such alterations are based on the fact the primary muscles involved in the stride are taxed and the brain is searching for solutions to maintain some semblance of balance. Enter these recovery fibers, the muscles you have built slogging through 6 slow miles the day after running ten hard with a tempo mixed in. These fibers might be the key to your goal as your body searches for ways to maintain homeostasis. Finally, the runs get the rust out. They shake things up, clearing up any lingering toxicity in your muscles, and thus the bridge into the next key workout, the day that genuinely matters.

How do you make the most of these days?

• Pay attention to your body and work into the runs. You might start at 9:00 pace, but as you loosen up and get moving, you might close at 7:30 pace. If your body is still asking you to hold off, maybe you run steady 9:00's. The point is, pay attention and work to understand the signals and how your body tells you and how it guides you.
• Use grass or trails (click here for more on varied training surfaces). They already work on proprioception, thus the recruitment of muscle fibers is being enhanced as your body copes with altered footing and trail debris. Yet the legs get a day off from the impact of the road or track.

Online Running Coach for Hire

After flying under the radar with online coaching, going more by word of mouth than anything else, I have finally gotten around to doing a write up on what I do and why. First off, I coach for multiple reasons: I love running, I want to spread that love with others, I want people to train the right way, and most importantly I want to keep people healthy. These items can be spread to anyone and everyone, even if I cannot meet face-to-face.

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"Before I would just run what I felt like running for the day, with no real plan, or understanding of how to change things up to get better. I always heard people talking about tempo runs, easy runs, intervals, etc.—before working with you I wasn't really sure what a tempo run actually was, and I definitely never would have done intervals." –Nathan, Orlando

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Online coaching works in the following way: I design a plan around your life, if that is running four days a week, then fine, if it is seven days a week (my favorite), then I do that as well. Some people integrate their biking, others November Project cross training, yoga class, spinning, etc. so we alter and adapt. Ideally we shape a running based plan—for no one will hand you a bike in the middle of a marathon and say you get to ride for five miles—but leeway exists for many people are wed to their fitness groups and activities.

Once you have the plan, we talk after runs, via twitter or email, and discuss what went right and what went wrong as if I was coaching you in person (if you elect for daily communication, or we talk weekly if not). While I can't deal with each interval as I do with the runners I coach, I consult and edit and discuss. Where your random internet plan will have runs etched in stone, I will alter things as we go. If your legs are baked, we back off, if your paces improve, the workouts evolve. If the weather goes wacko or a sudden life event pops up, same thing. Life is not static and a training plan is not either. An online plan you grab from a website cannot account for life, but I can.

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"In April 2013 I ran 13.1 miles in exactly 2 hours. This was also the day I got my first stress fracture due to over training. 11 months later, I ran my first official half marathon (race) in 1:37. I had been working with Steven for a little over 3 months at this point, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the speed work he had me doing (plus the hills with NP… it was a VERY hilly course) attributed to a 23 minute PR." -Jonathan, Boston

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So, why a coach? As mentioned above, specialization. Most people train for marathons and 5k's from standard plans. Plans are not person specific, they do not change or adapt to your needs. They don't transition or account for sudden aches, pains, or life events. Coaching helps in that we can build an adaptable plan, one that fits your wants and needs as a runner. Beyond that, I can think for you, allowing you to avoid injury, avoid training too much or too little, and thus work to reach your peak. The process is interactive.

About me, I have experience in all distances from the 800m to the marathon. I strive to build plans that accommodate your current level of fitness while working through various phases of training: building a base, early quality training, transition to quality training, and final quality (key fitness building workouts), and Taper/race time. Depending on time, I design a 6 week plan for each phase. I hit every facet from warmup to core to other forms of injury prevention. Proper, safe running comes from the ground up. You need to recover, strengthen, and train with appropriate paces in order to fully achieve.

So interested in bettering your 5k or running your first half marathon? Looking to take your marathon training to the next level or get through injury free? Email me here with the subject of "Coaching."