Basecamp: Week 2

BASECAMP WEEK 2

HOUSEKEEPING

• For details on what I mean by Quality, Speed Economy, Long Run & Medium Long Run & many other topics please see the FAQ page HERE. 
• Please remember that this program is designed to be followed in order, from week to week. Each week builds on the one before it. 
• If you have specific questions you can ask it on the Facebook page or you can email me directly at [email protected]. 

WEEK 2 TRAINING DETAILS

QUALITY

EASY RUN W/ 6 x 1 MINUTE PICKUPS

So hopefully you are getting a grasp on easy running. It takes some getting used to. So many people want to run hard all the time. All the benefits of running easy significantly outweigh the benefits of running fast-unless you are being chased by a lion. 

• A note on breathing through your nose: if you tried this you get serious bonus points. I brought it up & continue to recommend it if only to show you how important breathing is to running easy. You do not need to continue to try to breathe only through your nose. Get oxygen from an orifice you can! But by occasionally checking your breathing through your nose you become more aware & conscious of how oxygen rules everything. Your breathing is crucial. 
• Keep your breathing rhythmic. Even at easy paces, you want to be sure your breathing is in a consistent rhythm. 
• Check in with your body: 
  • Relax
    • Face, neck shoulders
    • Hands at waistband, moving straight back & forth. Elbow pulls back. Hands are soft & relaxed. 
  • Pay Attention: Listen to Your Body
    • What signals are being sent?
    • What is your effort?
    • What is your breathing like?
    • How are your feet pushing off the ground?
    • Feel
    • See
    • Hear
    • Proprioception

For this workout you are running an easy 4 miles & interspersed in the 4 miles are 6 pickups of 1 min with a minimum of 3-4 minutes of very easy running between them. Be sure you are at least 1 mile into your easy run before you start your pickups so you are warmed up.  A pickup is run at a pace just faster than your easy pace. It should feel a little quick, a little sprightly. It should be relaxed & smooth, NOT a sprint or a hard effort. Just pickup the pace a bit so you feel like you are running faster than the easy pace you started running at the beginning of the run. You’ll do 4 of these. Be sure that you don’t get carried away & start getting faster & faster throughout the run! It can be very easy to get overly excited & carried away with an exciting new program. Be sure to go back to a very easy pace after each pickup. 

SPEED ECONOMY

2 x 1M of Straights & Curves (S&C)

Straights & Curves are a bread & butter workout for Telos. These are very similar to strides but are implemented differently. Run an easy 15-20 min warm-up to a track. This workout is best implemented on a track but it can be accomodated to a flat road by setting your smart watch to beep every 100m. On a track you start off on a curve & jog very, very easily the whole turn. I call this a pitter-pat jog. The as the track straightens out, you stride on the straight. Take your foot off the gas pedal as you approach the curve & return to a very easy, pitter-pat jog. The stride the next straight. Repeat this for 4 laps or 1M/1600m. As a reminder: A stride is a fast run of very short duration. You want to be quick & sprightly but still very relaxed in the face, neck, shoulders & arms. THIS IS NOT A SPRINT. If a sprint were 100% effort (all out), a stride would be 85-90% effort. Fast but relaxed. Concentrate on beautiful form. How will you know what beautiful form is? Just picture a galloping horse & hold that in your mind. Strong, fast & relaxed. 

LONG RUN
30-40 mpw: 4-6M Easy LR

40-50 mpw: 6M Easy LR

50-60 mpw: 8M Easy LR

FUNDAMENTALS
CONSISTENCY: The single most important aspect of training, both physically & mental is consistency. 

• Commitment to Excellence Requires a Long Game
  • Thinking LONG TERM. 
  • Day to day; week to week; month to month; race to race; season to season; year to year; decade to decade.
  • Plan or Decide. Different mindsets have different approaches.
    • Plan = order, schedule, tracking
    • Decide = chaos, commit to ANY & ALL things; free-flow
  • Every damn day. No days off. Blah. Don’t get sucked into this bullshit tough guy mentality. Stay the course. 
• Consistently is BELIEF:
  • Facing fear. You ARE enough. Just show up. Keep showing up. Demand it of yourself. 
  • Trust The Training. Belief in your training is absolutely crucial. You don’t have to believe in me. Believe in the results, in the years of trial & error, the love & respect I have for my athletes, for the program itself. I trust it. “If it's real it can take the pressure.”
  • Trust your body. It knows what to do. Just do the work & get the fuck out of the way. 
• Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGS) are only accomplished in the quiet lonely hours of getting in the runs & being committed to the long game. Qunetin Cassidy in Once A Runner:  “Miles of Trials; Trials of Miles”.