Periodization - One Key to Longevity in Endurance Training

This conversation happened about a week ago as I was waiting for the pool to open. The name has been made up, but the exchange was real:

Sam: "You run too?"

Me: "Yes, I come from a triathlon background."

Sam: "So you do triathlons, have you ever run a marathon."

Me: "Yes, in fact I've run some ultramarathons as well."

Sam: "An ultramarathon? What is that?"

Me: "Any race that is longer than the 26.2 mile marathon distance."

Sam: "They have races like those?"

Me: "Yep, they do. There's a lot more ultramarathons now than there ever was before."

Sam: "And what ultramarathons have you done."

Me: "I did the Vermont 100 race last year."

Sam: "100? As in miles?"

Me: "Yes, miles."

Sam: "Holy crap, how long did that take you?"

Me: "About 21 and a half hours."

Sam: "How long have you been running?"

Me: "Since 1988, about 25 years."

Sam: "And your knees aren't bad?"

There is a common misconception that too much running, or anything long for that nature, will eventually lead to a breakdown of the body. So much so that it will render you permanently injured.

And if you do look at trends, it seems to be the case with really competitive athletes. In their 20's, they do so well that they place high in the standings, even making the podium, but when they grow older, they undergo a series of debilitating injuries that will render themselves disabled, in a more permanent basis.

Twenty years ago, in an era I call the "No Pain, No Gain Era", the science of endurance training was not as researched or developed as it is now. Most of the competitors used to have 2 speeds back then. Fast, and faster. Anything slower than that was considered "junk miles" and was considered not beneficial to overall fitness.

The science knows better now, and that those "junk miles" were actually the best way to improve on fitness and race times. Those "junk miles", we know now, actually give an athlete a huge foundation so that when it was time to run fast, his body is more adapted to the extra stress, which will minimize injuries and contribute to a quicker recovery from the stressful workout.

But this science is slow to filter to the athletes themselves. I see athletes finish up their last race in 2012 only to start training hard for 2013 without much of a rest. I see athletes doing track and hill workouts in January when their big race is 5 months away, in May.

In other words, I can easily tell who is going to suffer through major injuries in the future and disappear from endurance training altogether.

Folks, remember why you started running, cycling, and swimming in the first place, to increase your overall quality of life and hopefully lengthening your life for several more years.

This is a long term goal, of course, one can be easily distracted from this goal when one is focused on day-to-day activity.

It is also, in my opinion, the most important goal of fitness and one that should never lose focus on.

When Sam asked about my knees, I briefly told him that my training was set up so that I can allow my body to recover from the stress of racing. I told him that, even after 25 years of running, I felt that I actually had the knees of a 20 year old. No stiffness, full range of motion, no arthritis, nothing. Just a pair of very healthy knees (knock on wood!).

And that is the key to longevity...building rest into your training. And that is where Periodization comes in.

What is Periodization?

Well, the Wiki states it accurately... "Periodization is an organized approach to training that involves progressive cycling of various aspects of a training program during a specific period. It is a way of alternating training to its peak during season. The aim of periodization is to introduce new movements as one progresses through the macrocycle to specify one's training right up until the start of the season."

Cycles are big. Everything around you revolves around cycles. Some cycles are very short, like the progression of day and night. Others take a very long time, such as a star's life cycle. Our sun is going through its life cycle in billions of years. There are smaller cycles inside bigger cycles. Cycles are the actual order of the universe.

If it works so well for nature, then it's only natural that you should incorporate it into your training.

The 3 cycles of Periodization

In my training approach, there are 3 significant cycles that I use to plan my training. First, there is the macrocycle. As the word implies, this is the largest cycle of your training. This is your entire competitive season, which, in most cases, is a year.

The second is called a mesocycle. In normal cases, the mesocycle lasts about a month. Each mesocycle has an overall theme, or objective, that will hopefully contribute to your success during the season.

The last cycle is called a microcycle. This is usually a week of training.

When it comes to building rest into your training routine, ALL 3 CYCLES have to be addressed. Remember that.

Microcycle

Starting off with the microcycle, most people already understand that during the week, they need to follow a hard training day with an easy training day (or two if the hard session was particularly hard). That hard session will break down their bodies significantly; they need to allow the right amount of recovery time for their bodies to heal and adapt to that stress.

The hard/easy day approach most people understand. What they cannot come to grips with is building rest into their other two cycles. And these are much more important.

Mesocycle

Each mesocycle is about a month long. You've been doing the hard/easy day approach for the first 3 weeks of your current mesocycle, building up your overall running volume in the meantime. That third week, you really hammered out the workouts well, giving 110% and getting a great response in return.

Now is the time to back off the entire 4th week and consolidate your gains.

And by backing off, I mean, no hard workouts at all, and cutting your current weekly volume by at least 25%.

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes at this moment. A whole week off?! Is he crazy? I'm going to lose everything I gained.

No, you won't. Trust me on this. As a matter of fact, when that recovery week is done, you'll be stronger than ever before. You just gave your body a significant time off after 3 hellish weeks of training; you're going to be stronger, faster, and less prone to injury.

And that first week back after the recovery week will be epic, to say the least!

So give yourself a week of recovery after 3 hard weeks of training.

Hopefully you jotted that down. That is a rule of thumb. :-)

Macrocycle

As for building rest into the macrocycle, this is the biggest of them all. Listen, I think that most athletes still want to train and race well into their sunset years, right. I still have this dream that when I turn 100 years old, that I'll still be racing in some capacity.

Hey, after a quarter century of racing, I'm well on my way of getting my wish granted!

Anyway, the rule of thumb here is to allow yourself AT LEAST 2 MONTHS OF RECOVERY after your last important race of the season. I usually go with 3 months, but 2 months is acceptable.

Think about it. You trained hard for 7 months, then did about 2 months of hard racing. That's a lot of accumulated stress on the body! You need to down-shift now. Those little aches and pains that you're starting to feel are no joke. There shouldn't be anything stressful during those 3 months and your overall volume should be very low for your offseason.

It's also healing for your mind too. There is a lot of mental energy that is spend during your ramp-up to your season. If you keep concentrating on training immediately after your season is over, you run the very real risk of mental burnout. It's happened to me once, and it took me nearly a year to recover.

This is where having a balanced life is important. Allow your mind to drift to other important areas of your life. Start getting to know your spouse and children again. Do some cross-training (skiing, mountain biking, karate, yoga, etc.) to keep your mental focus sharp while you maintain your fitness base.

And yes, it's OK to detrain here. I know the loss of overall fitness is taboo in our field, but trust me, it's OK. Remember, when you start your new macrocycle, you WILL have time to improve on what you did last year.

Plus, you'll keep your mind sharp and your body healthy for years to come.

If you have any questions in your overall planning for the 2013 season, I can definitely help you out with designing your plan using the above methods so that you can perform to the best of your ability in 2013.  If you have any questions, you can contact me at ironpete@ironpete.com. Here's to a successful 2013!

Lighter and Stronger - The Key to Success in the Grand Slam

In the past 3 weeks I've been looking at all 4 courses of the Grand Slam races. Thankfully, I know firsthand the Vermont 100 and the Leadville courses, and the lessons I can take home from those courses. With the Western States and Wasatch courses, I have gathered a lot of intelligence, and have drawn the same conclusions.

The goal here is to be "Lighter and Stronger" for the Grand Slam.

Gearing up for my first Vermont 100 race in 2010, I did basically an ultra-running regimen, running huge volumes (a couple of 100 mile weeks), with very little cross-training. I figured that this training will help me finish my first 100 mile race.

At the Vermont 100 weigh-in that year, I weighed about 205 pounds, even with the huge volume of running I did for training. That was primarily because I was a soda addict, and my diet wasn't what I call "saintly". I used to eat a lot of junk food, and was particularly vulnerable to sweet things (Skittle, Starburst, etc.).

As a result, I struggled up the hills, and basically walked the last 30 miles of the race. Yes, I finished, but wasn't really proud of the 28+ hours it took me to finish the race. I knew I could do better.

In Leadville in 2011, I trained the same way, had the same crappy diet, and basically got destroyed in the race, bowing out near the top of Hope Pass by not making the cutoff time. Yes, the lack of oxygen was a factor, but what really stood out was my lack of climbing. The hills before Hope Pass were bad, but Hope Pass was sheer agony. I just couldn't get my legs to climb the 3500 feet over 4 miles to get to the top in time.

At that point, I decided to make some serious changes.

First, I needed to reform my training. Since I had a huge background in triathlon, and know its more balanced approach, I decided to use this training to gear up for Vermont in 2012. My running mileage was significantly reduced, but I was to really ramp up my cycling and swimming mileage.

And as for diet, I decided to quit the soda cold turkey and start to eat a better diet.

As a result, my weight easily went down from 205 to 187 pounds at race time. My general all-around fitness felt a lot better, and I thought I had a shot at getting under the 24 hour mark for the race.

I did tons better at Vermont, much to my pleasant surprise. I finished under 21.5 hours. I climbed the hills really nicely, and never really had a huge crisis in the race. It was astonishing to see the difference between Vermont in 2012, and Vermont in 2010.

Now, I'm faced with the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning in 2013. And Leadville is in my sights again, as well as Vermont. Wasatch, the last race, is even more difficult than Vermont as well.

The biggest thing these races have in common is the hills. I need to train myself so that I can easily manage the hills on these courses, especially when it comes to Leadville and Wasatch.

So the key to 2013 success? Lighter and Stronger.

I will need to continue what I achieved in 2013, plus make a few enhancements that will get me even lighter and a whole lot stronger for the Grand Slam races. Some of the key things I must do even better is:

1) Improve on my triathlon training, namely my cycling, do develop the quadriceps that is needed to climb mountains. I will be doing slightly more mileage on the bike, and more hills.

2) Increase the percentage of trail running during training. Last year, my trail running accounted for about 55% of the total running volume. This year, if I can up that to around 65-70%, that should also enhance my abilities on trails and hills.

3) Supplement my cardio training with power and balance training in the gym. This should help develop my core muscles and give me the extra power I need to get over the mountains without much effort. Economy is definitely critical to my success here.

4) Improve my diet even more, going more "primal" in the process. Soda has been totally eliminated. Elimination of sweets is also needed, the elimination of processed foods and High Fructose Corn Syrup, and limiting certain grains from my diet. I am already at 188 pounds, which is a good head start. If all goes as planned, I can probably tack off another 10 pounds from my body (at least). The less dead weight I carry, the better I am getting over the mountains. I am looking to hopefully weigh somewhere between 175-180 pounds by the time I toe the line at Western States.

Lighter and Stronger!

If I can stick to these 4 points in 2013, my chances of finishing the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning should be greatly increased.

This achievement can be the culmination of all my 22 years of research. It's a huge year for me, and I hope that it will lead me to finish one of the most grueling feats of endurance in the world today.

Read All Research, Even If You Tend to Disagree With It

You know ultramarathons are starting to get into the mainstream when you start getting articles like this:

One Running Shoe in the Grave - New Studies on Older Athletes Suggest the Fittest Reap Few Health Benefits

Marathon Running can "Scar" The Heart, Researchers Warn

Too Many Marathons Can Kill, Warn Doctors

How Much Running is Bad for the Heart?

There are many other articles like this and there will no doubt be many more articles about the downside of "too much running" as more and more people run "extreme" events like marathons, ultramarathons, and Ironman races.

Although it's a natural tendency to "poo-poo" these articles and the research behind it, no research should be approached with a closed mind.

I definitely understand that these articles will not make you, the serious athlete, stop running. It won't make me stop either.

But it is worth reading this stuff with a bit of an open mind and see where the findings exactly come from.

More often than not, the articles that present conclusions to research can be a bit overgeneralized. And also, people who tend to read just the headlines or just the beginning 2 paragraphs of the article can overgeneralize too, especially when they tell their friends about this article.

And more often than not, people come away thinking that running in general causes problems in older adults. However, if you look at the research itself, it will certainly tell you otherwise.

My strong advice is to read the entire article itself, and to read the actual research behind the article. Most of the research, of course, is probably listed in a medical or health journal somewhere. You can get the full research online, if you do a simple search. If not, you'll almost always get the shortened abstract which summarizes the findings in full detail.

Most of the time, I find interesting tidbits of data that I can incorporate into my regimen that will make me and my athletes train smarter in the long run.

And that is where reading the research with an open mind comes in. Reading the data "under the hood" can be educational. For example, the above articles have one thing in common, and one thing that really needs to command attention to the serious athlete, that you need to have an extended rest period and down time for a good part of each year.

I can honestly say that more than half the runners and triathletes I know never take any extended period off. A lot of people I know finished their 2012 season with a big race like a marathon and immediately started their big push towards their 2013 season, with speed sessions like time trials and hill repeats. This is one of the big no-nos that I stress with people I know.

As a rule of thumb, you need to build in at LEAST three months of down time for every 9 months of intense training you do each year. This will allow your body to fully heal so that you can minimize any damage you sustained during your intense training.

And yes, you're allowed to detrain. I know that word "detrain" is a bad word in any serious athlete's mind, but when they are talking about conditions such as "left ventricular hypertrophy" in athletes and how a heart's muscles can be too thick to actually pump blood, then every serious athlete has to take a bit of notice and bring the training down for an extended period every year to prevent that condition from occurring in the first place.

After 3 months of easy recovery and very low intensity exercise, you'll be surprised to find that, at the beginning of your next training cycle, you really didn't lose much of your fitness in the first place. Plus, with a fully healed body, and a focused mind that comes along with it, you'll be eagerly gearing up for the next season. Sound mind, sound body. It's the best combination.

And don't neglect looking at the research. Even though you might strongly disagree with it, take a look inside and see what it's addressing. You might actually come across something that might be useful for your training.

Cycles and the Decline of Things

Cycles upon cycles upon cycles. You see it everywhere. The day and night cycle. The seasonal cycle (winter, spring, summer, fall). The lunar cycle (full moon, new moon). Some cycles are very short, like a traffic light switching from green to red in a minute or so. Some are just amazingly long, like the birth and death of stars.

Everywhere you look, you'll see something in the middle of a cycle, yet we tend to look at things as static. It's one of the better ironies of life that some of us think we have the power to preserve the status quo. Keep things static. Make sure the next day is basically the same as the last few days.

They actually have a name for it. It's called the Normalcy Bias. Let me give you the Wiki on what the Normalcy Bias is:

The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

So basically, one expects the same, or similar, things to happen each day you wake up, even though there are hints that something may be changing. This hint of change might be staring them right in their face, but he will refuse to respond to it until it's too late.

About 7 years ago, I used to perceive things in a static basis. I wake up. I run, I work, I eat, then I sleep.

The loss of a job back then forced me to change my thinking somewhat. I wake up, I run, but now I can't work, might have trouble eating because I don't have work, and I can't sleep because I might have trouble eating in the future.

So now I was faced with what I perceived was an "upset" to my routine. An "upset" to the static universe I thought I was in. What is perceived as an "upset" was really a normal change in a truly cyclical universe. In reality it was that the cycle involved getting the job, getting excited about the job, excitement wears off when the job involved politics, job turns to mundane existence when people know you too well and take advantage of it, then quit the job when the politics gets too great for you to function properly.

It happens all the time. But sometimes cycles can change so subtly that we fail to realize it's happening in the beginning.

I was finally forced to think differently, very differently, 4.5 years ago, when my youngest brother perished in a car accident due to a irresponsible drunk driver behind the wheel of another car.

My brother was no more. His life, just like everyone else's, is cyclical. He was born, he had a life span, then he died. Unfortunately, his life cycle was painfully short, compared to others.

I finally, and ruthlessly, found out that life is cyclical, not static. And I was forced to think along those lines knowing that things actually do change from day to day, if I was to concentrate on it.

From my family members, to people that I know, to society in general, the cycles were everywhere. And when I was forced to see things in cycles, life began to make a hell lot more sense then when I perceived it as static.

And I started to detect the subtle changes a lot easier than before. And those subtle changes have a definite pattern which can help decipher what the future has in store for a certain cycle.

Cycles help me to think long term when everyone else is thinking short term. It's enabled me to prepare for certain inevitabilities that will most likely to occur in the future. It's ingrained in my coaching to help athletes do well in their races, and it helps figure out some major decisions that I would have to make in the future.

And there are a number of troubling trends that I see now. On the macro level, society in general is now in an advanced state of deterioration, as evidenced by the massacre of little kids in a Connecticut elementary school. There are still some people who view life on a static level who think this, and other recent massacres, are just isolated incidents that can be controlled through legislation.

But I think more people are starting to realize that maybe this is just a symptom of a greater cycle of things. We, as a society, are in an advanced state of decline.

When people eschew their moral values of helping their fellow man out; when the family structure breaks down to the point where a man will shoot his mother in order to obtain a perverse goal, where mothers throw their own newborn kids into dumpsters because they don't want to take care of them, when kids nowadays idolize gangsters and prisoners instead of their parents, even when parents put their kids into day care centers because they are too busy working to tend to their basic needs, we have a breakdown in society.

Nero's Rome burned, not just because the Goths invaded, but its corrupted society's inability to thwart, or even care that their city was being invaded in the first place.

And, knowing the trend of this cycle, it's going to get inevitably worse. And no amount of legislation is going to put a lid on the massacres of the future.

Not until this cycle completes itself.

Everyone has been corrupted in their thinking of the world. You see it in the stock market, in government circles, and in the people you interact with. At this advanced state of decay, most of us are starting to find out that society is indeed insane. Nobody is thinking the right way any more. Everyone's priorities are all screwed up. Silly laws and rules are being passed that inhibit progress.

As a result, society's important functions are starting to shut down. No small businesses are being created. Those that still exist are having trouble and are in the process of shutting down. Big businesses are also in trouble and are slimming down to try to stay above water. Jobs are getting scarce out there.

And people are getting desparate. In turn, they start thinking irrationally to make themselves whole again. They seek mood altering medications to cure their woes. They seek government assistance when they are out of a job. as a result, more and more people are not being productive members of society any more.

The cycle will be complete when society finally collapses. Of course, people that are starting to see this will try desperate measures to keep it together. Maintain that status quo. Maintain that normalcy bias. But cycles cannot be halted. This one will definitely not. Everyone has been corrupted completely.

Everything has cycles. People have cycles. They are born, they grow up, peak, they get corrupted (age), and die. Companies have cycles too. They are founded, they rise to popularity, the get corrupted and inefficient, and then they fold. Countries are the same way. They rise to power, get corrupted in government, pass bad laws, then they collapse.

But the best part is that new cycles always arise from the old one's ashes. Somehow, when the cycle completes, the corruption that contributed to its downfall gets purged, leaving new ideas in its wake. And sometimes a new, exciting part of a cycle begins.

A lot of you in the near future will find yourselves in a deteriorating situation or environment in which corrupted, irrational thinking has taken over rational thought. It would be only human if you were to somehow try to help save the situation from deteriorating itself.

But the prevailing thought is corrupted. Too corrupted for you to make a difference. The only rational recourse, for your particular situation as well as society in general, is to prepare for the inevitability, then walk away and let the corrupted entity collapse. That's it.

Just.

Walk.

Away.

Let the corruption cave in on itself. Leave it behind and let it wither and die.

Only then will we start letting a new cycle begin and start our forward progress again.

Stepping Down From Captaincy Soon

In light of the events of the past couple of days, I've been able to reflect on a lot of things regarding the Staten Island Athletic Club. It's a great bunch of people eager to try new things, including trail running and ultras.

And I'm glad to have a hand in that as a captain.

But, as recent events have pointed out, the captaincy position has some major drawbacks. And it has started to tie my hands down in a time where I really need to expand.

My situation is quite unique; it's tied into what has happened to Staten Island and the rest of the area with Hurricane Sandy. Because Hurricane Sandy affected a lot of my athletes that I coach, I have been in the unenviable position of trying to get my business back on track. These athletes, like so many people in the area, have are trying to pick the pieces of their lives back together again, and the last thing they need right now is my coaching.

I wish them well in their recovery efforts, and in time, I hope to have them back after they are made whole again. But it's put my business in a bit of a stall. Especially when I am shelling out big bucks in doing the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning in 2013.

I would figure that getting some classes in order would be a way to go here. Everyone seems to love a group setting, and I can help those achieve a part of their goals in a more affordable way than the usual one-on-one deal.

But when I announced it to the club, it was met with controversy. "It's a conflict of interest with the captaincy position." "It's disrespectful for captains to seek money from their athletes." And on and on.

Well, something has to give. And I'm not in a secure position where I can receive a pay check every week. And coaching is my business.

That means my captaincy has to go.

It's not all bad news though. Obi Wan Kenobi stated to Darth Vader in the first Star Wars movie that if he is struck down, "he will become more powerful than he (Vader) can possible imagine."

If I step down, I will become freer than everyone can possibly imagine.

Stepping down from the captaincy, I can help this club grow even better from the outside than from inside. I'll have a lot less restrictions placed on me than I do now. I can become a lot more flexible with my schedule so that my work doesn't suffer much.

And I can finally get to regrow my business without the controversy.

My one year of being a captain was a good one. I like to think that I set up a viable alternative to road racing. We at siXac have seen more growth in this club this year than in recent years. And we now have a core group of people who know the trails in the Greenbelt and can help out with the regularly scheduled runs for the club.

I will still be a major mover of the club though, probably even more so after I step down than before. I can help schedule trips to trails outside the area, set up camping trips that focus on trail running, and I can go ahead with really improving athletes interested in trails on a one-to-one basis, so that we get some real competitive people onto the podiums of trail races in the expanding trail racing universe in this area.

And I can still lead a lot of the Saturday and Wednesday group runs as well, if I am available.

I will not be stepping down now though, although I will be in the process of grooming a successor to the captaincy position. And I'm sure he or she will fit right in to the position beautifully.

As I said, I think this should be construed as good news all around.

As for now, I'll be enjoying the Holiday Party, and still conduct the siXac meeting on January 10. Let's remember what 2012 has given us and look forward to a very productive 2013.

The Rising Popularity of Ultramarathons

I thought that this would never happen at all. I guess I was wrong.

Ultramarathons have become so popular that a lot of new people to the sport are starting to consider them in their racing schedule. In fact, so many people are starting to run ultras that a lot of the ultras are starting to fill their fields quickly.

Take the Vermont 100, for example. The organizers opened the 2013 race this year on December 1. As of December 3, it had completely filled. The waiting list was also completely filled a couple of days after that.

It took several months to fill the 2012 race earlier this year.

It went so fast that it closed right before the December 8 Western States lottery. The organizers had to include several select spots to those people who won a coveted spot on the lottery who intend to do the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.

I really thought the popular marathon distance would keep most people away from doing ultras. Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe the 50k distance is the new "marathon" now.

I, for one, welcome the newcomers to the ultra club. Most of these newcomers aren't the "weekend warrior" types that you see in regular marathons, as I have feared. They are experienced runners who are trying their hand at a new and more exciting realm of running.

And this means more races are on the horizon. There seem to be 2 new races in upstate New York next year (Manitou's Revenge 50 Miler and Rock the Ridge) and a flurry of Fat Ass (free, no frills races) ultras that are popping up all over the area.

That is DEFINITELY a good thing. :-)

Shot of the course for the new race Manitou's Revenge. You can see the other breathtaking photos here

Rock The Ridge course of the Shawangunk Mountains. Click here to see two other videos of this beautiful course.

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A couple of lectures that I'm putting together that can help athletes plan their training and hone their racing strategy are almost done and will advertise them shortly.

The first one is Planning a Winning Training Program, which goes into how to use periodization to optimize your training program so that you can perform at your best in your upcoming races in 2013. I'll show you what periodization is and how to successfully implement it into your running, triathlon, and ultramarathon training programs. The course takes about an hour and is only $10 for the lecture. People can then come to me afterwards with their own programs and I can advise you on how to improve on it.

The second lecture show the differences between a marathon (or a race of lesser distance) versus an ultramarathon. Other than distance, the overall philosophy and strategy of an ultra is on a completely different planet than regular marathons. In other words, the odds are definitely stacked against you if you take the same strategy you did in a marathon and succeed in an ultra race. Aside from philosophy, there are physiological, mechanical, and mental factors that must be addressed in order to do well in an ultramarathon. Again this course will be in the spring, will take an hour, and will cost $10. Even if you have an inkling of an interest in doing your first ultra, this class will be worth it.

Both courses are slated for early next year sometime. Let me know if you're interested.

Course Overview for Trail Running Technique and Conditioning Class

This is the course overview for the Trail Running Techniques and Conditioning Class for Trail and Road Races. Due to the Wolfes Challenge this Sunday, the first class will start Saturday at 9AM after the usual group run in High Rock Park, then will move to Sundays at 8:30AM.

The class has four 4 week segments, each costing $40. The first class is free, so come on down and ask questions. If interested, then the payment is due at the 2nd class. The first segment is technique oriented for those who are relatively new to trail running. The second segment focuses on building endurance. The third segment is building speed and focuses on the Cold Feat race. And the last segment is putting it all together, a strenuous 4 week conditioning stretch that will culminate at the Indian Trails race.

If you want to kick butt in 2013, this is the class to go to. :-)

Date	Week #	Subject	Description
12/15/12	1	Basics of Running Trails	Trail Blazes, Eye Orientation, Foot Landing, Knee Pickups, Short Easy Run on Rocky Ground, 4 mile run
12/23/12	2	Basics of Trail Hill Running	Running, Running Uphill, Running Downhill 5 mile run
12/30/12	3	Distance Running	Forgetting about Pace, “Time on Feet”, Expanding Endurance – 6-8 mile run
01/06/13	4	Endurance Running	Keeping Focus, Improved Eye Orientation, Not Following Someone Ahead of you in races, 8 mile run
01/13/13	5	Increasing Stamina – Heavy Endurance	A 10 mile run on easy to moderate trails with some rocks involved.
01/20/13	6	Mixing up Endurance and Speed	Hill Fartleks. A longish run with an easy pace, but hard up hills. - 6 miles
01/27/13	7	Gaining Endurance;  Preview of  Running Fast	An 8 mile endurance run with fast bursts of speed.
02/03/13	8	Peak Endurance Phase - Long Distance Running	10-15 mile endurance run. Bring water and energy with you.
02/10/13	9	Intro to Running Fast	Balance, Hand-Eye Coordination, Short Bursts of Running at a Fast Pace on Technical Trails - A fast 6 miles
02/17/13	10	How to Go Fast on Technical and Hilly Trails	Preview of Cold Feat Course – Fast but not Race Pace
02/23/13	11	Final Prep – Cold Feat Race	Cold Feat Race. Meeting beforehand to discuss race strategy and tips.
03/03/13	12	Endurance – Kicking Butt	8 Mile Run on Difficult Technical Course
03/10/13	13	Putting it All Together 1	Pretty hard 5 mile run
03/17/13	14	Putting It All Together 2	Slightly hard 8 mile run
03/24/13	15	Putting It All Together 3	Tough Hill Training
03/31/13	16	Final Class – Taper for Indian Trails 15k	Indian Trails 15k Race