Regardless of whether you are a competitive runner, or just enjoy logging some miles every day or a few times a week, most of us at some point fall prey to the Betrayal of the Body. It’s always a blessing to have all systems humming sweetly mile after mile, but sometimes Runner Disaster strikes; an agonizing achilles flares up after your best hill workout yet, an angry IT band protests with every bend of your knee, what you thought was just a sore foot from a too-tight shoelace is actually a fracture, or a gopher hole disguised innocently beneath a blanket of pristine white snow sends you hobbling and cursing back home to nurse an ankle that is now roughly the size and shape of a pomagranate. Sometimes things happen–sometimes out of nowhere, sometimes with good reason, and sometimes for seemingly no reason other than to taunt you, test your patience, and perhaps to allow you to discover just how many four letter words you have in your vocabulary. So what now? While to some folks a brief hiatus from running allows for time to do other things and catch up on life outside of their sport, for others the thought of losing hard-earned fitness is unthinkable. If you’re one of the latter, read on…
So what now? You’re all jacked-up and getting stir-crazy. You thrive on spending a bit of time each day marinating in your own sweat and getting the blood moving. You had a race coming up. Your times were coming down. And now, fine runner specimen though you are, you find that indeed you are mortal. All hope is lost. Right? Not so.
As I have learned from many an experience, your family, friends, and co-workers will only put up with your irritability and moping for so long before they either bite back or avoid you all together. And now you have no social life and no running. This can be avoided however, and this is where cross training comes in.
I should begin by saying that there is nothing fun about any sort of cross-training activity, at least in my opinion. But then, some enjoy it. To many though, stationary bikes, elliptical trainers, and aqua jogging are generally the rough equivalent of runner hell. Most would rather get one of the their friends to punch them in the face a few dozen times. But while cross-training may it may not be fun, it gets the job done, absolutely no doubt about it. And it WILL scratch some of the Running-Itch. Not to mention it is considerably more fun than starting back from a stint of off-time with no fitness whatsoever. While the verdict is still out on just how much you can “replace” running with any type of cross-training, the dividends are nonetheless considerable and make the coming-back process far easier than it would’ve been otherwise, in addition to saving your sanity during downtime.
Many high-profile coaches, including the notable Alberto Salazar, head of the Nike Oregon Project, view cross-training as a type of “equivalent mileage training.” At least concerning the stationary bike and alter-g treadmill, he sees mileage on the bike as being a rough equivalent of a 2:3 ratio of running mileage. That is to say, 10 miles on the bike is the equivalent of 6 miles running. This is debatable however, given that it takes considerably less time to bike 10 miles than it does to run 6, and the body has no concept of a mile, only time spent working. Those things considered, it is easier for most of us to rely on the amount of time spent doing said cross-training activity. If you’d like to learn more about Salazar’s take on incorporating cross-training with running with his athletes, see the November issue of Running Times.
Now since most of us don’t have a $75,000 alter-g treadmill sitting in our basement, what are the most effective cross-training methods you do have convienient access to?
-The Bike: Generally I’m referring to a stationary bike here, or a spin bike even, because you can keep the intensity the same throughout the workout. If you’re a cyclist and would rather bust out your road bike, then all the better.
-The Elliptical: Uses nearly all the same muscle groups as running, nearly any gym or rec center will have these. Just make sure you’re using the ones that actually require that you use your arms as well.
-Deep-Water Pool Running: Arguably one of the most effective cross-training methods for runners when done properly, which will take some effort. Takes some time to learn good technique, but if you get an aqua-jogging belt this is easily accomplished. Once you get the technique down, start throwing intervals in. A good example: warm up for 10 mins, do 10 sets of 3 mins hard, 3 mins easy, cool down for 10 minutes. Right there you’ve got 80 minutes of work in, and a half hour of that was tough stuff.
The key to getting an effective workout via the bike, pool, or elliptical is SWEAT. There should be lots of it. If you have no heart rate monitor, how hard you’re breathing and how much you’re perspiring is a pretty good indicator that you’re pushing yourself adequately or not. Further, you should really only be able to maintain a conversation about as well as you could when running at a decent clip, in the case of doing intervals though, you should be sucking wind like you would if you were doing mile reps on the roads. You be the judge. If you get in 40-60 minutes of relatively intense activity, you’re well on your way. More than an hour, and you’d be surprised at what fitness you’ll maintiain during your hiatus.
Finally, once you’re getting back in the saddle, you’ll probably have to work your way back as with any injury. Say you’re just running 20 minutes a day and you’re used to normally logging 50 miles a week, well, throw a 30-60 minute session on the bike in before or after. You just bumped up your activity level considerably even though your mileage may still be quite low relative to what you’re used to. Incorporate it even when you’re healthy if you’re trying to increase overall volume without increasing risk of injury. It can do wonders for your overall aearobic capacity.
With any luck, none of you will need any of this advice in the coming months however. Here’s to a healthy year of 2011, happy trails to all!
