Transcending the workout
I was well into the tempo part of my step up run. This was the end game and the apex of the workout. I’d been running for over an hour. The treadmill was whining. The sweat was flying. I could feel the fatigue in my quads nagging at me. I could see my heart rate starting to spike as the effort of maintaining the pace beat on me. It was like a full bag of wet sand dragging me down.
Then I decided to turn it around. Then I decided to focus. And then I transcended the workout.
…
These workouts are the bread and butter of my current training program, although in these days of vegans and paleo people I guess they’d be the raw almonds and kale of my training program. It starts with a 10 minute warm up to shake the heart rate out, open up the muscles and gets the blood flowing. Then I settle into an easy zone 2 heart rate effort level for another 10 minutes.
Then we shift gears into zone 3 for 30 minutes. Zone 3 is close to marathon goal race pace for me. It’s not so bad. It is sustainable, but starts to be work after awhile.
Then the fun starts. After the ½ hour in zone 3 we step up to a zone 4-5 effort. This is 10-15 seconds faster than my goal race pace. It is a hard effort and right on or a little bit into my aerobic threshold – that point where I am working harder than I can maintain. On the edge.
This is the money part of the work out. These train me to hold race pace and to familiarize my machine with the discomfort and effort at the end of a race.
This is the ‘step up’ part of the ‘step up run’. It’s an exquisite workout with a long runway to the money part. Like a pressure cooker or one of those old torture devices where they keep turning the screws a little tighter until something pops. It’s a great workout and it works well to get you physically and mentally race fit.
But, it’s not about effort or going until you fail. It’s about learning to manage your machine during a high effort level. Your machine is the body and the mind. Your machine is the form and the mental focus. Your success depends on being able to step outside and above the effort and manage your machine, manage the effort, dispassionately.
To transcend the workout.
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I’ve been back into training for just a few weeks. Slowly building my fitness up since December to get ready for Boston. My baseline goal is to get to the starting line. My ‘A’ goal is to re-qualify.
I decided to do this workout on the treadmill because it’s easier to manage your heart rate on the treadmill. If you need a lower rate, you turn the speed down. If you need a higher rate you turn the speed up. At this point in my recovery I’m still trying to figure out where my machine is at after 18 months of time off from running. It takes a few weeks for everything to stabilize. It takes a few weeks to get an idea of what your fitness for running is.
What am I talking about when I say ‘manage my machine’ and ‘transcend the effort’?
This is an ability that comes with consistent training. This is another of the tools that you learn and can bring with you into your goal races.
It’s a major milestone in your training when you are able to achieve this in a workout. It signals a level of race fitness and should give you great confidence. I’m particularly proud of this workout because it is a watershed and a potential leading indicator of the return of my racing fitness.
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Back to our story… I was well into this 1:20 step up run. I had 12 minutes left to go in my zone 3 step – a little more than ½ way through the total workout. I had made a conscious effort to ease into the workout slowly. Ratcheting up the pace one notch at a time and letting my HR stabilize before stepping up again.
When I had attempted this workout the previous week I was too aggressive and my HR kept spiking, causing me to have to slow down and recover.
Tonight I eased into it.
Your HR will creep up as you progress through a long workout due to the accumulated stress, but it should not spike up off the scale. When it does this it means you have lost control of your machine.
I knew that I had a problem coming up in this workout. This particular treadmill, I knew from experience, automatically ended the workout at 60 minutes. Why would anyone want to run more than an hour? This was a problem because it would slam me into a cool down routine midway through the dicey-est part of my workout and I’d have to be jabbing at the speed buttons and fighting the treadmill right when I was needing to focus.
This was solved when I caught the headphone cord on my iPhone with a backswing and sent it flying, skittering off the back of the treadmill. This forced me to dismount and fetch it. I took this as an opportunity to reset the workout on the treadmill to avoid the 60 minute curfew.
It also allowed me to set the headphone distraction aside and focus on closing this workout. This was turning out well and after a brief break to reset I was back on the treadmill finishing up the last 12 minutes of my zone 3 and ready to confront the zone 4-5 beast for an additional 20 minutes.
I jabbed at the buttons and switched into the 20 minutes of zone 4-5. I focused on my form. Leaning at the ankles. Running tall. Pushing my hips forward. Landing with fast light feet. Chin up. Smile. Elbows back. Hands high and loose. No extra rotation. No extra pitch or yaw. All my focus was on moving forward as efficiently as possible.
But, I was tired. It had been a long day at the client. Here it was close to 8:30 PM and I was starting to fade. My mind began to wander. The effort seemed hard. The weight of the run, like a wet sand bag pulled my shoulders down. Those voices started. Telling me how much it hurt and how I should ease up a little.
I was 5 minutes in and my HR was climbing. Up out of zone 4 and into zone 5. I was going anaerobic.
You can’t start fighting the workout. Once you start fighting the workout you lose it. The energy it takes to fight the workout causes a system overload. And it’s hard not to fight the workout.
Our tendency when it gets hard is to fight back, to work harder to throw ourselves at it. to rage against the effort.
If you can see the finish line this is ok, but if you have 15 minutes left in your race it will burn you up and leave you lying in the road.
My rule is no fighting the workout, no fighting the race until I’m within 2 minutes of the end. Once I get under 2 minutes, I can throw off the blinders and let my animal loose and wantonly spend my remaining race capital pyrrhic-ally in the final push. But, until then you have to manage the machine. You can’t fight it. Fighting it is a waste of energy.
With 15 minutes left and my HR spiking and my spirits flagging I knew what I had to do. I have been there before at the end of many long races. That point where you need to be able to transcend the effort.
Here is the trick, or the process. When it gets hard, when you start to lose hope instead of fighting the effort, instead of steeling yourself against the discomfort, you relax into it. You accept it and manage it.
You transcend.
I relaxed. I focused on my form and mechanics. Starting at the bottom and working my way up. Relaxing the feet, and ankles and hips and shoulders and arms and hands. Consciously focusing the relaxation, like taking off a large coat made up of the stress of effort and setting it aside. Lifting the weight of the workout and relaxing into your pace.
Once my form was quiet I focused on relaxing my breathing and relaxing my heart rate. Calming my mind and body within the effort and discomfort, not in spite of it. At this point in my transcending of the effort I will subtly disassociate from my body. My legs cease to be mechanical things. I picture myself riding on a magic carpet gliding through the air.
Now I looked at my HR and it was dropping. No change in speed of the treadmill. At the very end of a long workout where the effort level was most intense and my HR was steadily coming down. Out of zone 5. Dropping to low zone 4 and staying there. Staying there. Until with two minutes left I steadily increased the pace for a final orgasmic unleashing of effort through the finish, HR be damned.
To transcend. Like running in a dream.
I am quite proud of this workout. The ability to step in and take control of my machine when things got hard is a telling moment. The ability to transcend the physical effort, to step outside the workout to impose my will, the power of my intellect on this workout thrills the heck out of me.
This ability gives me a fighting chance at Boston.
This is what you should be practicing when you are doing your tempo workouts. It’s not about the effort. It’s about the relationship between you and your machine. Take off the headphones and crawl inside your workout. Train yourself. Learn how to transcend.