Greetings RAW Warriors,
I'm kind of in a blog-ranting mode once again, as I am growing to be disgusted with the crazy attitudes of fitness professionals in recent years.
I think half of their ill-will thoughts towards running are mainly geared towards marketing their fitness products to a certain niche, (blasting running and promoting their own 'innovative ways' through their programs) but here is what bothers me.
They will constantly bash running as 'endless cardio', which it is fully not.
They will constantly compare a picture of a sprinter to a marathoner, thus saying the sprinter is a resultant look of their 'high intensity methods' and the marathoner is a result of 'long, slow, & boring cardio'.
Let's just clear the air here.
Not all runners are marathoners, so stop putting a LOT of us into a category in which we are not in.
I do a LOT of 5K's in the summer, have done some track meets in the past, and do not have the heavy amount of time it takes to train for 1/2 and full marathon distances. So, quit bashing my method of training as 'long, slow & boring' when I partake in track workouts that are interval based and have me maintaining 10-15 mph in speeds on the track for my intervals. 10-15mph is not 'slow & boring', it is fierce and speedy. That's 6 minutes/mile pace to 4 minutes/mile pace for those wondering how fast that is.
Also, since I partake in a lot of 5K's, I chat with area running friends and acquaintances who largely do a fair amount of 5K's too. Some of them might do one or two 'big races' such as the Fargo Marathon or a 1/2 marathon distance, but then scale back their training to 5K's as summer comes along. Others are like me and just love going to 5K's and specializing in that distance because it fits their lifestyle. These people compete for time, places, age-group placing, etc. They are moving fast right along with me. Even if they do one big race, a majority of their training then focuses on shorter races in more frequent fashion. Throughout the course of the year, their training may have a lot of miles, then it gets trimmed down again. So, even those runners are not doing a heavy amount of 'long, slow & boring' work throughout the course of the year.
It may be worth educating some fitness trainers out there that there are SPEED WORKOUTS that runners do for all distances. Some call for 2-3 speed efforts a week at varying intensities. This is not much different than what they recommend for HIIT workouts (high intensity interval training) for the number of workouts per week. In the middle of these workouts is where one might do the 'long & slow' workouts but its for a reason: recovery from the other speed workouts.
(In fact, if it wasn't for the sport of running using HIIT workouts before they were called HIIT, HIIT wouldn't even be a word used to describe what runners have been doing for decades. HIIT is a training style that was born from running workouts. Run fast, short distance, rest, repeat. That is what HIIT is in one sentence.)
Gone are the days of high mileage plans where runners do just endless miles with no aim in purpose other than building up miles at a long & slow approach. There are better methods out there to use and runners are using them.
Many runners today will also do more than just run (another misconception of runners is that all we do is run, run, run and nothing else!). We complement and round-out our training with strength workouts and some build in yoga for stretching/recovery benefits.
This is where kettlebells, barbells, and bodyweight come into the mix for strength training needs. If you know me, I am a fan of all 3 modes of exercise. I love kettlebells for strength & power, bodyweight exercises for their versatility anywhere to be used (comes in handy for track practices) and barbells when I get the opportunity to train with them. Times like right now when I'm busy with coaching a lot, kettlebells & bodyweight fill my need.
We add strength, build power, and fix the weak links with these methods. This boost in strength leads to a boost in power, and fixing the weak links helps prevent injury... as such an approach does in all athletics.
As runners, we are not an army of slow people. Maybe at one point we looked like that, but no more.
All in all, we are athletes who have more opportunity to compete than most other sports do. Races are a highly popular athletic contest that raise money and provide friendly competition to all of us.
They are events to train for in serious modes.
Even though some races are veering away from keeping times and just giving medals (another rant for maybe another day), most of us runners are committed to shaving our race times, improving our performance, and having such competition to prove where we are at, and find out where we need to go.
So, don't call us 'long, slow & boring'. We are far from that.
Come join us for a few track workouts and perhaps you will change your perspective.
http://amzn.com/B00GG3BZ0Y
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Lift. Dominate. Repeat.
Rats Alley Barbell Club
Coach Rick Karboviak
http://occupyfirstplace.com
