LSD RUNS, PACE GROUPS, DUTIES OF THE PACE LEADER

PREFACE

I am aware that not all Run Ventura members are runners - some are walkers and some participants practice the run/walk technique. However, for simplicity, I will use the terms “run,” “running” and “runner” in all of my essays and messages. Please feel free to substitute the terms “walk,” “walking” or “walker” where appropriate. Thank you.

LSD RUNS

The objective of the Long, Slow, Distance, or LSD, runs that are performed on Saturdays is to develop the endurance that will enable the runner to cover the 26.2 mile distance of the target marathon race. The recommended training pace of the LSD runs is typically 15 – 30 seconds slower than the anticipated marathon race pace. This slower pace is designed to prevent overtraining injury and burnout. Also, by not running at marathon race pace every weekend, you will avoid “leaving your race pace on the training course” and not having it with you on the target race day.

In addition to the LSD runs on Saturdays, we have other training strategies for the week days and for later Saturdays during the training schedule. During the week days on alternating Tuesdays, you will be performing Speed workouts that will develop your running speed and Hill workouts that will develop your running strength. Combine these two training strategies with your Saturday endurance workouts and you will be able to finish your target marathon race at your anticipated race pace.

During the last four weeks before the target marathon race, you will be performing tempo runs and marathon race pace runs to test your endurance, speed and strength. It is important to follow the training schedule, especially the week day runs when you will essentially “be on your own” for the speed and hill workouts. In other essays, I will cover the essentials of the speed and hill workouts.

PACE GROUPS

The registration form asked for the anticipated marathon race pace of each member. Based on this information, I have determined the appropriate pace groups that we need. Tentatively, we will have six running pace groups from 9 minutes per mile to 14 minutes per mile, each at minute intervals, and one walking pace group. As the training period progresses, we may either split one or more groups by 30-second intervals or combine one or more groups as the need dictates.

The following table shows the tentative seven pace groups, the anticipated marathon race pace, and the expected marathon finishing time.

SATURDAY’S LSD PACE	MARATHON RACE PACE	EXPECTED MARATHON FINISHING TIME
9:00	8:40	3:47:04
10:00	9:40	4:13:16
11:00	10:40	4:39:28
12:00	11:40	5:05:40
13:00	12:40	5:31:52
14:00	13:40	5:58:04
Walkers	16:00+	7:00:00+

A Pace Leader will be assigned to lead and be responsibly for each Pace Group.

DUTIES OF THE PACE LEADER

The Pace Leader is voluntary position. Assignment as a Pace Leader will be for single marathon training seasons, but subject to approval for continuation into following seasons. A Pace Leader may also be removed from the position by the management team if the duties are not adequately performed. Persons to serve as Pace Leaders will be selected by the Director and presented to the Owner/Coach and Coordinator/Administrator for consensus approval.

A person agreeing to serve as a Pace Leader must be willing to uphold the following Pace Leader duties and responsibilities every Saturday and on other days as necessary.

Pace Leaders agree to:

• Be aware of and understand the importance of the LSD training pace.
• Be responsibly for maintaining the assigned training pace.
• Wear the Pace Leader’s technical T-shirt.
• Carry a personal cell phone and be prepared to use it in case of emergency, to secure arrangements to help any distressed Pace Group member and to report of any hazards on the training course.
• Oversee the well-being of all Pace Group members and provide aid and moral support to any distressed group member as necessary.
• Be knowledgeable of running-related health issues, at least to the extent as presented by the club’s lecture and essay series.
• Be responsible for accounting for all Pace Group members leaving from and returning to the Home Base, and reporting on the Group’s status to the Director and Coordinator/Administrator upon return to the Home Base.
• Maintain regular attendance at the Saturday runs, or if attendance on any particular Saturday is not possible, provide advanced notice, preferably a week in advance, to the Director and Coordinator/Administrator.
• Assign, preferably a week in advance, a responsible Pace Group member to serve as the Substitute Pace Leader for any particular day of absence, and inform the Director and Coordinator/Administrator of the person assigned to serve as Substitute.
• Maintain personal contact with Pace Group members such as via email and report any attendance or injury issues so they may be addressed in the future.

Anyone interested in serving as a Pace Leader, please meet with us at 7 AM on Saturday September 20, 2008 or send me an email stating your interest. Thank you.

George
September 18, 2008

PRE-RUN AND THE FIRST MILE

Establishing a good diet (adequate carbohydrates and proteins) and maintaining proper hydration are important practices for all runners at all times, but what about the proper preparations the night before and morning of a training run or a race? The answer is basically the same whether going out for a training run or a race of whatever distance.

Start with a good night’s sleep. If it’s a race that you’ll be running, you most likely will be anxious the night before and probably not get the restful sleep that you should be getting. So it’s best to plan ahead and try to get several nights of good sleep before the big event. If it’s “just” another training run, try to avoid a long night of partying.

The morning of the event, be it training or racing, get up early enough, not only to give yourself ample time to get to the site on time, but also to allow time for a light breakfast. Not having eaten since the night before, your calorie reserves will be less than optimal, so it will be best to refill your tank. Get accustomed to eating the same or similar food items before each training run and repeat the pattern on the morning of a race; for example, have a bagel, toast or a bowl of cereal, a fruit and a cup of coffee or tea. You can experiment with the food items before your training runs, but once you decide on a menu, do not change it on the morning of a race. Irritable bowels or “runner’s trots” are not pleasant experiences during any run, but especially during an important run. Finally, allow enough time to take care of your personal bodily needs.

At the event site, empty your bladder (or bowels if necessary). Hydration is important so be sure to drink some water or sport drink. Before the start of the training run or race, warm your muscles by walking or easy running for five or ten minutes. Then do some light stretching and do your best to relax (often easier said than done).

Especially in a race situation, but sometimes also in a group training run, people get overly anxious with overflowing adrenaline secretions and will start the run as though the distance is only for a mile. Keep yourself under control. Know the pace that your training calls for or that you have trained the race for. Depending on the distance of the race or training run, keep your pace initially at fifteen or twenty seconds per mile slower than your target pace for the first half mile or so. Then settle to your target pace and take pleasure in passing the exhausted participants who started too fast.

See you at the finish line!

George

Club Dinner at Aloha Steakhouse

Aloha Runners and Walkers,

We have an Inside Track Running Club dinner scheduled for Aloha Steakhouse on Wednesday, September 24th at 7:00pm. This is a great way to meet fellow members in a non-running environment and enjoy some amazing food.

Aloha Steakhouse is located on the Ventura Promenade at the bottom of California Street (please visit www.AlohaSteakHouse.com for menu and directions.)

Aloha supports many local community events including Harbor Lights Summer (www.NStepEvents.com), Turkey RoundUp, and Sweatheart Relay so lets support those that support and promote our sport. The owners/managers are triathletes (Jim Avrea and Charnell Smith.)

Please rsvp to Josh ( JoshSpiker@Gmail.com .)

You are responsible for paying for your own meals and drinks.

Cheers.

Josh Spiker

Weekly Run Options: September 8th - 14th

Below are the weekly training options for the week of September 8th - 14th.

Tuesday - Cross Country Style Workout - Arroyo verde Park - 5:30pm (meet at 1st set of bathrooms.) Fun Fun Fun. This is a harder workout so make sure you are comfortable running at least 4 miles if you plan to do the intervals. If you don't feel ready you can always come to meet everyone and just do a regular run on the grass and lower trails. Structure of the workout:

- Warm-Up (about 1.5 miles)
- Drills (dynamic drills to increase running economy
- Strides (100 meters up tempo...get the heart pumping to prepare you for the workout...also to try to incorporate what the drills just taught you...muscle memory.)
- Intervals on the grass (about 1/4 of a mile. 3-5 intervals. about 1:30 easy jog/walk rest)
- Hill repeats (about 1:30 long. walk or jog down. 2-5 repeats depending on fitness level.)
- Cooldown (about 1 mile.)
- Stretch

Thursday - 4-6 mile run from Inside Track - 5:30pm . This is an easy paced run although some do use it as a tempo.

Saturday - 7:30am...Please check www.RunVentura.com and lick on the schedule button.

Sunday - Sulphur Mountain trail run - 8:00am. Out and back...go as far as you would like...just remember you have to come back :-) Meet at the bottom just before the gate. If you see people hanging out chatting its probably fellow Run Ventura / Inside Track Running Club members.

WELCOME AND ORIENTATION MESSAGE

Welcome everyone to RunVentura’s inaugural gathering to kick off the Spring Marathon Training Program. For the next 26 weeks, with several exceptions that will be announced at the appropriate times, we will meet here next to the Inside Track running store at 7:30 AM, rain or shine. I thank everyone for joining RunVentura and Inside Track Running Club. We will strive to become, if we are not already, the happiest and smiliest running/walking club in all of Ventura County and beyond.

Our spring marathon target races are the Los Angeles Marathon and the Napa Valley Marathon, both occurring on March 1, 2009. In addition to these target races, we will also participate in 5K, 10K and half marathon races, as appropriate, to obtain valuable racing experience.

We have a web site, www.RunVentura.com, where you will be able to download our spring marathon training schedule and other important information and post messages.

OUR RUNNING ROUTINE

If you examine the training schedule, you will see that our training days, in addition to Saturdays, include Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The first seven weeks will basically consist of all “easy run” days where we slowly build up our mileage to develop our base endurance. However, as our training progresses beyond the 7th week, Sundays and Wednesdays will be treated as recovery days and Tuesdays and Thursdays will be hard workout days. The Monday and Friday rest days are important to allow the body to recover and become stronger in order to run the “tomorrows” that will follow.

We have two courses that we will run on Saturdays: the Coastal Bike Path starts at the foot of the Main Street bridge over the Ventura River and continues North (actually West) to Hobson Beach Park and beyond; the Ojai Bike path starts at Olive Street across from Mission Plaza and continues North to Foster park and beyond. Both courses are marked every mile with orange “smilie” symbols.

SATURDAY RUNS. Saturday runs are designed to develop endurance and will be performed as “Long, Slow, Distance,” or LSD, runs. This is an adoption of the Lydiard (Coach Arthur Lydiard) Method of marathon training.

To avoid or minimize injury, we will start with short distances and progress to longer distances, very conservatively, over our 26 week training period. Your Saturday training pace will be held to 15 to 30 seconds slower than your desired marathon racing pace, with some exceptions such as on certain Saturdays when we perform tempo and marathon pace training runs.

TUESDAY SPEED AND HILL WORKOUTS. After several weeks of building Base Endurance with the Saturday long runs, we will begin Speed and Hill Workouts on alternating Tuesdays. Speed Workouts include Interval Training, which are often performed on a track but can be run on a flat road with minimum traffic, and Fartleks, which are usually run on roads. Hill Workouts, as the name implies, requires one or more hills, thus are run on hilly roads or in parks. Speed workouts train you to increase your leg turnover and speed, while hill workouts help to develop leg strength. Hill workouts are essential if the course of your target race includes hills.

Both types of workouts are strenuous so I suggest that you don’t perform both on the same week but that you perform them on alternating Tuesdays.

NET RESULT. After performing the Long runs for endurance, the Speed workouts for speed and the Hill workouts for strength, you will combine the three factors at your target marathon race to run the 26.2 miles at a stronger and faster pace than you did in training.

HYDRATION AND NUTRITION PRIOR TO TRAINING. You should make it a self required habit that you eat a light breakfast (a slice of toast or a bagel with coffee or tea) and drink sufficient liquids (16 oz of water or Gatorade) at least an hour before running. You should also make it a point to eat soon (within an hour) after returning from your run to replace your depleted glycogen supply. This will become especially important as we increase our Saturday mileage. We will have a limited supply of post-run water, Gatorade, bananas and bagels available for our members so you can begin the replenishment process immediately after the run.

ADAPTATIONS OF EXERCISE

One of the major factors that forces hopeful marathoners to drop out of a marathon training program and to cancel or postpone their marathon racing plans is injury. The word “INJURY” is a dreaded word for all athletes. One of my goals as Director of RunVentura is to reduce and minimize over-training injuries, many of which result from running too long, too fast, too soon.

As you run, with every foot strike your heel is subjected to a force of 2 to 3 times your body weight. And this pounding is continued for over 900 times per mile. This weighty torment is shared by your entire body as the force travels up your ankle, foot bones and joints, hips and to the rest of your body. And you wonder why marathoners feel so “beat-up” after running 26.2 miles!

All of your body’s systems need to work together to make you a successful long distance runner or walker, and developing your body’s systems to make you that successful runner or walker is a long, slow process. It takes weeks of slowly and progressively increasing the workload to enable your body to become capable of carrying your body over 26.2 miles without breaking down.

These are some of the adaptive changes that you will develop over the next several months:

BONES: Your bones will increase its density to withstand the increased heavy pounding with every foot fall and increased pulling forces by the tendons and muscles.

MUSCLES: Your muscles will increase its capacity to do work by increasing the number of fibers and the efficiency of each fiber, and by increasing the sizes and number of mitochondria, which provide the energy by which the muscles work.

TENDONS & LIGAMENTS: These will increase their strength to hold muscles to bones and bones to bones at joints.

LUNGS: Your lungs will increase their capacity and efficiency in performing gas exchange.

HEART: Your heart will improve its capacity to pump more blood with every heartbeat. This will result in a lowered resting heartbeat rate from 72 (average non-athlete) to the low 50s.

BLOOD: Your hemoglobin and Red Blood Cell count will increase, enabling your blood to transport more oxygen to your body, including your working muscles.

BLOOD VESSELS: The number of capillaries servicing your muscles will increase to deliver more blood with its oxygen, water and food supply to your working muscles and to remove wastes that the muscles produce. Also your subcutaneous blood vessels and capillaries will increase to deliver more blood, more efficiently to your skin. This will enable heat to be dissipated from your body via your skin faster and more efficiently. You will notice your skin, especially on your hands and face, turning warm and red as soon as you begin activity.

SWEAT GLANDS: Your sweat glands will increase in number and efficiency to produce sweat quickly and profusely as soon as your body temperature increases with activity. To enable your sweat glands to function properly, you must have adequate water in your body, therefore proper hydration is important. Also I highly recommend against using antiperspirants before running. Perfumes and colognes are ok, so long as they are not too offensive to your fellow participants.

RECOMMENDED PERSONAL GEAR

We highly recommend that each member wear or carry the following personal gear during every Saturday outing:
Comfortable, non-cotton running shorts, top, undergarment and socks.
Quality running shoes or walking shoes.
Sunglasses and sunscreen
Cap or visor.
Chrono-watch.
ID tag or card with medical and emergency information.
Hydration pack (waist or backpack types) or water bottle with waist belt.
Appropriate outer wear for protection against inclement weather.

FINAL WORDS

In keeping with our club’s philosophy of “Running Green,” we will not provide disposable cups at the water stations. Water and Gatorade will be available in gallon containers so you will be able to refill your own water bottles or hydration packs.


Finally, at the meeting site where the post-run goodies are provided, I will have three containers: one for banana peels and other fruit and vegetable matter that I will deposit in my home compost pile; a second for recyclable plastic cups and jugs and aluminum foil that I will deposit in my recycle bin; and a third for (ugh!) trash-trash that I will place in my trash bin and will eventually clog our land fill. These containers will be properly identified. I ask that you do your part for our California, USA and World by supporting my tiny effort in this regard.

George S. Arita
Director
RunVentura