Marathon season: Running less to run better

TORONTO – It’s spring marathon season, with both the Toronto and Vancouver Marathons taking place on Sunday.

While the elites pile on many kilometres of running to get in shape for a marathon, weekend warriors looking to run a half marathon or marathon can get by on less. According to some coaches, recreational runners can get race-ready with just a few days of running workouts.

Jeff Horowitz is a certified running and triathlon coach and a personal trainer who has run more than 150 marathons. He used to pile on the kilometres getting ready for his races but found that he kept getting injured.

Horowitz wanted to keep running but figured there must be a smarter way to do it. He focused on cutting back on the running, focusing only on workouts that would help him accomplish his goal and adding cross-training exercises that would complement his running.

Horowitz is the author of Smart Marathon Training: Run Your Best Without Running Yourself Ragged. He spoke to Globalnews.ca about his approach to getting fit.

Global News: A lot of coaches will advise people who want to take up running that if you want to get better at running, run more. What’s your problem with that approach?

Jeff Horowitz: Well, that’s certainly true up to a certain point. With many things, a little is good, a little more is better. But then a lot more is not helping and a lot more than that actually can be quite detrimental. There’s a lot of research now that’s suggesting that weekly mileage that’s more than about 35 miles a week increases the risk of injury tremendously… I love running myself and I want everyone to discover that for themselves and find the same passion for it that I have – but at the same time recognize that there’s a smart way of doing this that will prevent us from getting hurt.

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Global News: What do you advise new runners who want to tackle the half marathon or the marathon? 

Kenyan marathoner Emmanuel Mutai (2L) and his training group on a 40km run on February 2, 2012 in Kaptagat, Kenya. Jeff Horowitz says recreational runners don’t need to put in that kind of mileage to complete a marathon. Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images

Jeff Horowitz: Start slowly. The number one thing I hear from people who say they don’t like running, is that they’ve started doing too much, too fast, too soon. It’s quite easy to use your enthusiasm to push your body harder than you should. Have a little bit more of a cautious approach and also being what I call more purposeful in your training. If you have a goal, like running a half marathon, then every workout should advance you to that goal. And you should articulate that goal. So, for example, if I were to ask you what your next workout is doing for you, you should be able to tell me how that fits into your plan, whether it’s to help you get acclimated to your target race pace or to build your endurance base or to build on your stability. And if you’re not able to do that, I question whether you should be doing that workout at all.

Global News: How do you persuade people who are convinced that the only way to run better is to run more, like the elites?

Jeff Horowitz: My first response to people is to ask them whether they’ve been hurt or if everything’s going well. I don’t want to interrupt anyone’s training who’s training successfully and who is injury free. My approach is not necessarily for them. If you’re doing well with what you’re doing, and you’re healthy and running well and meeting your goals, then obviously you’re doing something right. My concern has been with all those people, including myself, who seem to get hurt at different times who have a layoff of a week or more from running, who get hurt over and over again. I’m not against high-mileage routines, if your body can tolerate that.

Global News: What kinds of cross-training exercises are best for runners?

Jeff Horowtiz: Research has been showing what I kind of intuitively felt, that cycling is an excellent cross-training pursuit for runners. What cycling does is it works opposing muscle groups to the ones we usually use just in running. Running is a back of the body exercise, whereas cycling uses the muscles in front.
Swimming – as great an exercise as it is – has not been shown to give as great a benefit to runners. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t swim, but if your goal is to improve your efficiency, your economy and strength as a runner, swimming’s not going to really get you there.

As for weight training, we’re not trying to grow a lot of muscle mass. I never met a runner who was interested in building bigger biceps. We work the movement, not the muscle. In strength training, I look for exercises that will improve our balance and enhance the way that our bodies move – basically getting the muscles to work together as a team. I look for complex dynamic movements.

Global News: It doesn’t sound like your approach will reduce the amount of time people have to put in to properly train for an endurance event.

Jeff Horowtiz: What I ask for is a smarter approach. If you have a good idea of what each workout should accomplish, then it should not take any more time than many runners are currently putting into their training – in fact, it might even take less. It’ll get them to where they’re going faster and with fewer injuries.

You can run three days, but there’s other work that you have to do. And putting all those pieces together will get you more fit and will result in you being a stronger, more injury-resistant kind of athlete.

In terms of total time commitment, it’s no more than what these people were doing already.