Type A Endurance and Muscle Fibers

For about 10 years I've been actively running. I started out at 5 - 10 miles per week and just last week I crossed the 60 mile mark. That was my most mileage for a single 7 day period. On the one hand, it's "Yay Me!", on the other it's "I need a nap".

Over the past few days I've done a bit of reading about running and training and muscle fibers and depression (yes, depression). It turns out that a common symptom of overtraining is depression. Type A personalities in particular are prone to it. We Type A's tend to think that "more is better" in most situations and wind up over training at the expense of our overall health.

So the good news is this. Exercise is recreational. It's purpose - for me - is to clear my head. When I start to feel that exercise is no longer clearing my head but in fact clouding it, I take a day off. Even better news is that's what the literature recommends. Instead of getting yourself into a 7 day strenuous workout cycle, plan a day or so off per week. Then there's the ever-elusive cross training.

I'll be the first to admit that my favorite form of excercie includes a few miles of open road and a nice pair of shoes. All those weights and yoga-mats and classes are just baggage for me. Sometimes though, when I'm feeling extra spunky or the sore toes are too cumbersome, I'll break out the bike and do a 6 mile loop. Or if I'm extra crazy I'll hit the weights (10 pounders of course) and then do some core work.

This year the marathon training plan is to run about 50 miles per week with a mixture of long runs (15 - 21 miles) and speed work. This article in Runner's World summarizes it well. Looking at it again, I see it's about 6 years old. Oh well, looks like I'm training with a stale plan.

This morning I ran an easy 3 followed by a hard 2.5 (I was targetting 6 but started out too fast). Then in the evening I did track work with a friend. 10x100meters at a 6:15 pace. The fist 4 laps were nice and the one minute cool down between each lap was good but the last 6 laps were tough. The one minute cool down got shorter and shorter as the lap count went up. Oh, and while we were running around the track, the girls field hockey team was practicing. We had to jump a few times to dodge a stray shot. Yikes.

With a fixed schedule (both marathon training and speed work) I can keep my eyes on the distant prize and not get too caught up in the "more is better" mentality. Fixing the schedule is tough though so I've been spending about 30 minutes on Sunday's to review the last week, compare against my goals, and sketch out a schedule for the upcoming week.

When it comes to muscle fibers, I recently learned that there are three major groups of muscle tissues. Fast twitch, medium twitch, and slow twitch. The really important detail here is that each group needs a different style of training. There are dozens of training styles out there but this one breaks down like this:

• long easy runs train your slow twitch fibers - go too fast and you lose the benefit


• short fast (30-60s) bursts train your fast twitch fibers - go too long and you get less


• medium fast (60-90s) bursts train your medium twitch fibers

This is really nice to know as it gives me an incentive to mixup the training throughout the week. I've been too comfortable running longer and longer. Now with these new (and simple) guidelines, my routine will become less routine.

Back to the depression. Well running is hard work and sometimes hard work can be a bit overwhelming. I've found that keeping a clear head about running is mostly about reminding myself why I'm there in the first place. I run to clear my head! To keep my motivation up, I like to run 2 - 6 races per year. Typically I'll run two marathons and a few shorter races. The races give me a goal to shoot for and sometimes, the simplest goal to pursue is "go faster". As with all goals worthy of pursuit, my go-faster-goals are generally non-trival.

Too many times I've set goals too high or let my attention drift off to other projects - sometimes both - and the "go faster" goals have taken a back seat. Each time, I still finished my race and was pleased with the result.

So, the long and short is this: run for the sake of running. It's fun and healty. If you want to go faster, set a realistic goal, pick a training program, and stick with it.

I keep finding more things in life that are like this. Running has been an excellent life coach.