Monotony

This has always got me for years. One of the great benefits of Nick is this sort of thing! Let me explain...as the word suggests the monotony is the same continuous strain on the body time after time which grinds it down, so I could do every run in a week very easy  but that would be worse on the body than doing some steady, some flat out, some slow and so on. My problem has always been that I get ill more than I get injured, around 4-5 times a year and every time I get ill myself and Nick look through the figures and its always the same answer....If I don't take a day off the monotony strain goes through the roof and kills me (usually 1.8 per week...goes up to 2.2 per week, over 2.0 is very high). Now as I have upped the mileage a little again this summer we have gone to one day off every 2 weeks (in training phases) and got away with it the first time even though the number went up again. 2 weeks ago I did the same and low and behold it got me again and this time broke down. So the last two weeks the day off is back in the week and as important as any of the runs in the week.

Obviously taking a day off in the week is going to make going up to really high mileage quite tough, but I am sure we will try and do it again....if the results are the same then back off again....then months later try again and maybe one week the monotony strain will not go as high and the body will adapt, but for now the day off stays! I think that is the thing with everybody, that we are individual and should be treated as such, where many times you see groups following the same exact pattern when everyone will react different to different things. It is very important that training is specific to each person and not a case of "X did this and he ran sub 29 so you should do exactly the same". Listening to the body is fine and will work to a certain extent but having cold hard facts showing you exactly what is happening in the body week to week is something that you can't ignore.

Also while on this subject of heart rates I would like to touch on something that was talked about on our forum about wearing certain watch's because you will look at it all the time in races etc... I always wear my heart rate in races (otherwise figures wouldn't work) but I never look at my heart rate while racing and never feel the urge to either. I run as hard as I can on the day and then when I get home I will send the figures to Nick for him to see and send back. This can also be said for training, for example if I do 4xmile on the road as hard as I can I don't ever look at the watch until I hit the mile marker and see what time I did! Of course when I first got the watch when running I would be curious and see what I was doing, but after a few months I stopped as I realised there is no point as you just see at the end....the only time I will be looking is on easy runs to make sure I go slow enough!!

Simx