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Notes on Running

Posted on 2022-08-25

I've been running with some regularity since about 5 years ago when I ran my first 5k in college. I did the couch-2-5k program, which got me from being winded every 30 seconds to running a decent beginner time of 26:45. I didn't race again until 2019, when I did another 5k, this time doing some more serious training with a coworker. We half-followed the Hal Higdon intermediate plan, but we were both not really in shape enough to stick with it consistently as the mileage ramped up. However, it did get me down to a 24:50, which I think is the point where you can say "I run" without any qualifications.

Like many people, I got pretty unfit during COVID, but I got back on the fitness grind summer of last year. However, I was solely weightlifting, and I was silly enough to listen to youtube influencers telling me to avoid cardio at all costs lest I "kill my gainz".

At the beginning of the summer, I got back into running. This time though, I decided to join the barefoot running cult. I got myself some Merrell Vapor Gloves and at the beginning of July I decided to sign up for a half marathon.

Over the last two months or so, I've been ramping up my mileage, from around 4-8 miles per week to now 18-20 mpw. A few weeks ago I ran a parkrun 5k (yes, they do exist in some American cities too) and hit a PR of 24:10, which surprised and delighted me. There's still 11 weeks left for me to train and I'm currently able to hold a comfortable "easy" pace at around a 9:00-9:10 mile split, so I think I should pretty easily hit my original goal of doing it in 2:00:00 -- I'm still a bit afraid to set my goals higher though, as I don't want to lose sight of the fact that finishing without injury is still the #1 goal of all this. Here's some things I've learned:

Form and technique are key, and it's wild that they never tell beginners runners to pay close attention to technique. I was a big heel striker before I switched to barefoot, and I always ended up with knee injuries. I assumed I had some sort of left knee injury that never healed, but no, I just had shitty running form that always put undue stress on my left knee.
Heart rate training is awesome, do heart rate training.
Heart rate training is key for increasing mileage. I followed the Hal Higdon Novice 1 plan for a few weeks, but since it's purely a mileage based plan I ended up pushing myself every run. This meant that my total weekly mileage ended up being only around 13. When I switched to the 80/20 heart rate plan, I quickly ramped to 20 miles.
Heart rate training is great for improving technique. By capping the amount of exertion you're able to put in, if you want to go faster, you have no choice but to try to make adjustments to your form. I don't think I've been at it long enough to see significant cardiovascular adaption, but just from technique improvements alone I was able to get my easy pace from a 10:30 down to an 8:50 on a good cool day.
Foam rolling is nice, but it won't save you from bad technique. As I was ramping, I ended up focusing more on speed and mileage and lost track of my form. Got super sore shins, tight calves, sore hips, which foam rolling could only help marginally. What did help a lot was slowing down my runs and making sure my stride was relaxed and low-impact.
Sleep is incredibly important for recovery. Good night's rest (7.5-9 hours) = good run, bad night's rest = bad run.
Moderate alcohol use is ok, a night of heavy drinking means a terrible run the next morning.
I've been on a long slow cut, but I can eat pretty intuitively while running and still lose weight. I think if I went any deeper into a calorie deficit I would probably have much worse issues recovering.
Running books are some of the least information dense books out there, even worse than self-help. I've used two so far, _80/20 Running_ by Matt Fitzgerald and _ChiRunning_ by Danny Dreyer. The first few chapters of Fitzgerald are worth a quick skim, and then skip straight to the back for training plans. Chapter 4 of Dreyer with form cues and exercises is good, the rest can be discarded.
A running hat is a great investment. They seem ridiculously priced for a hat, but the shade and sweat-soaking abilities are well worth it.
Use Trail Mapper instead of Strava routes. It's free, far more flexible, and uses the same Strava road usage data.
Strava relative effort is meaningless and stupid. It measures effort based entirely on heart rate, so if you're base building with low HR training it thinks you're running at a low effort, regardless of the fact that you're still damaging your legs.
Because Strava RE is meaningless, Strava fitness/fatigue/form metrics are also meaningless. Despite ramping up my mileage by double, Strava thinks I have been getting less fit.
Strava is basically good for one thing and one thing only: getting motivation from your friends' runs -- feeling good about being faster than the slow people, and feeling motivated to get to the level of faster people. It sounds lame but by god, it's a great motivator. One actual good use of social media.
Chasing any metric is bad, but impossible to avoid. I'm a tech nerd after all, I want to see the numbers move. But I'm trying my best to just be mindful and listen to my body.
Running should be a joyful experience. I never _really_ understood it until this training cycle. The endorphins always made me feel good after runs, and I liked seeing my numbers go up, but I didn't feel that happy during the run. This time, I find that I actually daydream about going on runs. The feeling of having mind and body completely aligned is just blissful, even when the going is tough.
I don't listen to anything except on my long runs lasting more than an hour. The silence is good for getting deeper into that flow state. On longer runs though, it's nice throwing on a podcast -- I definitely avoid any music as the tempo would throw me off my running cadence.

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