The Other 90%: a reference to the common saying that running is 10% physical and 90% mental.
My foot continues to be a pain, both figuratively and literally, and I have been advised to still not go running for the forseeable future (which, I hope, will be around September). This shattered my dreams that I might possibly have a mutant healing factor like Wolverine but hey ho.
After my last post in May, Karen left a comment about the first long run of the C25K program on Week 5 Day 3. The run in question is a 5 minute walking warm-up (standard for all the C25K sessions) followed by a 20 minute run. I emailed her as I was curious as to what it was particularly about that run that she found challenging. Her response was interesting.
What Karen said was this:
It [the w5d3 run] was significant for me partly because my friend … has been doing c25k for 18 months now [and] was completely stalled at w5d3, the first uninterrupted run. And then I found on the c25k board on reddit, everyone faced this run with trepidation.
This is interesting because it seemed that the challenge of the first long run seemed less related to the actual physical exertion involved and more to do with the perception of the exertion that would required. This was also echoed by Clair who said about the first long run
I was really nervous about it. The thought of being able to run for 20 minutes this time two month ago was just such a foreign concept
Again, Clair’s nervousness seems to because of the anticipation of the percieved exertion rather than the actual effort involved.
The reason behind this anticipation is because of what seems to be the sudden jump in the required effort. The last session before the first long run (w5d2) involves running for 8 minutes, walk for 5 minutes and then run for another 8 minutes. So on paper it appears to be a massive 150% increase from 8 minutes of running at one time to a whole 20 minutes of running. Now a good training schedule will involve a gradual increase in the stress applied to the body to improve strength and/or endurance. This is known as progressive overload. The Couch-to-5k does this very well by starting people out very slowly and then gradually progressing the runner through the training plan. So the question is, why does the intensity suddenly jump so steeply?
My answer: I don’t think it does.
An important part of progressive overload is not just promoting muscular and neuromuscular adaptation to exercise but also mental adaptation. It’s about building confidence and belief that your body can do what is asked of it.
A slight digression by means of background: in personal training (and in clinical exercise/sports testing), we use a simple metric to gauge a clients perceived exertion on a simple 10 or 15 point scale. This is called the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and there’s been a lot of research carried out that indicates a significant correlation between an atheletes RPE and their actual heart rate, breathing rate, VO2Max and other metrics of exertion.
However, there have also been studies which show mental effects on RPE too. For example, in an University of Cape Town study (“Deception and perceived exertion during high-intensity running bouts“, Hampson, Gibson, Lambert M., Dugas, Lambert E, Noakes; 2004) four test groups (2 experimental and 2 control) were given the same exercise task to complete. One of the experimental groups was decieved into believing that the intensity of the exercise would be higher than it actually was. As a result, this group had a tendency to report a higher RPE than the other groups during and after the run – even though the intensity was identical to the other groups.
What I infer from this is that anticipation of required exertion can have a real effect on the actual percieved exertion during exercise. I think it also follows that changing our mental attitude towards an exercise session may also change the intensity of the exertion we feel.
Let’s have another look at w5d2: the full session (excluding the standard c25k warm-up which is the same for all sessions) is an run for 8 minutes, walk for 5 minutes, run for 8 minutes. That’s a total of 16 minutes of running and 21 minutes altogether time-on-feet. Taking those two figures, that means the long run in w5d3 is only a 25% increase in time spent running and the session itself, the time-on-feet, is actually shorter. All it’s doing is trading the 5 minute walk for a 4 minute run. Even from a physical perspective, that type of progression is more than manageable – especially considering that the four previous sessions (w4 and w5d1) also involved 16 minutes of running, albeit with 2 or 3 walk intervals instead of 1. This is why I don’t think the intensity of the sessions suddenly ramps up unexpectedly.
So what about Karen and Clair? Well, they each had slightly different methods for approaching the long run. Karen deferred the long run and repeated the w5d2 session twice, reducing the walking section each time until she felt she could take on the run while Clair said she approached every run with a positive mindset and would only repeat a run if she failed it. Karen’s approach in particular was interesting. She said “I figured if the programme says I can run for 20 mins, then I probably can” but she still needed to believe she could and so sensibly adapted the program to accommodate that need. Although it was a physical approach, I think it was more about training the mind than training the body to deal with the first long run.
Sometimes this is what training comes down to – building belief that you are both physically and mentally able to take on a challenge, be it 5k or 50k, running for 20 minutes or 20 hours. For some people that might mean doing more training, while some just need to have a plan A and a plan B and others try to break down or rephrase the challenge into something more manageable.
If you’ve been doing C25K and were apprehensive about the first long run, what you do to help you get through it?
Ahem. I’m that 18-month friend and it was *utterly* a mental block. I just kept creeping up to it, doing 15, 16 minutes then one day I just woke up and thought do you know, I can do this – and did it.
(I have to say, taking 18 months to do a 9-week programme isn’t entirely because I am a bit crap, though that is part of it! I have three small children and an often-absent husband and I simply cannot get out 3 times a week. I am lucky if I manage one weekend run during the school holidays, which come along irritatingly frequently. And once you factor in sickly children too, I have been lucky to do the programme uninterrupted for 3 weeks at a time!. I know, excuses excuses.)
Thanks for the comment Lisa. Are they really excuses though? Are you actively finding a reason not to go out running or are you disappointed you can’t go running because other things are more important to you and have to take priority (like children and family)? More to the point, what does it matter if you don’t stick to the 9 week programme? At the risk of sounding patronising (and apologies in advance if I am) but if you keep going out running over 18 months, even if it’s not 3 times a week, then it sounds like the plan worked because you keep going back to it. You could always use the plan as a framework, a guide to progressing your running, and then go out when you can and do what you feel ready and able to do.
As an aside, I have some good exercise plans that take not much longer than 20 minutes and can be done in the comfort of your own living room. I like to think of them as being virtually excuse-proof (and they’ll help with running too!)
Well…both, I suppose. More a disappointment than an excuse but the longer it goes on the less disappointed I feel! And actually although I still use the app because I like the 5 mins start/halfway/1 minute left warnings, I am no longer following it. I decide how long a run I want to do and pick that one. I would like to “finish” it and run 5k, for the sake of completion. But you are quite right it doesn’t matter – I just feel a bit embarrassed to say I have been doing it so long and still not “finished”. I will run 5k one day
Exercising in my living room is not for me – I have tried it and I peter out pretty damn fast. Unless yours are extremely interesting!
If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I’ve ever finished a training plan I’ve started – or certainly not followed it absolutely, not even when preparing for a race. Something always comes up, be it time away, family illness, me getting ill or something. Don’t be a slave to the plan!
Doing exercise at home isn’t for everyone but the fact that it’s possible removes the excuse factor – they don’t require special equipment, special locations or a lot of time. Will mine keep your attention and interest? Only you can tell me that but they’re designed to be short, sharp circuits – to be done quickly and to tax both endurance and strength. They’re no special secret – if you look at the Arnold 1% challenge on Fitocracy, they’re quite similar.
Hmm. Go on then – how do I get hold of your programmes?