Hey everyone and welcome to another running article!
Today I want to talk about the idea of balance. Especially in terms of training.
And specifically with running, I want to talk about non-running training. And all the new things I’ve learned in this marathon block. Then at the end, I want to tie it all together with life in general.
So whether you are a runner or not, I hope you find this article both informative and entertaining.
Let’s jump in!
Setting the Scene
In general, if I tell you to visualize a runner, what kind of person do you imagine?
For me, I think of someone who is pretty darn skinny. Any extra weight (fat or muscle) is extra weight you have to run with.
As an example, the world record for the marathon was set by a 5’11” 143lb man.
Now, what if I told you to visualize an athlete, what kind of person do you imagine now?
For me, I think of a Spartan warrior. Maybe for you, it’s a football player, soccer player, or someone like that.
In other words, someone who can both run fast and is also pretty strong looking. Maybe they have a 6-pack or something like that.
The point of this exercise is to give a visual demonstration that what you are training for determines how you train. And for most runners, they are training for a race, so most of their training consists of…you guessed it…running. This is why we see so many runners with pretty slim builds.
While true, there is another trend growing in popularity. The term being used is “hybrid athlete.”
Hybrid Athlete
That term may be new, but the ideology goes back centuries, if not millenia.
The basic idea is someone building a well-rounded training regimen so that they not only build incredible endurance of heart and lung, but also incredible strength. Like the Spartan warrior.
Furthermore, if you start reading about a lot of the research being done around the “longevity” space, it seems to back the idea of a hybrid athlete.
Longevity
Without going into much details, the longevity space is actually less about living for a long time and more about aiming to live a healthy and energetic life no matter how long that life may last.
My view of longevity is simple: I want to be able to run a marathon with my grandchildren.
It is a simple goal, but it can only be accomplished (I believe) by the hybrid athlete lifestyle.
Why do I bring any of this up at all?
Well, let me break down the hybrid athlete lifestyle a tiny bit more.
Within the longevity space, there are 3 key factors when it comes to your physical training:
- Strength training
- Zone 2 training
- Zone 4-5 training
What do those mean?
Strength Training
Well, strength training is the more obvious one. This is your typical, “I go to the gym” kind of training. It could be powerlifting, free weights, machines, mobility, all body weight, etc.
There is more to it than that and research behind best approaches. But for me, it’s simply the idea that you are doing exercises for building strength.
Why is this important?
Well, one of the biggest reasons for longevity is that not only do you build strength in your muscles, but you also build strength in your bones.
Studies show that as you age, one of the biggest leads to death is breaking a hip. And it’s not so much that the broken hip itself sends you to the grave, but rather all the complications that come from healing and recovery.
But if you can build stronger bones early in life, then you can avoid some of those issues.
In a similar vein, building muscular strength helps support your joints too! And thus helps prevent injuries throughout all of life.
This is why strength training is crucial to a sport like running, and why they go together so well.
What are Zones?
Which leads into our zone 2 and zone 4-5 training.
What does that mean?
Well, the zones in question here are your heart rate zones.
If you have a fancy smartwatch, you can see your heart rate zones as you exercise.
If you don’t, it can also be estimated this way:
- First, the general rule of thumb to get your max heart rate is to take 220 - your age.
- Then when it comes to your training zones, they are all a percentage of your max heart rate. So, for me, my max heart rate is around 192.
- Zone 2 is 60-70% of your max heart rate, or 115-134 for me.
- Zone 4-5 is at least 80% of your max heart rate all the way up to 100%.
If that is confusing, sometimes it’s better to go off of feeling instead of numbers.
In that context, Zone 2 is a “conversational” pace.
A lot of experts do their zone 2 training on a stationary bike and make their business phone calls during their training.
The key to knowing if you are in zone 2 is that you can hold the conversation, but it is definitely a little uncomfortable, and the person on the other line should be able to tell you are exercising.
In other words: you can talk, but you definitely need to take a breath every now and then.
Zone 4 and 5 is more like a running/cycling/swimming pace where you can hold it for maybe 15 minutes max all the way down to short sprints you can hardly hold for 4 minutes.
Talking is really out of the question in this training.
Now that we have a slightly better understanding of what these zones are, why are they important?
Why do Zoned Training?
There is a ton of research and complicated words so I won’t get too detailed because I don’t even understand it all myself.
But Zone 2 is like your aerobic base training.
It helps build a good overall cardiovascular health as well as build healthy mitochondria, which if you remember biology is the powerhouse of the cell. So having healthy mitochondria sounds like a great thing for your overall performance as a hybrid athlete.
Zone 4-5 training improves your VO2 max. That is another big word. To simplify it, the higher your vo2 max, the more oxygen your body can give your muscles in the same amount of time.
This means you’ll unlock faster running, higher performance, and overall higher endurance for all sports/activities. In terms of longevity, it means you won’t run out of breath walking up a flight of stairs when you are older.
There is also a ton of research proving a higher vo2 max correlates to lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other diseases leading to a potential 15% lower risk of death overall.
It even has tremendous effects on our mental health.
So what is the point of all of this?
Cut to the Chase!
The point is that lately I’ve been training more like a runner and I can start to feel it. My strength training has taken a dip.
Now, there is a secret 3rd type of training that I’ve been incorporating that I believe has helped. And that is called mobility training. Mobility training is not really a secret 3rd type, because it’s really a special kind of strength training.
But I plan to dedicate a whole article on mobility training, so for now, let’s forget I mentioned it.
The point is that over the past couple of weeks even my mobility training has taken a back seat.
My weeks have been filled with massive runs, long miles, and that’s it. And while it was temporary to lead up to this marathon, I can already tell you it’s not sustainable.
My arch hurts because of an imbalance in my calf muscle. My hip gets tight easier than it did before; probably because of a strength issue too. And I know that if I were to keep pushing my body in this way, more problems would arise.
So, again, what is the point to all of this?
Balance is Key
The point is that balance is important to our physical training. If all you do is powerlift your whole life and never do cardio or stretch, then you probably won’t be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. If you even have the flexibility to lift your leg that high.
If all you do is run and never do any kind of strength training or mobility, you might have stiff muscles too. And although you could sprint up those stairs at 90, you might still slip on that banana peel and break a hip, halting your running for the rest of your life.
That’s why, for our overall health, having a good balance of training is key.
When the marathon is over and I move more time to strength training, will my running performance potentially take a hit?
Probably.
But you know what’s a bigger hit? Getting injured and having to stop running all together for 6 weeks.
Is it ok that strength training is on the backburner for now? Absolutely! Because it’s temporary and fits in my goal of getting ready for this marathon.
It all comes back to balance. Which is really the theme of this article.
Perhaps fitness isn’t your thing. That’s ok; although I highly encourage it. But the idea of balance is not something that is only for athletes.
Balance is important in every aspect of life.
Having a work life balance allows us mental breaks from work, avoiding burnout, and also ensures we can prioritize things that are more important in life like our faith, family, and friends (i.e. relationships).
Even in our walk with God, balance is important. If all we do is study one book of the Bible, we are missing out on so many of God’s beautiful and hopeful promises and truths throughout the whole Bible.
And it’s not that the one book is bad; it’s still God’s word and is very good! It’s not that work is bad, work is good too! God designed work before sin entered the world. But too much work can destroy our relationships. And it’s not that running or lifting weights are bad either. These are all good things.
But when we turn a “good” thing into a “god” thing, that’s when we run into problems.
So, once again, I’ll ask myself this question: what’s the point to all of this?
My final takeaway is this: what is it in your life that could use a little more balance? Because if you lean too far to one side (even if it’s a good thing), you just might hurt yourself.
