This past Monday Jack visited with the editors at Runner’s World and then gave a talk to the Lehigh Valley Running Community. I was fortunate enough to tag along for the day. Runner’s World editor at large, Amby Burfoot, made a great attempt to try and summarize some of the key takeaways after spending the day with Jack.
My favorites:
Know the purpose of every run. Long runs are mostly meant to be slow, so run them at a comfortably slow pace, usually about 65 to 70 percent of your max heart rate. For no more than 2.5 hours. Occasionally do 4 to 10 miles of your long run at marathon pace.
Consider an alternative to the “10 percent rule.” That’s the rule that says you should increase total mileage by no more than 10% from one week to the next. Instead, Daniels says, let your body adapt for several weeks. Hold your training steady for three or four weeks, and then increase your mileage by the number of days you’re running per week (e.g., four days = four miles).
The Morning Call wrote a nice article about Jack’s talk to the local runners. They were a great crowd. The room was packed too with probably close to 200 people.
“He appealed to the average runner,” said Jeff Riegel, 41, a marathon runner from Macungie. “He had a message in there for the two-hour marathoner to the six-hour marathoner. He really spoke to people of all abilities.”
Daniels also stressed good mechanics, which he said can be worked on simply by counting the number of strides a runner takes. Through his studies, Daniels has found that a stride rate of 180 per minute is optimal for injury prevention and efficiency.
“You want to feel like you’re running over raw eggs,” he said. “The slower the stride rate the more time in the air. You’re elevating body mass the harder you hit the ground.”
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