The quiet miles
The work before the work. The season before the season.
Team,
These sweaty summer miles have me feeling nostalgic. When I was a young runner in the ‘90s our seasons followed the same timeline that fall marathons do. Like you, we ran our base miles through the wet heat of summer and, like yours will, our fitness turned with the seasons. I can still remember, 25 years on, the giddy mess of limbs as my teammates and I rounded the track on a brisk September evening, shocked at what our bodies could do. It felt so much more than physical.
How grandiose I make it sound! Yes. That’s how it feels. The changes inside us felt as big as the seasons. We knew our newfound strength was a product of the mundane work we’d begun in June, but it felt channeled. It felt fated. It felt like we’d finally fallen in sync with some sort of natural order, and that everything everywhere had all led up to this.
I often hear echoes of this in athlete interviews. A long-awaited, hard-won sports victory does feel prophesied. The players both grow and sharpen in our cultural imagination, even while their edges fade to let the rest of us in. I’m thinking of the Knicks, of course. By their own mundane work, along with uncountable sacrifices and struggles and tough decisions over the years, they grew strong and smart and wise enough to reach beyond their grasp, and to capture the generational dreams of 8.6 million people.
In noname training, we often refer to the “why?” behind your marathon. What brought you here? No one runs for nothing. You may run to capture a feeling, to lengthen your life, to model a behavior, to get out of a funk, or to physically mimic an emotional journey. One runner told me, “I run because the changes I’ve seen in myself are my best evidence that real change is possible for anyone, anywhere.”
In future weeks we’ll talk more about your “why?”, but for now, I want to focus on something much smaller: The work before the work. The season before the season. The reps that are so boring, so repetitive, so out-of-shape that we skip them in the story telling, though no champion would deny they are the nonnegotiable launching pad to every heroic moment.
Months from now, I want you to be strong, healthy, and smart enough to carry your own story in the way it deserves. I don’t know what that story is, but I know it’s huge, perhaps bigger than you realize. I also know you’re not yet ready to carry it—but you will be.
Start now. Start small. Stay patient. Commit to the process. Keep your “why” in mind as a guiding light, but think practically of the next step—it’s literally the only way to get anywhere.
1. Go to the doctor. Get a physical. DO IT. YOU’RE NOT TOO COOL FOR THIS.
2. Pre-season miles: By getting in short, easy runs BEFORE the start of your 16-week season, you will communicate to your body that a change is coming. Your body is on your side, always on the alert to swerve in response to what you ask of it, and so will begin laying down stronger bones, developing more oxygen carrying capacity, and finding fluency and ease in your stride. These miles should be run as easy as possible, and may still feel ROUGH. That’s fine! Starting anything is hard!
If you’d like guidence in climbing mileage, deciding how much to run and how quickly to increase, we have simple “BASE” plans in the Coach + Coffey v.02 app. Coach is also just a message away there, if you’d like her to answer questions, give mileage guidance, etc.
3. Heat!: Take care of yourself out there! Stay out of the heat of the day, move the week around to take advantage of cooler days, and run inside on a treadmill on the hottest days if possible. Stay hydrated, incorporate electrolytes (drinks, fruit, table salt), and
be aware that some medications, including SSRIs, can alter your body’s ability to tolerate heat.
A couple years ago we wrote a more extended heat-guidance post. Check it out!!
4. Get in the rhythm: this is an under-sung aspect of marathon training, but essential to making any of it happen. When will you run? If you’re meeting with noname two of your days are set—will you come straight from work? When will you eat before and after? Will you meal-prep? Are kids/partners/pets part of your plan? When and where will you do your solo miles? Do you have a buddy to held you accountable? I suggest you get this stuff DOWN. Do a dry run with your pre-season miles. Set yourself up.
ENCOURAGED OPTIONALS
5. Make an appointment with a PT. I would like every human I coach to have a PT routine.
I call this optional because a long list of things you HAVE to do before heading out on a simple run is so overwhelming and counter to the heart of running. You don’t have to do anything. Your ancestors ran without shoes to catch their dinner.
BUT….you live a modern life, and likely have super tight hip-flexors and unresponsive rhomboids. This is the price we pay for modernity. If you’re feeling achy or out-of-sorts in your body, a PT can help you locate the cause and give you corrective, personalized exercises.
If you’ve never been injured or achy a day in your life, a PT can give you “pre-hab” exercises that will help you stay healthy and move with more ease and fluency for faster, smoother runs. Go to a PT!! But you don’t have to! But I would like if you did!
We love Finish Line Physical Therapy, because they really understand what runners need, and besides that are just great people and will get you excited about training!
6. Make an appointment with a Strength Trainer. I’d love everyone to have a personalized strength routine!
Everything I said about PT applies here too. Will strength training make you faster, healthier, and more resilient? Yes. Is it required for every amazing marathon? No. I know Olympians who never pick up a weight. I also know Olympians who credit their success to the weight room. I would PERSONALLY like if you lifted some weights.
During the season, beginning July 13, we’ll have a strength library and weekly strength classes available in the v.02 app. Our certified trainers—Dennis, Ciara, and Victor—will lead you through full routines that will support your marathon training, not compete with it.
In these three weeks preceding marathon training, my absolute ideal for you would be to set up a session with one of our trainers or your own running-informed trainer to locate your personal “wobbly” areas and work up a short program that you can begin now and integrate into the more standard marathon strength training.
LASTLY….reach out to teammates! Tighten the community. Come to Define for your pre-season miles! Come to Tony’s Hills! Apply to The noname Program if you haven’t yet! Check in on every runner you know! Mention the marathon and discover the people around you who are also secret runners but don’t want to be overbearing!
This week begins training for CHICAGO MARATHONERS, Let’s Fucking Goooooooo!!!!!! Wineglass and Twin Cities Marathoners are a week into training and just getting settled in their rhythm!!! Berlin Marathoners are two weeks into training, about to wrap up their pre-season climb!!! Sydney Marathoners, brave breakers of the wind, are 6 weeks in, getting strong, and this week will run their FIRST MARATHON PACE LONG RUN!!
This is happennnnningggggg.
GO VOTE. EVERY BIG CHANGE IS MADE OF SMALL STEPS. GO VOTE, NEW YORKERS!
LFG!
Coach + Coffey