80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster by Training Slower
by Matt Fitzgerald
15 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from 80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster by Training Slower:
Low-intensity, high-volume training develops the sort of suffering tolerance that enhances fatigue resistance more effectively than does speed-based training. Fast runs may hurt more, but long runs hurt longer. The slow-burn type of suffering that runners experience in longer, less intense workouts is more specific to racing.
The vast majority of runners, however, seldom train at a truly comfortable intensity. Instead, they push themselves a little day after day, often without realizing it. If the typical elite runner does four easy runs for every hard run, the average recreationally competitive runner—and odds are, you’re one of them—does just one easy run for every hard run. Simply put: Running too hard too often is the single most common and detrimental mistake in the sport.
It is important to understand that the duration of exercise matters far more than does the intensity of exercise with respect to the goal of enhancing fatigue resistance in the brain. What counts is not how hard the muscles are working but rather how long the brain is required to stay focused on the task at hand. In fact, research has shown that the brain can be fatigued at rest in a way that increases fatigue resistance and physical endurance.
Tolerance for suffering is also trainable. Once a runner has discovered that she can suffer more than she thought she could, her perception of effort changes in a lasting way.
The week of slow is the running equivalent of a juice fast. Some people use short-term juice fasts to hit the reset button on their diet. The fast is not an end in itself. The goal is to make permanent changes to their diet, replacing bad habits with good ones. But instead of just making these changes from one day to the next, they first take a few days to break their attachments to the old habits by consuming nothing but healthy fruit and vegetable juices. Then, once they are no longer craving potato chips or whatever else, they return to a normal but improved diet.
The ultimate compliment for me in my peak training years was being passed on my easy runs by a runner who had a marathon time more than an hour slower than mine. I’d say to myself, “He’s wearing himself out today. I’m building myself up.
It appears, then, that the approach to training
Running too hard too often is the single most common and detrimental mistake in the sport.
unless a runner is systematically held back, he will more often than not run too hard on easy days and unwittingly sabotage his training plan.
the researchers found that bike training had a strong positive effect on running performance, but swimming did not.
There is an emerging consensus among exercise scientists that runners and other endurance athletes invariably encounter a limit to how much suffering they are willing to tolerate before they encounter any hard physical limit (such as their true VO2max
The ultimate mark of skillful running is the ability to run with minimal mental effort.
Better athletes don’t have to exert as much mental effort to control their sport-specific movements, so their movements are freer.
Becoming a more skillful and efficient runner is more like growing a beard than it is like chopping wood.
HEART
