Military Fitness

Fitness For The Special Tactics Operator

Issue #7 1 May, 2003

On Running
Comrades, running has been a part of human existence from the beginning. Native Americans were
renowned runners and many of the ancient Ninja of Japan were expert long distance runners both with and
with out equipment. The marathon runners from Kenya, like the Native Americans of old run barefoot.
Daniel Boone ran over 160 miles in two days with a wounded leg to warn his family of an Indian attack.
And of course, who can forget the very first “marathon” when the soldier Pheidippides ran from a
battlefield at the site of the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C. Legend has it that
Pheidippides delivered the momentous message "Niki!" ("Victory"), then collapsed and died. There is a
long rich history to running. A study of running history will help you understand it more.

Starting out
When I was growing up I was exposed to a great deal of running. Farming in the mountains of Vermont
I chased cows every day into the barn. We had a cattle drive every year that was 12 miles long. We didn’t
have horses and in the thick woods of Vermont they would have been useless anyway. We ran the whole
way. Dodging branches and leaping over deadfall, up and down ravines, across rivers and swamps,
stopping was never an option. We wore heavy leather steel toe boots, jeans and t-shirts. You drank from the
streams if you had time. This made me a good runner in bad terrain, but it didn’t help me on the roads and
track at Selection. That was a different type of running. I had never worn shorts or shoes before! How
strange it was!
I hated running actually. There seemed to be no point in it and the scenery in San Antonio sucks for the
most part. But you had to do it. Slowly I learned a thing or two and over the years I have read a good deal
of research on the subject. For those of you out there looking for a good starting point, I can’t recommend
Galloway’s Book On Running enough. It is an excellent tool.
The problem for many today is that they don’t know where to start. You could subscribe to a running
magazine, but they are like muscle mags, full of info you really don’t need unless you are an avid runner.
That is no place to start. Recall from earlier editions of MILFIT that the novice must start with General
Physical Preparedness! How do you start? Simply start running. Bruce Lee always said it was more
important to just get out and run rather than worry about times. Get a good pair of shoes by visiting a store
that deals with professional runners, not the local Foot Locker! Then simply start running every other day
for two weeks to see where you stand. How far can you go and at what pace? Listen to your body. Do your
shins hurt? Do your feet slap the ground? Do you lift your knees high? Is your breathing rhythmic? Do you
lean over or back when you run? Pay attention!
Over the first two weeks make note of these trends. Take the third week off to rest and recuperate. Many
beginners will develop stress fractures if they don’t lay off for a week and allow their bodies to heal. On the
fourth week start slow again. You should have done some research on your week off and a little swimming.
Work on your problem areas.

After about six weeks you can start getting pretty serious about running. If you haven’t yet, test your
best time on the one and three mile run. Now begin to do Specific Physical Preparation. This means
structuring your runs. Opinions vary but in general, more is not always better. Joe Galloway details his
Training Pyramid, which oddly enough is a great example of periodization. In reality, the first phase of the
Pyramid can be considered GPP.
Galloway recommends a 4-6 month cycle. The first 12 weeks make up the Base Training. This is
composed of:
Daily Runs: Relaxed, easy, and comfortable runs. These runs are simply a base. Your body simply has to
get used to running and allow the physiological changes that occur to take place. Run some faster, and
some slower. Periodization at this level involves pushing, then backing off.

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Long Runs: Every other week. Long runs should be run very slowly, 2 minutes slower that your projected
race pace if you want to be competitive. For us that race pace is 7 minutes per mile or faster so make your
long runs 9 minute miles.
Form Work: This isn’t saying you need to conform to someone else’s form. Your form is unique, though
you may find a lot of benefits from improving biomechanics. Galloway’s version of form work is a series
of 4-8 “acceleration gliders” during an easy run. For about 100 meters, pick up the RPMs of your legs to
speed up. This is not a max effort. Like the name implies, you should feel like you are gliding or skimming
over the earth. Coast for about 20-50 meters and return to your previous pace.
Races: Enter a race every month, but never more than one every other week. Don’t be foolish and enter a
race beyond your abilities. You are still training but the occasional race helps you see where you’re at and
help to motivate you. Don’t go all out, but do play with your pace a bit.

The next 3-4 weeks should see the addition of hill repeats on a slight gradient (3-7% grade) once a
week. Run uphill for a stretch of 50-200 meters, then walk or jog down hill and restart. You should be
running these hills at about 85%. Build up to 8-12 circuits. Don’t feel like you need to trash your self here,
its counter productive.

The final 8 weeks bring the introduction of speed work. It is important to cut down your mileage by
10%. Replace hills with specific speed work. You will still be doing long runs and as long as you do that
your speed work will help your speed at all distances. At this point your week might look like this:

Monday: Easy Run

Tuesday: Off/Swim
Wednesday: Speed work/Fartlek
Thursday: Off/Swim
Friday: Long Run
Saturday: Off/Swim
Sunday: Off

Variations are endless. A great way to incorporate speed work is the Fartlek run. To do a Fartlek you
select a comfortable pace. Then somewhere in the middle of it you perform a sprint. I have always like 100
meters for distance. Then drop back to your pace until you have recovered, then perform another sprint in
the same manner. Work up to 8-12 sprints per run. Half of those sprints should be all out. The other half
need not be that fast as an all out sprint is very taxing on the entire body, particularly the nervous system.
Another very effective way to incorporate speed work is by doing Intervals. The best interval workout I
have ever seen can be found in my article on www.specialtactics.com.
A word of warning for aspiring candidates! We live in a world centered on immediate gratification.
Speed work is a sure road to ruin if you do it too soon and too much! Any professional runner will tell you
this and that is why any good manual on running will advise you to start slow, build a base, increase the
difficulty, and only then incorporate speed work. Failure to heed this advice leads to shin splints, stress
fractures, over training, and failure to accomplish goals. Comrades, train smarter, not harder!

Running at Altitude?
The debates rage on about the purported benefits of running at altitude. When the
subject comes up there are all sorts of people who love to throw around scientific mumbo
jumbo about aerobic vs. anaerobic, VO2 Max, and muscle efficiency. For the average
Joe, none of that matters. Performance is the bottom line and it is backed by science. For
MILFIT readers I am cutting to the chase with out the detailed A&P discussions.
The controversy can be traced to two events. The first was the 1968 Olympic games,
which were held in Mexico City at an altitude of 2200m. Runners from East and North
Africa who were used to living and running at altitude dominated the distance events in
the games. The stage was set and when African runners began dominating long distance

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runs at all altitudes the conclusion was drawn that training at altitude was their edge.
Unfortunately rumors spread faster than scientific studies.
The second event was a series of studies conducted on elite US runners including the
1-mile world record holder Jim Ryun who had trained at altitude before dropping to sea
level for competition. Ryun recounts in his book how he actually stopped his first run at
altitude (2450m) and how he finished his first timed mile a full 37 seconds slower than
his most recent sea level race. In the end, when Ryun went to the 1968 Olympic games he
had improved his performance by an astounding 16% but was beaten by a very long 5
seconds by a Kenyan runner. Likewise, a group of British runners had tried the same type
of training as Ryun to improve by 3%, also far insufficient to come out on top. After
training at 2200m for four weeks their three-mile time was still 6% slower than their best
sea level performance. Sir Roger Bannister was asked after the games what it would take
to completely acclimatize to altitude. His reply was short and to the point, “There are two
ways. Be born at altitude… or train there for 25 years”.
That said, when Ryun finally returned to sea level, he set a new world record for the
1500m of 3:33.10. This prompted proponents of the Cardiovascular/Anaerobic Model to
cheer and announce that training at altitude was the way to train for competition.
However, when Dr Tim Noakes interviewed Ryun about this at Stanford University 21
years later, Ryun expressed serious doubts about training at altitude. He noted that at that
time he was getting more rest than he had ever gotten and he attributes his success to that,
backing up Galloway’s belief that more is not better. Noakes notes that the great majority
of US runners do not properly taper before competition leading to substandard
performances.
Returning to the issue at hand, since 1950 there have been 92 studies on training at
altitude. Only four of them showed favorable results and one very carefully controlled
study actually pointed to a decrease in performance immediately upon returning to sea
level! Noakes also points to indirect evidence of this. If you look at the times, there was a
distinct decline in performance on the world stage in running between 1968 and 1971.
Why? Well, as a matter of fact, during those four years all the worlds best runners were
training at altitude!!! Furthermore, it is notable that the progression of men’s world
records was slower from 1968 to 1994 than that of 1950-1968. This is the exact opposite
of what should have happened if training at altitude actually worked.
So, does training at altitude actually work? The scientific and Olympic communities
reflect with both data and performance stats, no it does not. In fact two very meticulous
studies (Chapman et al 1998; Levine and Stray-Gundersen 1997 found that sub-elite
athletes who lived at 2500m but trained at 1300m improved 1.4% (14 sec) in 5000m time
trial performance for up to three weeks after returning to seal level! Current research
shows that even if training at altitude does improve race performance at sea level, the
effect is far too small to be considered as a practical tool for training competitive runners.

Second Wind
We have all heard of the second wind. The point when you suddenly feel refreshed
and as if you can run on again forever. Some equate it to the runners high which is
actually a release of endorphins into the blood stream.
Researchers have studied the second wind phenomenon and what they found may
surprise you. The onset of the second wind actually corresponds to your body using the

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diaphragm and “belly breathing” as opposed to the “accessory” muscles of the upper
chest. These results speak volumes about people today and points to deficiencies that the
Russians, Chinese, and Japanese have known for centuries.
The fact is that most Americans believe that breathing must be a rise and fall of the
chest. So prevalent is this thought that EMS students are taught to watch for rise and fall
of the chest to determine if a patient is breathing. I have seen doctors in the ER make this
same mistake. Sociologically we have detrained our body’s natural methods. Such
arrogance! To think we know better than Mother Nature!
I first experienced this when I began training in Ninjutsu when I was taught to breath
with the belly. My runs suddenly got a whole lot easier! People carry stress in their
shoulders, neck, and chest. These muscle tense and cause further physiological issues to
present themselves. The predomination with sucking in the belly and breathing with
accessory muscles ensures that we don’t get the oxygen we need. Sure, you look macho,
but lets go for a run! Worse still, put on all your kit and lets go for a run!
In essence, when the second wind kicks in, your body has had enough and it finds the
most efficient way to breath it knows how to access. To learn belly breathing lie on the
floor and place a book or a 5-10lb plate on your belly button. Now breathe in a manner
that lifts the book or weight up and down. Your chest should move very little if at all. Get
used to this, and then go for a jog. It may take a few weeks to fully adopt it but it’s worth
it. By the way, this isn’t just my opinion. Dr. Noakes and Joe Galloway both stress the
importance of “belly breathing”. Galloway states, “Deep breathing or belly breathing
makes running easier.” Noakes outlines the same training model I have presented above.
Enjoy!!

Living By The Motto,

Nathanael Morrison

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