Running training. Two words that put fear in anyone who does run. But for those of us that do, these two words make us deliriously happy. Try to explain this to the non-runner!

Running, training, Jornet. Three words that put fear in any runner. Killian Jornet was born in a small hut, 2000m high on the slopes of a mountain in Spain. Growing up in the mountains, their entertainment was running and playing in the mountains. Now, at just 23 years of age, Kilian Jornet has broken almost every trail and mountain running record. He also goes in search of his own – record crossing of Mount Blanc and fastest ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro are just to name a couple. In Europe, his name sits on the table next to the salt and pepper. This year, his status became even more legendary after he won the Trail du Mont Blanc. For Jornet, running and training is happiness,

‘Breaking a record doesn’t motivate me. I want to go fast in the mountains, without assistance, without help. Just me and the mountain, to explore my capacities, the “animal” capacities, not technologic or equipment capacities.’

Jornet sparked my quest to write about running training. As a performance consultant and runner, I look for inspiration and new ideas all around me. I read, watch, listen and try to learn how experts, such as Jornet, find that extra 0.01%. I recently typed into Google three words – Running, training and Jornet.

Linking the mind & body

‘When I am at home I enjoy spending time in the bush. I leave in the morning between 3 and 5am then again in the afternoon around 1pm. I train three to four hours in the morning and one to two hours in the afternoon. Always on a mountain, a technician, to climb a peak, traverse a valley. The intensity depends on how I feel. If I’m tired, I slow down. Gassss if I feel good. My motto, if your mind is OK, your body will be OK.’

If your mind is OK, your body will be OK. This sounds simple. Is it too simple?

I recently wrote a large research piece on stress and its effects on injury and illness. What I discovered astounded me. All the research indicates that elevated stress levels lead to an increase in unwarranted musculoskeletal pain, weaker muscles and bones, and elevated illness risks. From our Western point of view, Jornet’s training schedule should surely lead to disaster. Even with his motor engine of a VO2 max of 92, ultra racing threshold of 190 beats per minute (bpm), and resting heart rate of 34bpm, Jornet must eventually break? Perhaps his protection is not his physical attributes but rather his mind and just how pure his enjoyment of running is?

‘I think the most important thing about running is not to think too much about training. It’s not about times or splits. When you start worrying too much about your training, that’s bad. Just enjoy running and being in the mountains.’

Jornet’s training program reflects his running values. For him, running is not training but rather a way of exploring his place in his world. Explore a new valley. Climb a new mountain. Do repetitions up a new trail. Seek perfection whilst having perfect fun.

This raises two questions. Can we imitate Jornet’s style of training in our normal routines that often involve cities, pavements, roads and cars? Should we imitate his freer mountain lifestyle with our dark mornings, full-time work, children…? I believe the answer is yes if we are to continue to run without illness and injury.

The purpose of training programs

We need training programs. They form a foundation that allows us to structure our running sessions, monitor our progression and substitute in new learning when we can. However, too often I see runners ‘broken’, heavily fatigued or just disenchanted with running. Either they have been haphazardly training with no structure at all and pushing past their natural limitations, ignoring the cautioning signals, or they have a training program set so heavily in concrete that the whole process of running has lost its art form. For the latter runners, the sport has become a chore.

It is important to understand the science of structured training. I view the training planner as your brake, not your accelerator. It is always easy to tell yourself to go harder, longer, higher. It is much harder to know when to stop. Your training planner can become your personalized reference and help to answer the difficult questions - when should I go long? When can I go hard? How often can I peak for a race? How much do I need to rest and recover? But when is enough, enough?

Body systems and Jornet’s principle of individuality

‘Each person is unique. Not only morphological and physiological characteristics are different, the man is something more than the sum of these parts. It is a mistake to expect identical reactions between two individuals performing the same job. This principle is crucial because it indicates that it is not to copy what others do.’ – Jornet, 2012

When you start out as a runner, both the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems take equal charge of your abilities: heavy breathing, racing heart and legs yelling STOP!But as we get fitter and our cardiovascular system becomes stronger, the body’s limits become fuzzier. You begin to relax as you run, control your breathing and don’t pull up too sore. So how do we know when to stop?

The cardiovascular system becomes quiet as soon as you stop running. The musculoskeletal system only tells you to stop when the muscle fibers tear too far, a bone becomes unhappy or you really hit the wall. Therefore, forming a training planner and monitoring these systems over time will allow you to understand where your limits are and then guide you with less risk of injury or illness. This process is science, it needs to be learnt and it needs to be individualized.

Focus, goal setting and Jornet’s principle of overloads

The focus
When I work with my clients, I begin by asking them, ‘why do you run and exercise?’ Their response to this question forms the focus of everything that they do with their sport.For example, ‘I run because it helps me remain less stressed at work’. This is not a goal but instead a value that keeps everything they do with their running in perspective. For Jornet, this is his love of running fast in the mountains.

The goals
Goals should not be pass or fail items but rather all the events and missions that make you fidgety with excitement. Big, small, fast, long… they should all go into the training planner. There is usually one or two big races a year that grab your focus from the start and to which your training can be tailored. Excitement, spontaneity and the body’s state of repair closer to the day should be used to determine whether you enter and run in any of the others.

Overloads
The purpose of training is to damage muscle fibers so that when there is adequate time to rest, they repair with more strength and agility. Racing is even harder on the body and needs to be adequately compensated for. Month-to-month, week-to-week, day-to-day, the flow of training and racing needs to be built towards a pinnacle of intensity or volume, and then a planned time of rest can follow to allow the body to recover. My clients are asked to plan these things – the hard months and the easy weeks; the hard days and the easy days. Jornet calls this the principle of overloads.

‘A workout is a burden, a job, and a break is needed in order to benefit from it. The loads can build up but then require a rest period to recover, so as not to encounter overtraining.’

Planning and Jornet’s principles of flexibility & continuity

We should use our training program to know when it is sensible to apply ‘gassss’ or when we need to recover. We can use it to guide us on when to train for volume or speed. Without contradicting myself, having this structure then allows us to be flexibility… because life is a flexible thing. As Jornet states, ‘If I’m tired, I slow down. Gassss if I feel good.’

When you see a mountain, run up it. When you find a trail, follow it. When you wonder what lies down the road, find out. Just ensure there is continuity and specificity, all within the limits of your training planner. Jornet explains,

‘Training has to be play and mimic the most similar features found in the competition. Racing across a mountain means we must train in the mountains and on technical trails. Continuity is essential to maintain a good fitness level.’

Rejajado and Jornet’s principle of recovery

Recovery must be structured into the program. It looks after both your body and your mind. If there is no time set aside to rest, the muscles and their protective connective tissue continue to be pushed and stretched, pulled and micro-torn. The damage builds and every system in the body will be sent messages from the brain that we are under stress triggering the body to begin the flight-or-fight response. The release of additional hormones and neurotransmitters, as well as the damage in the muscles and connective tissue puts the body at significant risk of injury or illness. One to three rest or recovery days can help to prevent this harmful reaction and ensure that you get the most out of the harder days of training.

In order to achieve what he does, Jornet must be King of Recovery. As he explains,

‘It is perhaps more important than even the active phase. Recovery is not training but rather rejajado… relaxation… stretching, drinking … When your mind is OK, your body is OK.’

Explore within a structure

In summary, if we follow a training structure but be adaptive and sensible we give ourselves the opportunity to experience running as the art-form of exploration. We can set ourselves challenges, explore the backwaters of our local suburb, be spontaneous with friends, and all within the bounds of our training planner. We can trial things, practice, fail and then ultimately seek to perfect the winning concepts. In my own words, if it feels good, it is good, then keep running till you believe you are good. After all, if you get the hard runs completed, and you work consistently to recover… who knows how many more Jornet’s are hidden in Australia?