Hey Reader!

Happy New Year!

December is a fun month. You think you'll have time and suddenly, poof! It's January... After a few weeks off to recharge, hopefully like many of you, I'm feeling ready to hit 2025 with some enthusiasm.

That's what I'm telling myself at least. In reality, a lot of people come off the holiday period tired, stressed, unmotivated, and often injured or sick.

From what I've seen it's due to a lack of routine, less optimal eating and drinking habits, and the idea that we can train hard with the time off but have less available energy. If you're in the southern hemisphere like me, it's also hot!

When we are in this funk, at any time of year, cross-training can help massively. Even when training is going well, for many reasons we may use other forms of exercise to maintain and improve our running performance.

Today, we're going to cover cross-training and how you can look to include it in your running journey.

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What is cross-training?

Cross-training is any other form of physical activity that has a direct or indirect effect on our running. For this newsletter, I am not including strength training within this means as I see this as concurrent, year-round, for all runners.

Cross-training is most likely to be one of the following:

• Biking
• Aqua-jogging
• Swimming
• Elliptical
• Eliptigo
• Arc Trainer
• Arm Cycle

Depending on cross-training due to injury or to supplement your regular running the type of exercise you choose will likely vary.

Train like a runner

Regardless of due to an injury or to supplement running, remember what you are: a runner.

You may have heard/been told that, because of the low impact, you can train more on the bike, for example, than running. Those 30-minute runs can become 60 if you have time, or the longer run on the weekend can become a 3-4 hour ride.

Well, remember, unless you have this training method in your regular schedule, this is a novel stimulus that will cause a lot of breakdowns within the muscles as well as general soreness from specific positions. Jumping from 5 hours of running a week to 8 hours of biking the next is not going to be productive for your training or health.

If you haven't been including this cycling in your training you will also be incredibly unskilled and so need time to develop your efficiency with this means of training.

Think like a runner and use the cross-training means to aid your recovery or to aid your training. Don't start training like a cyclist or a swimmer.

Cross-training when injured.

The number one most important thing to focus on when injured is to get better. To get better, your body needs energy to repair whatever is wrong.

This means that going out and hammering intervals on the bike or the elliptical because you have a key event in 4 weeks and you're afraid to lose fitness is most likely the worst possible thing you could do for race day.

Instead, mimic your running training with your cross-training for the first week - working with the assumption that the cross-training does not aggravate symptoms and the injury isn't too severe.

If you run 5 days a week with a workout and long run then do that, being sure to listen to your body and most likely vary the type of cross-training within the week to avoid overuse issues due to unfamiliar postural positions and mechanical demands.

Sometimes the best approach is to have a 1-4 weeks fully off, or as advised by your health care provider, before picking up cross-training to help with the initial recovery period.

Once you have got into the rhythm of this new training then volume can be increased and, depending on the duration of time away from running, intensity can be more frequently added than running.

Once returning to running, keep your cross-training going until you can partake in a full training load. As we are about to discuss below, there is also a strong argument for keeping a form or cross-training year-round.

Cross-training to support running.

Regardless of whether you are a new runner or an elite-level runner, keeping a form of cross-training within your week can be of great help to your training.

Within reason, more running is going to the better runners. However, depending on training age, injury history, lifestyle factors, and genetic predispositions, you may not be able to run enough to maximise the aerobic development you are capable of - your engine could be bigger and more efficient but your body can't do the work.

New/Returning Runners

For new and returning runners, cross-training is very useful to supplement the "fitness" side of running whilst you build the frequency and load tolerance up. I will see great success with adding one or two bike/elliptical sessions a week whilst someone starts running.

Sometimes these cross-training sessions are an easy ride but more often they are at moderate to higher intensities that develop your aerobic and anaerobic capacities, ready for when your running can utilise them.

For example, you don't need to run to develop your lactate threshold, we can do this on the bike just as well. What's missing is the impact and developing the mechanical side for running specifically; this will come.

Experienced Runners

For more experienced runners, we can still make great use of cross-training.

1) Running load limited

If, for whatever reason, you are injury prone when doing higher volumes/frequency of training then switching most/all of your easy runs to cross-training can allow you to still develop your aerobic system - think zone 2 and zone 3 - and then do your specific event work running.

This may mean you only run 2-3 days per week but that can be enough, alongside strength training, to still be able to perform at a very high level.

Note: we are currently seeing this a lot in the US collegiate system where, especially the women, are taking this approach and winning titles.

2) Developing athlete

If you are beginning to increase training yet feel like you have the energy for more but your body isn't there yet, adding an extra training session which is cross-training can help bridge the gap while you develop more as a runner.

This can take the form of an extra day of aerobic zone 2 exercise or as an extra high-end aerobic session where we develop tempo and lactate threshold alongside your running session for the week, regardless of what that is targeting.

3) Off-season & base building

It is tempting to run year-round, keep putting the miles in, and go from event to event. Mentally, let alone physically, this can be very taxing. Not that I am saying you should completely stop running - I think a 1-2 week break can be useful if you need it - but that switch some of your runs to another form of exercise. Go on a gravel or mountain bike ride, try surfing or a stand-up paddle board if you're at the beach, or go on some hikes.

This will not only give your body some time to absorb and recover from the likely 11+ months of hard work, but it also gives your mind time away from daily, structured, running.

The other side to this is as you enter a base or foundational phase of training, including cross-training can assist in either developing the aerobic side or leaving space for you to work on the speed side of running without putting too much overall stress on your body through running.

4) Active recovery

Recovery doesn't always need to be passive. It can be very beneficial to have an active recovery means in your week. For very developed runners this can be a recovery run where you feel better at the end than at the start.

For a lot of runners, though, running is too high of a stressor to have a restorative effect and thus switching this to a form of cross-training is necessary.

Active recovery has the following benefits:

• Improved Blood Circulation: Active recovery helps maintain increased blood flow, which facilitates the removal of metabolic waste products such as lactic acid from the muscles, reducing soreness and stiffness.
• Enhanced Muscle Repair and Recovery: The gentle movement during active recovery promotes oxygen and nutrient delivery to muscle tissues, speeding up the repair process and reducing muscle fatigue.
• Psychological Benefits: Active recovery can improve mood and reduce stress, making you feel refreshed and motivated for your next training session.
• Prevention of Stiffness and Tightness: By keeping the body moving, active recovery can help maintain the range of motion and reduce the risk of stiffness in joints and muscles.

5) Direct training support

In a few cases, using a cross-training modality can aid in the specific demands of a race you may be doing. Examples include:

• Using the bike to develop uphills
• Using the stair climber for trail runs with stairs
• Learning to mountain bike to improve technical trail running

These are very specific cases but highlight there are other times to use cross-training.

Takeaways

I hope with this you can see 2 concepts:

1. Being injured doesn't mean you do nothing, just don't do everything.
2. Being a runner doesn't mean we just run.

Specifically for point 2, unless you can run for 10-12 hours and 6 days a week, there is potential room for growth (ignoring the likelihood of time and energy constraints).

From Parker Valby setting multiple US Collegiate National Records to David Roche breaking unbreakable 100-mile trail running records, the top of the sport is using these concepts to train smarter and more effectively which means you can likely get benefit from them, too.

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Past Newsletter Editions

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Closing Thoughts

A nice way to kickstart 2025 with a great way to level up as a runner this year!

If you have been enjoying this newsletter so far please consider sharing it with a running buddy who you think could get some tips from reading this.

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