Kevorka

That word looks familiar doesn’t it?

Go ahead and pronounce it. KE-VOR-KA.

Now it sounds familiar.

Where have you seen it? Where have you heard it?

Let me help. Remember the Seinfeld episode in which George was converting to Latvian Orthodox? Well one of the “sisters in training” kind of found herself powerfully attracted to Kramer.

Kramer was told he had “Kevorka” or the “Lure of the Wolf.”

Last week I became a victim of the running Kevorka…the lure of over training….to run faster and/or farther…when it’s so unnecessary.

This is what happened to me. After finally signing up for yet another WDW half-marathon I said to myself, “Okay time to ramp up the training.”

Even though I was running a modest 15 miles per week and gradually building each week I decided to jump it up a bit and increase my mileage considerably. I said to myself, “I really need to start logging at least xx number of miles per week.”

Well, that turned out to be a not so good idea. By the end of the week I had run a lot of miles but I was hurting….knees…calfs…ankles. I had over trained”¦curse you Kevorka.

I was training for the half-marathon when I should have focused on a training regimen to prepare me for a local 5K or 10K race or even the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 13K race.

I had committed the error that I so try to preach and warn everyone about. I did not practice what I preached and I’m here telling you that everyone is prone to overtraining”¦from the first time runners to those who have been running for decades and who should know better.

Now I have made this mistake in the past. Usually a month or so before a race I will find myself doing a little interval running and putting forth bursts of speed during some of my runs. That can become a problem as it’s easy to do in a hamstring with sudden bursts of speed.

I know”¦it happened to me last October during the Race for the Cure 5K. I was some 50 feet from the finish line at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and “Oops” five minutes after hopping across the finish line I found myself in the medical tent getting “familiar” with about a quarter ton of ice thinking”¦.”How am I going to run tomorrow’s Race for the Taste 10K?”

My point here is that it is so easy to subconsciously over train that you really have to be focused on how much time you have before the “big race” and to properly train for the race by gradually building up your stamina.

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BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

The 2008 Walt Disney World Marathon is now closed as registration capacity has been reached. However all is not lost as there are a number of groups to which you may join if you still are interested in doing the race. If you need more information please go to The 2008 Walt Disney World Groups page.

BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!
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Don’t over train. Keep yourself in check every time you go out. I am not saying don’t extend yourself”¦just don’t over extend yourself.

Your primary concern should be to gradually build up your leg stamina and improve your cardio-vascular conditioning. As you do this you will find you can extend your workouts for longer periods of time. As these workouts become longer and longer your conditioning gets better and better.

If you are planning to run a distance you have never run before gradually build up your stamina so that you can cover the distance in a comfortable time.

How can you best do this? Well let’s say for the sake of argument that you are training for a 10K (6.2 mile) race and you have been running for only a few months. You pace is currently 14 minutes a mile and you are far from hitting that 10K mark.

No problem.

If you were to do a 10K at that pace then it would take you about 87 minutes to cover the course.

Your objective should be not to run faster but to build up your stamina so that you will be able to go out and just run for 87 minutes. If you are running 20 minutes today then maybe every other day or so add one to two minutes to your workouts. In one month you will find yourself running anywhere from an additional 15 to as much as 30 minutes from today. Not bad.

But here’s the bonus that you will realize and that is that over the course of your training you WILL increase your speed. This increase is a natural phenomenon because what happens is that your cardiovascular system becomes more “tuned” and more efficient because you are in effect getting your whole body in shape and that includes your inner machine.

Also, you will slowly be adjusting the balance of power in your body. As the weeks and months go by you will see an increase in muscle and a drop in fat.

I guarantee that if you gradually add a minute or two to each workout then you won’t need 87 minutes to cover the 10K distance.

But remember”¦.stamina first”¦not speed. If you go with speed first then you run the risk of overtraining.

It’s much safer and smarter to say”¦”Yesterday I ran for 30 minutes and today I will run for 32 minutes”

Don’t say to yourself, “I want to do at least one 12 minute mile today!”

No! Don’t fall prey to Kevorka.

Hmmm, I just thought of something else I need to mention to you. It’s a piece of equipment that can be a runner’s friend or enemy.

It’s very much in line with our discussion point today and I’ll tie it in on our next visit.