Speed Runner
Speed Runner
If you’ve been a runner for long enough you’ll recognize the name Pete Magill. The American distance runner was a respected columnist for the now-defunct Running Times, focusing on coaching tips for masters runners. Magill himself has set a slew of masters agegroup records and is a decorated coach of athletes over 40.
Magill’s new book, Speed Runner, isn’t about improving your halfmarathon time (although some of the training methods in this book will help with that). It’s a training book focused on pure, anaerobic speed, and proposes that it will help a broad group of athletes who run improve their quickness, power and agility.
This book is fundamentally about wisely (and safely) training your nervous system to rapidly communicate with your connective tissue and muscles; and for none of it to breakdown as your body responds. Its training philosophy and subsequent plans focus on leg speed, core strength, building explosive power and harnessing neuromuscular control. Magill looks at how a runner’s gait cycle functions, how to improve upon acceleration and tuning your body for your max velocity in these chapters. There’s also a key section all about the importance of balance, something many distance runners don’t really every think about, but is a fundamental aspect of becoming more efficient (and injury-free). Magill also dedicates an entire chapter to proper recovery, which he wisely points out is where all the actual improvements occur.
The big breakdown of each training plan takes place at the back of the book. Each four-week module typically includes three workouts a week, varying from system to system to avoid overburdening any one element of the body. Some drills do require props, but there are non-prop alternatives suggested, in case you don’t have a sled kicking around the backyard. Annoyingly for Canadians, much of the book’s workouts and distance references are in yards and not metres. Magill suggests doing a 1:1 conversion on the f ly, because the difference isn’t dramatic over such short distances.
Because Speed Runner seeks to reach beyond a hardcore audience, the book’s appeal is vague. It seems most aimed at two very different groups: the football prospect who needs to sharpen their 40-yard dash time in order to score a scholarship, and the aging masters runner, looking to find a second act to their running career on the track after pounding their slow twitch muscles for years on the roads. It’s both a generalist how-to and incredibly specific training manual at the same time. Magill will be most familiar to the latter interest group, and his credentials speak specifically to that world, but for many runners, the idea of “speed” means getting those mile repeats down, not building the nervous system ability to fire off a powerful block start. It’s too bad, because most runners could benefit from the balance and explosive speed drills outlined in Speed Runner, even if we never plan on sprinting down the homestretch of a track. Proper speed training not only does the obvious for our ability to move our legs faster, but it also staves off injury and helps improve our ability to get the job done over much longer hauls.— MD