Using CrossFit to learn how to run a 5K, 10K, Half & Full Marathon

I am a firm believer that when used properly, CrossFit can be used to help us achieve any fitness goal we have no matter how big or small.

Coming in March to Heavy Metal Strength and Conditioning/ CrossFit Valencia, we are going to teach a CrossFit Endurance Class designed specifically to help you run your first marathon.

One thing we pride ourselves on here at Heavy Metal is helping people reach their goals regardless of size. If your goal is to run a 5K or 10K, great come join us. A little hungrier? Always wanted to get a half or full marathon under your belt? Perfect! We want to make people a little bit better each and every day and our new endurance class will allow you to crush your endurance goals.

Now what if I also told you that you were going to run a marathon and spend less than five hours a week training for it? If you want to run a marathon but have a busy schedule, then this style of training is perfect for you. How can we accomplish such a seemingly daunting task?

First things first, running a marathon is one of the hardest things the body can go through! In order to prepare for this we are going to spend time injury proofing the body. We need to get our shock-absorbers (legs) in good enough shape to take the constant foot stomping of three or more hours of running. We do this by fixing all of our muscles imbalances, weaknesses, and immobility. If we don’t fix these things before we start it is like having a problem with our car. If we have a problem with our car and it doesn’t get fixed and we keep driving on it, at some point all of those miles pile up and eventually something will fail. Your body is the exact same way and we want to avoid any injuries while training to keep us on track of our goal of finishing a marathon.

Once we have gotten our shock absorbers ready it is then time to learn how to run. We will spend at least two days a week learning proper running technique. We need to learn this so that when we run we are not wasting energy or running in a way that could leave us vulnerable to overuse injuries. Strong legs and good technique will allow running significant distances injury free.

The next thing we need to do is add intensity. We want to do this because we want to see how long our running technique can last. The hardest part of running a marathon is when you get tired your technique is the first thing to go, and when that happens we might as well be running a marathon with a flat tire, and flat tires cause lots of wear and tear on the body.

Once we are able to keep good running technique across a different range of intensities we next need to learn how to pace ourselves so that we can sustain our form throughout an entire 26.2 miles. Sounds easy enough right?

How are we going to be doing it? As you may have noticed we talk a lot about how we need to keep our body injury free so we are able to make our runs and recover day in and day out. You also may have been wondering how are we going to be able to run a marathon with less than five hours of training a week? Well it is simple. We are going to have four workouts a week. Yes only four. We are going to have three workouts a week that are CrossFit workouts designed to build our strength and endurance. Two of the three workouts during the week will have a running technique lesson where we will practice and perfect our running techniques with sprints and short distances. On the weekends we will run a little bit longer and slowly build up the distances we cover, always emphasizing good running technique. Now one of the biggest things here is that we will never run more than twenty miles a week. What? How can you run 26.2 miles at once if you have never even run twenty in a week? The Answer? CrossFit.

The general fitness base CrossFit classes give will supplement the low mileage programming. The CrossFit classes will greatly increase your strength and endurance without excessively pounding the lower limbs like a traditional marathon program. High mileage style training is unsustainable, the body will break down. Using CrossFit as your base, you will be able to slowly increase your running capacity while avoiding injury and mentally draining (and boring) long distance runs.

And that my friends is how we are using CrossFit to help us reach our fitness goals! Think it can’t be done? Well come in and try out our endurance classes for a free week! Classes start in March! Let the March Madness BEGIN!!!!!

If you are interested in the CrossFit Endurance classes, email us at heavymetalsc@gmail.com or give us a call at 661.294.6544.