Thursday, July 2, 2015

Book Review - Unbreakable Runner by TJ Murphy & Brian Mackenzie

Unbreakable Runner by Murphy and Mackenzie

I have been a very fortunate runner. Prior to 1995 I never ran any further than down into the kitchen to grab a late night snack. Back then I was consumed with strength training, more specifically the three power lifts - squats, deadlifts and the bench press. Get big! Get strong! That's the ticket ... or at least it was at the time. One day I began to realize that while lifting really large amounts of weight could be fun, it didn't really get me to where I wanted to be. By the time I was in my mid-20s I hurt like a much older man.

Around 1995 my focus began to change. I continued to strength train, but started to run a little. Then I ran a little more. Then I lost some weight, began to have less pain, and ran a little more. By 1998 I was running half marathons, with my first marathon the following year.

Strength training became less important, but still remained. The more crazy the endurance racing got - marathons, triathlons, eventually Ironman triathlons - the less I hit the weights. But unlike many, I continued to strength train. Not like I did in a past life, of course, but still enough to keep the body strong. And honestly, I never gave it much thought. I enjoyed lifting weights so I continued to do it.

Which leads us to Unbreakable Runner: Unleash the Power of Strength & Conditioning for a Lifetime of Strong Running. As an endurance athlete there are two things that eventually come to the forefront of your mind - the desire to get faster and the reality that injuries occur. Not surprisingly, injuries are more likely the harder you push in training in the quest for a PR. Problem is, if you get injured it is hard to run fast as training becomes compromised.

TJ Murphy knows all about this. For many years Murphy's training protocol looked like the traditional high-mileage schedule. Over time it played havoc on his body, leading to injury and lots of downtime. Murphy came upon Mackenzie as a result of a story he would write on Mackenzie. His injury history and frequent downtime him to give Mackenzie's approach a try.

And who is Brian Mackenzie? The founder of   CrossFit Endurance (CFE), a much different approach to endurance training. How different? As Murphy puts it in the writer's note, CFE is "either the best training innovation since the interval workout or a fatal virus out to destroy all that was pure and good in running." Clearly, Mackenzie is a polarizing figure.

So now that we know the approach here is polarizing, we need to know what is so different. To start, the approach here is about health and sustainability.  Unlike CrossFit, which is about developing all around athleticism, CrossFit Endurance is about sports-specific performance. When it comes to running, the CFE athlete will work on developing running skills, balance, flexibility and mobility. Nutrition is also a focus.

And CrossFit Endurance is exactly what the book is about. Over the course of the first five chapters you will learn the what and the how of Mackenzie's method. The final chapter is devoted to sample programs for all distances from the 5k through ultra distance. Appendix A is devoted to building your own home gym and Appendix B gives sample individualized programs for CFE.

Who Should Read "Unbreakable Runner"?

While the title of the book is attractive to any serious runner, the contents are not. I know enough endurance athletes to know that there are many who would be closed-minded to such a different approach. I can hear the arguments already: "I'm not a lifter," "this will never work," "I would miss my road time with my peeps," ... I'm sure you could add one or two of your own.

What attracted me to this book was a knowledge of Mackenzie as well as TJ Murphy's story from broken runner to reborn endurance athlete. What kept me reading was my understanding of what the authors were saying. And honestly, not all of this is new to a traditional running program, just repackaged around less mileage and CrossFit training.

Personally I got a lot from this book. While I am not making such a radical change in what I do, I have been a lower mileage runner for a few years now. I have started making subtle changes to my workload while introducing or modifying some of the non-running parts of the plan.

Bottom line: I recommend this book to anyone who is open-minded enough to at least consider a different approach to endurance training.

Train hard. Stay focused.
Jon

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