I haven't read the book but one of the biggest improvements to my running (race performance) came from "learning" to pace by feel.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

I so need this book. Forgot my Garmin on my bike at IMWI. Been having problems properly pacing all year and went out WAY too fast on the run and blew at mile 11.

Placing my order now.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I can't believe that someone actually wrote a book about how to run by feel, I guess the sequel will be how to bike by feel and how to swim by feel, I can't believe people are so far removed from listening to they're bodies that they need to buy a book. People take the HR,Garmin and head phones off! I suppose their's money to be made by writing a book about how to pace sexual intercourse

I've forgotten my GPS (or didn't charge it) a few times lately and ran by feel and elapsed time instead. It made me realize that things can go wrong in your race, and your watch crapping out on you could be a big one. I now try to forget the watch at least once a week (or use it to collect data but don't look at it during the run, usually). It would still be a rough day, but even you don't want to go over to completely running by feel it's a good idea to at least practice it every so often.

x2

Ironically, people trying to "run by feel" will be over-thinking based on what they read in the book.

It's hard to take Matt Fitzgerald seriously. A couple of years after he wrote this he started shilling for a company that gives you real-time "coaching" in your ear through your smartphone. Telling you when to speed up, slow down, start an interval, cool down, etc.

Pretty much the extreme opposite of running by feel.

Pace? Pfftt!! It is a sprint to see who finishes first. So far, I am unbeaten.

making simple training complicated!

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

I had my GPS and still ran too fast and honestly didn't pay that much attention to it the rest of the way and mostly race by feel. There were too many false flats and elevation changes to really get a perfect sense of pace anyway. I just need to feel slower next time.

This is one place where doing a few more short transition runs off to long rides might help. Not for any fitness benefit, but to train myself to slow down.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

Ya, I think he's just out to make money with the 5 or 6 diff books he's written, when you could boil it all down into a few sentences:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I agree that he is hard to take seriously. The guy seems to publish a book every six to twelve months and some times on a silly topic (running by feel). Not to mention the whole "Iron War" fiasco a couple of years ago where Matt wrote about Dave and Mark facing off in Hawaii. Dave and Mark both came out asking people not to buy the book because they didn't participate in the writing of it and didn't like they were portrayed.

I feel fortunate to be old enough to have been runing for decades before GPS watches and heart rate monitors.

I can save anyone the cost of this book. Here's how to learn to run by feel: Go for a run and either don't look at your GPS/HRM or don't wear it. Then do it again and again. Then race that way. Repeat until you learn how to race most of the time without blowing up or finishing with too much left.

Race weight and the 3+ other associated books are my fav. Eat less to Weigh less and run faster. Rocket surgery!

I don't see technology as exclusive to learning how to pace "naturally" or "listening" to your body.

Looking at your pace on a Garmin is no different than timing with a stopwatch, just quicker and easier.

Fixed that for you.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Maybe, maybe not. I haven't read the book but from reading reviews I understand that Matt tried to capture their humanity in ways that both Dave and Mark felt were inaccurate and possibly damaging to their image.

Neither one is used to learn how to pace naturally.

I agree, I just don't see how there's a book there. Maybe make the print really,really big.

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Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.

         
>Neither one is used to learn how to pace naturally.

Well I guess that depends on your definition of "naturally," but in high school and collegiate track (middle distance) I found that years of interval workouts using simple 400m lap times ingrained in me an accurate, innate sense of pacing from that I've used the rest of my life. Tell me to go run an 75-second 400m without a watch, and I bet I can nail it to within a second or two.

That's technology used in concert with body awareness.

I think it gave me a more effective method of goal-oriented training than running interval workouts willy-nilly by "feel." I'm sure going by feel would be fine for recreational purposes, but when you're training to beat the dude who you know can run a 1:51 800m it's important to know not only what that feels like, but to know for sure that you're making legitimate progress towards a specific goal pace. Show me a serious swimmer or track athlete who didn't train with a big ass clock somewhere on the pool/track.


I understand the argument against excessive use of gadgets. But going too far in that direction is, in my opinion, just luddism.

 
>I agree, I just don't see how there's a book there. Maybe make the print really,really big.

I don't see how everyone can criticize a book in detail without having read it.

I read "Iron War" when it first came out in the fall of 2011, and have to say that I loved it. I'm quite sure that I will read it again and prob a third time. I can't see how either Mark or Dave could object to their portrayal in this book, as they are both treated as super-human guys. In light of my first comment in this thread, I'll have to grant that Matt has written at least one excellent book:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I tend to read a book and base my comments on the book and what is written in it, unlike some on this forum who comment on books they have not read and slag off the author.

Maybe you'll enjoy the book I'm working on...."How to Warm up Pop Tarts". It should be out in the spring.

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Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.

A few things here;

First like someone else said a lot of people are bashing this book despite never having read it...the entire book is not just "hey go out there and run the pace you feel comfortable with all the time". It does show how to use other forms of pacing with tempo/track work/fafrtleks/ect in there. In the book Fitzgerald does talk about how some runners are so focused on pace that they feel they need to hold exactly what a table tells them to, which sometimes slows them down, sometimes speeds them up.

It also talks about different ways to implement training, such as periodization or basically training the same workouts year round just changing pace. There is a lot of good information, and I found it worthwhile to read. Only thing that kind of "surprised" me was when he mentions at one point where he knew nothing about triathlon and was contracted to write a book on it, and then put together a training plan book. Here I spent the first two years of doing tri's following that like it was gospel.

Second; I just read his second book, 80/20, and it really contradicts a lot of stuff in "Run". He says that really you should not just be running at your natural pace when doing 80% of you training because naturally your body will be running too fast, in that zone that's not really helping in the aspect of not giving you straight aerobic work/letting you recover for the next run, and not enough stress for the 20% that is the real work. Found that very interesting that just a few years after he's changed his philosophy on the matter.

Either way I like having something to read that kills sometime so that's why I found both of those books worthwhile to read along with some of his others.