say I do 6x1k intervals at critical velocity (10k pace). does this workout - in your personal experience - has a better, worse or equal training effect on your lactate threshold than 6x1k at LT pace would have had?
say I do 6x1k intervals at critical velocity (10k pace). does this workout - in your personal experience - has a better, worse or equal training effect on your lactate threshold than 6x1k at LT pace would have had?
It depends on what other workouts I have done lately.
I would say CV has a better training effect than LT if you do the same number of reps of the same distance.
On the other hand, if I compare your CV workout to 5 x 2k at LT which might be closer to the same effort, I would say the CV workout will help my 5k more and the LT would help my 10k more.
10k pace training helps 5k more than it helps your 10k performance??
Interesting question.
I almost never train at 10k pace, but I see lots of folks do it now, including plenty who have had lots of success.
My philosophy on avoiding 10k pace has always been based on a Danielsesque philosophy of focusing on different training systems. When I train, I seek to achieve the adptation with the least amount of stress on my body as possible.
So if I can effectively cause LT adaptations at 5:20-5:25 pace, I always choose that over doing it at 5:10 to 5:15 pace. This begs the question of whether the faster pace results in more lactic acid build up and resulting my more adptation. Daniels would suggest it doesn't, but I wonder if more recent research would yield a different conclusion.
Yes, 10k pace training helps my 5k more than it helps my 10k. As I said, it has to do with how one workout fits in with all the others.
There's no such thing as critical velocity. Tinman stated on Letsrun that he puts his athletes through all different paces.
WTF
Over analysis of your workouts young man.
At the end of the day it really makes little difference as long as aerobic workouts are the bulk of your training then mix in some anaerobic and Sprint workouts.
The distance makes little difference.
Trust me coaches claim it makes a difference and you need. To do exactly what they say but ignore it.
"critical velocity"??? Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Please, define "critical velocity"...
Yeah, I have read 25+ books on training and never heard hat term.
I asked Centrowicz Sr. what he did to run the US 5k record.
He said, long run on the weekend 15 miles.
Mile repeats during the week along with 12 x a quarter .
Other days, run as you feel.
So, stuff the Shiite in your sock and just go do it.
I'd say short-term gains the CV workout is going to get you in shape faster. More specific running economy at a slightly faster pace and a slightly higher fraction of Vo2max. But LT workouts you might as well do straight up solid Tempo Runs of 20-25min and longer repeats like 5 x 2km or 4 x 2-mile even. CV can be the 1km repeats and even mile repeats. Depends on mileage and training timeline and event key focus of course though.The key is you have to work the spectrum. LT and velocity at LT is a moving target (as is CV), and the differences can be so subtle that manipulating any single variable (i.e. interval duration/repeat length) can change the desired stimulus.
petepeterson wrote:
say I do 6x1k intervals at critical velocity (10k pace). does this workout - in your personal experience - has a better, worse or equal training effect on your lactate threshold than 6x1k at LT pace would have had?
Yeah all this training analysis has very little value if you are not already close to your maximum potential. I'm sure the science has some value but I think the basics are all you really need until you reach a certain point. Let's say your potential for 5k is 14:30 and you are at 14:40 right now. Putting some more careful thought into your workouts probably is beneficial for squeezing out those 10 extra seconds.
Puppione and Tinman explain it here:
http://www.championshipproductions.com/files/xc-02010/Stiles-Critical-Velocity-Article.pdf
Tinman explains it here:
CV pace very similar to JK crest load/isocapnic buffering zone pace and very similar to McMillan cruise interval pace. CV pace is NOT Jack Daniels cruise interval pace, since JD says to run your straight tempo and cruise interval workouts at the same pace which is his T (threshold) pace.
The coolest way I've seen to calculate it is from Veronique Billat. Say you can race 3000m in 8:45 and 5000m in 15 flat. The difference between those times is 2000m in 6:15, so that is your CV pace. If you use other race times, you'll get a slightly different CV pace, and CV pace is a range.
If you plot a bunch of different race times (3000m, 5000m, 10000m, 15000m for example) and make the best fit line on a graph where the x-axis is time and the y-axis is distance, the slope of the line is your CV pace. Billat's theory was that the y-intercept (distance on the graph where time = zero) was your anaerobic capacity in meters. Not sure if that theory has been proven.
In my experience, CV pace rocks! I use it all year long.
Agree! It is possible, and these days more and more common, to over think training. Possibly this is because of technology now widely available it is possible for even Joe Public to measure all sorts of things during, and analyse after, training.
Basically, as Frank Shorter said, make your hard days very hard, take enough very easy days to ensure that you don't break down. the content of the hard days is not of critical importance; you really just need to get the body and mind accustomed to running at the desired pace when you are completely knackered! You can't do one sort of thing in training and then expect the body to cope with a very different set of demands in a race!
mark b wrote, in part: "...make your hard days very hard...the content of the hard days is not of critical importance..."
Well, you don't see Bolt doing 7 x 1000 and you don't see Eliud Kipchoge doing 3 x 400 at 95%.
Here is where I as a sport science person and as a person does coach on a limited basis, get frustrated. Part of my frustration is that there is not a common language. I blame a lot of this on poor education of coaches and coaches who use terms, that in many cases, were already in the scientific literature with a specific definition, and apply their own definition to it.
For instance, critical velocity in the science literature is NOT 10K pace. It is the pace would could sustain "indefinitely". Here is a reference from 1996.
Along those same lines, lactate threshold in the science literature has many definitions and a ton of ways to measure it. So I ask the OP what is your definition of lactate threshold?
In doing a ton of lab based testing on a wide variety of ability levels from age groupers to Olympic medal winners, I found, based on our lab's definition and how we determined LT, that a pace of 10-15 sec/mile slower than 10K race was a pretty good velocity. If you used another method than ours, then you might come up with a different set of numbers. In the end, my guess, from talking with coaches from various countries across a lot of endurance sports, is that it does not matter so much which of the commonly used methods for determining LT or LT pace are used as long as you are consistently applying them and using the same measures for repeated testing.
Ithaca Commons wrote:
I asked Centrowicz Sr. what he did to run the US 5k record.
He said, long run on the weekend 15 miles.
Mile repeats during the week along with 12 x a quarter .
Other days, run as you feel.
So, stuff the Shiite in your sock and just go do it.
Hey old timer, what was Centro Sr.'s PR?
Why are today's runners faster?
Because they train smarter.
luv2run:
Figure 1 and the method they use to figure out CV is the way Billat describes it.
As for the statement "it is the pace that could be sustained 'indefinitely'", here is part of the paragraph to the right of figure 2 from the 1996 paper you referenced:
"Theoretically, CV represents the fastest running ve-
locity that can be maintained indeï¬nitely (Pepper et al.
1992). In practice, CV over-predicts this velocity and
subjects are typically only able to maintain a running
pace at a speed equal to CV for less than 30 min (Housh
et al. 1991b; Pepper et al. 1992).In fact, marathon velocity for the subjects in this investigation (3.07 m · s–1) was significantly less than the speed at CV(4.43 m · s-1)"
So, I don't know where anybody got the idea that CV represents a pace that can be maintained indefinitely.
Your point about variation in methods from lab to lab is well taken.
DumbMary wrote:
Hey old timer, what was Centro Sr.'s PR?
Why are today's runners faster?
Because they train smarter.
Centro Sr ran something like 3:36 and 13:10. That is just as fast as our current runners. He is certainly faster than the people posting in this thread.
Sure some runners are faster, but there is no proof that training "smarter" or worrying about the nuances between LT and critical velocity are the reason for this. Some people are faster because they have been training longer or harder or have better injury prevention methods than Centro Sr did.
Running is very simple.
Yes, I think we are pretty much saying the same thing (in a certain way).Most athletes/coaches are going to mess up the subtle difference between CV/LT. 10km + 10-15sec/mile for a sub 40-min type of 10km runner is a rough ball park. It's not "10km goal pace" or "10km current" pace as most people have trouble estimating that (unless they just ran a nice paced 10km on the track in good conditions). So we can say it's 12km-15km current race pace...whatever that means.The mix of the workouts is key. Steady state "uptempo" longer efforts and the ala Daniels "cruise interval types" of 2km-2-mile repeats with limited recovery. Then we also touch on Vo2max/velocity at Vo2ma2 and specific running economy/speed combined with long runs, basic strides and easy/recovery days. That is the basis of a good training program. The timing and sequence/perdiozation of workouts is what is easy to overthink and screw up. And yes, I'm usually talking about people running at a fairly high level/close to their potential. If someone is a beginner/hobby jogger they basically just need to increase their weekly mileage/volume to improve (and not get injured). Ironically I also ran quite a few 5km's in that range you listed: 14:40-14:30 and I'd say the thing that really helped me get under 14:30 (barely) was workouts like 10 x 1000m at 10km pace with a 1-min rest as well as the 30-40min Tempo/Uptempo Runs from marathon pace down to 10km pace + 10-15 sec/mile. That, and a big aerobic pace with consistent high mileage, and long runs in the 90-min-2hr range.
arandomwalk wrote:
Yeah all this training analysis has very little value if you are not already close to your maximum potential. I'm sure the science has some value but I think the basics are all you really need until you reach a certain point. Let's say your potential for 5k is 14:30 and you are at 14:40 right now. Putting some more careful thought into your workouts probably is beneficial for squeezing out those 10 extra seconds.