Physiology question: How do you keep running at V02 max after 11 minutes?

If you are running for 17-18 minutes, then you are not running at your VO2max.

Let me rephrase my question and apologies for my gap in knowledge here.

I understand that v02 max is the most oxygen your body can consume. And you hit that max about 2 minutes into a run where the intensity is right.

Let's say for clarity sake that I hit my max 2 minutes into a run at 5:30/mile pace. That is my velocity at V02 max (vV02)

Is it true that my body will start consuming less oxygen after 9 more minutes and therefore I will slow down? How do you maintain an even pace through 5K if that is the case?

h kit wrote:

Is it true that my body will start consuming less oxygen after 9 more minutes and therefore I will slow down? How do you maintain an even pace through 5K if that is the case?

The answer is no. At the paces you mention, you are running a 5K at about 95% of your velocity of VO2 max.

I believe VO2 max occurs at about 7.5 minute all-out race pace. For a world class runner this will be 3k pace. For slower runners it could actually be 1-mile race pace.

A runner cannot run at 100% of their V02max for a 5k. Anything above 90% heart rate is considered entering the "V02max" zone. Ever watched any of Sage Canaday's videos?

h kit wrote:

Reading Jack Daniels and he says you can only run at V02 max for 11 minutes. It takes about to 2 minutes from rest to hit your max and you can only sustain that for 11 minutes? So what happens after that point in a 5K if it takes me 17-18 minutes to finish for example?

You are over thinking it. Just think of it like 3,000 pace is a good pace to train at. That doesnt mean you need to worry about your 3k pace when running a 5k

Truther wrote:

A runner cannot run at 100% of their V02max for a 5k. Anything above 90% heart rate is considered entering the "V02max" zone. Ever watched any of Sage Canaday's videos?

Got it. So relative 5K pace is not 100% of your V02 max and the 11-minute principle only applies to the 100% of V02.

In light of this, should 5K runners train more at 3K pace. I know that, personally, I fall into the trap of doing most of my V02 max intervals at current 5K pace and short intervals like 200s-400s at mile pace but nothing in between.

There is no magical time frame, one size fits all duration.

It wasn't correct 30+ years ago and isn't correct now.

11' is not VO2peak, and there is wide individual variation.

5-6' is much more accurate.

To understand why Daniels made such a mistake you would need

to read physiology from the 60s and 70s. Physiologists were fixated with

oxygen delivery and blood lactate levels.

Daniels studied with Astrand. Daniels set up his calculation with very limited

data at 800-1500, so his math and his orientation were misguided.

And when RW magazine asked him to oversimplify his formula, he did.

What happens at speeds faster than VV02? After you hit your V02 peak, say after 11 minutes or even 5-6 minutes as dsrunner is suggesting...

are you working more anaerobically?

I'm trying to understand why V02 max is important

I may be more confused now than when I started lol

What about a mile race for example?

Or a 200m sprint?

To add to my confusion, people use terms like aerobic threshold and anaerobic threshold

where do we draw those lines?

Even half marathon pace is not 100% aerobic, but it is close. SImilarly, 3k pace for a 10 flat 3k runner is not 100% aerobic.

There is a continuum. You can improve VO2 max through the back door by running only easy runs. It is not an efficient way to reach that objective but it works. Peak cardiac output and peak oxygen consumption is what I think you are trying to reach here. To accomplish this you need to make your heart work hard via stroke volume (the amount of blood your heart pumps through your body with each heartbeat).

If you want to work on your VO2 max then you need to be running 1 - 2.5 minute reps at about 3k pace (or a touch faster) with a recovery jog of no more than 1.5x rep duration. No more than 12 minutes total of this type of running in any one workout is needed, and this isn't a workout you want to do with any type of regularity in season or out of season or else you will wind up hurting in a hurry.

You will reach a pre-mature peak if you overdo these workouts out of season. You will fry yourself with a combination of too much racing and too many hard workouts if you make this mistake in-season. The only exception in-season is if you have longer periods between in season races - say 20 days between 5k races.

Make sense?

h kit wrote:

What happens ...after you hit your V02 peak, say after 11 minutes

After about 11 minutes at vVO2, you will need to stop or slow down dramatically to recover. Right?

h kit wrote:

What happens at speeds faster than VV02? After you hit your V02 peak, say after 11 minutes or even 5-6 minutes as dsrunner is suggesting...

are you working more anaerobically?

I'm trying to understand why V02 max is important

I may be more confused now than when I started lol

What about a mile race for example?

Or a 200m sprint?

To add to my confusion, people use terms like aerobic threshold and anaerobic threshold

where do we draw those lines?

It's correct in that it varies although I would make the argument that you can not hold VO2 Max for 11 minutes. I think it would be closer to a max of 10 minutes.

Regardless, at speeds faster than VO2 max you will not even be able to run your VO2 Max the amount of minutes you otherwise would if properly paced.

Yes, you would be more glycolytic and be forced to slow down.

h kit wrote:

I understand that v02 max is the most oxygen your body can consume.

It isn't. It's decades-old baloney from before anyone understood how pH affects gas exchange between blood and working muscle.

Gas exchange is fastest when your muscles are burning with acid, and you don't maximize that through the sort of sustained or incremental tests VO2max is based on. You maximize it by starting fast and holding on, like an 800.

h kit wrote:

Reading Jack Daniels and he says you can only run at V02 max for 11 minutes. It takes about to 2 minutes from rest to hit your max and you can only sustain that for 11 minutes? So what happens after that point in a 5K if it takes me 17-18 minutes to finish for example?

I prefer to talk about maxVO2-pace instead of maxVO2.To raise maxVO2 is a matter of running aerob distance, maxVO2-pace and threshold pace mixed in a weekly balanced system. MaxVO2 can only be raised up to an individual maximum level ....after that the runner have about the same maxVO2 during the years up to ca age 40(if training enough and correct) and then it will decline. What can be done after the highest individual maxVO2 level is reached is just to hold it there as long as possible and parallell develop the best ever possible individual threshold .

The maxVO2-pace should not be compared to 3 k pace.....it`s more like 5 k pace in training if it is correct done. This maxVO2-pace is no problems to do week after week, year after year, and that way continue to develop.

COACH J.S

Got it. So relative 5K pace is not 100% of your V02 max and the 11-minute principle only applies to the 100% of V02.

In light of this, should 5K runners train more at 3K pace. I know that, personally, I fall into the trap of doing most of my V02 max intervals at current 5K pace and short intervals like 200s-400s at mile pace but nothing in between.[/quote]

....so....it`s no trap to run your maxVO2-pace at 5k pace...it`s correct pace.....but....you have to develop and put more emphasize in threshold workouts.

COACH J.S

h kit wrote:

Truther wrote:

A runner cannot run at 100% of their V02max for a 5k. Anything above 90% heart rate is considered entering the "V02max" zone. Ever watched any of Sage Canaday's videos?

Got it. So relative 5K pace is not 100% of your V02 max and the 11-minute principle only applies to the 100% of V02.

In light of this, should 5K runners train more at 3K pace. I know that, personally, I fall into the trap of doing most of my V02 max intervals at current 5K pace and short intervals like 200s-400s at mile pace but nothing in between.

Yes, you'd be better off training at 3000 pace than your 5k pace for V02 max work. (If you run 4k races this would be a good pace.) Early season start with 8×600 then later 6x800. If you're young and fairly new at this sport, 1000s or 1200s at 3000 pace would be too difficult.

If you want to train to race then train in and around your race pace. It just so happens that most people's race pace is around vVo2max so of course people get too obsessed with Vo2max.

It doesn't matter. Neither does the almighty lactate threshold tempo run. That's just called a hard run.

Focus your training around the races you run, not some physiological marker. These markers really only matter if you have access to measure it on a routine basis. That way you have data points. This training led to this race result which also led to these improvements in various physiological markers.

Alan

Coach wrote:

h kit wrote:

Got it. So relative 5K pace is not 100% of your V02 max and the 11-minute principle only applies to the 100% of V02.

In light of this, should 5K runners train more at 3K pace. I know that, personally, I fall into the trap of doing most of my V02 max intervals at current 5K pace and short intervals like 200s-400s at mile pace but nothing in between.

Yes, you'd be better off training at 3000 pace than your 5k pace for V02 max work. (If you run 4k races this would be a good pace.) Early season start with 8×600 then later 6x800. If you're young and fairly new at this sport, 1000s or 1200s at 3000 pace would be too difficult.

4800m of volume at 3000m race pace in the form of reps of 600m is very tall order for any runner slower than 15:30 in the 5k. Again, the true vo2 max pace being 7.5 min of all out running (which I believe to be correct)

I am not saying that this workout is undoable, but my opinion is that particular workout is harder than running a race, and it will take from fitness, not add to it.

I would think that only a runner capable of 14:00 or faster should tackle 6 x 800m at true VO2max, and even then that runner does not need that particular workout within the last two weeks of a big race.

You can run vo2 max workouts in the form of shorter bouts lasting a cumulative amount of time around 10 minutes and gain the same benefits without killing yourself with long reps.

Pfitzinger and others suggest that 15 minutes is a good cumulative time to run and 2-3 minutes with a 1:1 work to rest ratio is a good distance. With that in mind 6x800 at 2:30 For a 10 minute 3200 meter runner is a perfect workout.

Jman1 wrote:

Yes, you'd be better off training at 3000 pace than your 5k pace for V02 max work. (If you run 4k races this would be a good pace.) Early season start with 8×600 then later 6x800. If you're young and fairly new at this sport, 1000s or 1200s at 3000 pace would be too difficult.

4800m of volume at 3000m race pace in the form of reps of 600m is very tall order for any runner slower than 15:30 in the 5k. Again, the true vo2 max pace being 7.5 min of all out running (which I believe to be correct)

I am not saying that this workout is undoable, but my opinion is that particular workout is harder than running a race, and it will take from fitness, not add to it.

I would think that only a runner capable of 14:00 or faster should tackle 6 x 800m at true VO2max, and even then that runner does not need that particular workout within the last two weeks of a big race.

You can run vo2 max workouts in the form of shorter bouts lasting a cumulative amount of time around 10 minutes and gain the same benefits without killing yourself with long reps.[/quote]

8x600 @ current 3k (or 3200 pace) is NO WHERE NEAR too hard for a beginning runner. Most younger kids are drastically underdeveloped aerobically, so 3k pace will be well below max VO2 pace. Doing this type of training will NOT bring about a premature peak either.

Early in the season, when my varsity kids are doing lots of tempo interval type stuff, my newbies are running 4-5 x 800. The pace they use is based on some early time trials we do (once on day 3 of practice and once on day 17 of practice). When we start, the heat mixed with kids inexperience and abilitty to push for an entire 2 miles results in very managable paces for the 800m workout (which I'm pretty strict about kids sticking to best achieved 3200 paces). By the second time we do that workout, kids are like, "why are we going so slow?"

4800 @ 3k (or about vVO2 max pace) is much tougher for athletes who are already developed, but have poor anaerobic tolerance and lactate clearance. So, my varsity kids who are pretty fit and can pop a good 3200 time trial, if they gave a max effort, would really struggle with that workout. I do other stuff to bring their lactate tolerance around and eventually, late season, they are able to run 6x1k at somewhere faster than 5k race pace (but probably short of 3k race pace).

As far as the original question, I think it's been answered pretty well, but I just want to clarify a thing or two. Running at a pace that stimulates max O2 uptake also causes quite a bit of lactic acid accumulation (calm down Noakes', folks). Whether lactic acid accumulation is a cause of fatigue or simply a marker of other fatigue (ie. CNS fatigue) is unimportant. We know that high blood lactate levels are highly correlated with fatigue. So, running at vVO2 max causes blood lactate levels to climb. By the time you get to 6 minutes at that pace, many people have to start slowing down. The most well trained and motivated athletes can hold that pace for around 10-13 minutes (including the 2 minutes it takes to reach max O2 uptake). This is where the 3k-5k pace confusion comes from. For a 12:40 5k type, VO2 max pace is closely related to 5k PR. For the 10:00 3k high school kid, VO2 max is probably right around 3k pace.

Make sense?