Question for jtupper or other training pace gurus about determining VDOT

wellnow wrote:

How do you stand now on the question of how fast a runner with a VO2max of under 70 can run over 5000m?

I think the World Record for that distance will one day be below 12 minutes, and the runner who does it might have a V02max of below 70 or as high as 90. The important issue is the relative economy of the runner, and in this matter, the energy stored and released in the achiles tendon is a crucial factor. The faster you run, the more energy you can store. However, there is another issue here, when the foot is on the ground, an extra push can provide extra energy storage and release. Are you interested in that?

While you sit and guess what his VO2max and economy might be, we've known since 1979, that his VDOT will be 90.13, and that equates to a 25:03 10K, a 55:02 semi marathon, and a 1:55:19 marathon. Wow, now that's interesting!

If I had to guess, the first runner to do that will have a high VO2max and a high economy. And physiologists will look back and laugh at ancient, disproven concepts like, foot contact, stride length, ankle height, achilles tendon, Central Governor and POSE.

I had a "sneak peak" look ahead in "Lore of Running", and found a couple of interesting related things:

- Noakes says it doesn't make sense to compare the economy of two different athletes at two different speeds. For example, comparing the economies of a VDOT 40 and a VDOT 80 athlete over a 15 minute effort is meaningless. (Hint: Higher VDOTS are not less economical than lower VDOTS).

- While Noakes apparently has some different opinions on the physiology behind it, Noakes seems to agree that Daniels' VDOT tables works, because Daniels and Gilbert made the jump to basing them on performance.

wellnow wrote:

You're avoiding the issue, that VDOT overstates the importance of VO2max and understates the importance of economy.

I'm not sure that you've yet established the issue, since I've already rebutted that VDOT can not state anything about real VO2maxes and real economy -- something which you've avoided.

But just for fun, let's see if your alleged issue is an issue with any consequence on the predictive capability of VDOT for race performances.

I compared and cross referenced some VDOT performances to equivalent Purdy predictions. First a word about Purdy. Gartner and Purdy developed a performance predictor based on the Portuguese Scoring Tables, essentially all the World Record performances as of 1936. These performances were arbitrarily assigned a score of 950.

What can be said about the sample of the athletes, is that they were all world class performers - the elite of their day. There is no fundamental derivation of a predictor based on VO2 or economy, just mathematical permutations of the velocity associated with the world record performances.

As such, Purdy points can not overstate VO2max, nor understate economy. It implicitly represents exactly the VO2max and the economy that produced the associated world records.

I looked at 10K times, ranging from 30:08.0, down to 22:00, and the respective predictions for 5K, 10K, 21.1K, 42.2K, and even 100K for both models. This corresponds to VDOT values ranging from 72.38, up to 105.28, and Purdy points ranging from 900 to 1502.56.

For VDOT values of 72.38, which seem to be under no doubt, VDOT tables :

- Predicts a slower 5K by 7 seconds

- Predicts a faster 21.1K and 42.2K by 31 and 91 seconds, respectively.

The values are not exact, but seem to be reasonably close considering the different approaches.

As the VDOT values get higher, something interesting happens: The predictions get close and closer to Purdy predictions.

For a VDOT value of 90.36:

- VDOT predicts a slower 5K by 0.92 seconds

- VDOT predicts a faster 21.1 and 42.2K by 28 and 61 seconds

At a VDOT of 94, the 5K predictions are virtually equal, while the others continue to converge.

At a VDOT of 105.28:

- VDOT predicts a faster 5K, 21.1K and 42.2K of 2.42, 24.96, and 53 seconds, respectively.

For 100K, the values also converge from a difference of 1636 seconds, to 851 seconds. The difference may be large because the 1936 World Record for 100K is slow, and I can not speak for the applicability of VDOT for 100K, but it is still interesting that the times converge as the VDOT values get higher.

So, at a first glance, VDOT values up to 105 seem to match well with Purdy, and in fact, the higher VDOT values get better.

Now you might wonder if it's fair, after all, higher scores mean lower times, so although the absolute differences may get smaller, perhaps the proportional differences get bigger. So I calculated the differences in proportion to the Purdy race prediction:

- For 5K, the difference drops from 0.809% at 72.38, to 0% at 94, to -2.42% at 105.28.

- For 21.1K, the difference rises a little from -0.772% at 72.38, up to -0.855% at 105.28

- For 42.2K, the difference drops from -1.078% to -0.867%

- For 100K, the difference drops from -7.432% to -5.374%

So, even at a second glance, looking at the difference proportionally, VDOT values up to 105 seem to match well with Purdy. Except for 100K, all of the predictions are within about 1% of each other, with no obvious divergence. The worst deviations occur at the lowest VO2max of 72.38, the one under the least suspicion. Let's recall that Purdy is a completely independent predictor derived in isolation from any influence of the Cardiovascular-Aerobic Model.

So, this brings up a few questions:

- Does VDOT overstate the importance of VO2max?

- Does VDOT understate the importance of economy?

- If there is no effect on the predictive capability of VO2max, what exactly is the issue?

What about the feasibility of VDOTs of 85? Clearly, VDOT is in line with Purdy for VDOTS of 105 and beyond. A VDOT of 105 corresponds to a 10:30 5K, 22:00 10K, 48:15 21.1K, and 1:40:59 42.2K. I'm left wondering, exactly why does VDOT need to be updated again?

Now you might be wondering, can 1936 World Records really be representative of today? After all, it is a long time ago, and before the introduction of East African athletes. A superficial response is that it seems to match up well with VDOT tables, but perhaps someone will accuse me of being circular.

You will be pleased to know that Purdy did some similiar research using the World Records of 1970, with different curve fit calculations, assigning them arbitrary values of 1035.

Still not enough Africans? It is a trivial mathematical exercise to replace the 1936 World Records with today's World Records, and repeat the same exercise.

However, I will leave this as an exercise for the interested reader.

now you can expect a response from wellnow that restates everything he already said without addressing anything you've just said that countered everything he's asserted... so prepare yourself for that.

midwesta wrote:

now you can expect a response from wellnow that restates everything he already said without addressing anything you've just said that countered everything he's asserted... so prepare yourself for that.

Oh, I'm not finished yet (in spite of what I said a few pages back).

I've got a couple more interesting posts in mind (one less mathematical -- a departure into the imaginary, and another one, shall I say, a mathematical gift), which I'm pretty excited about, so please stay tuned.

Another "sneak peak" of Noakes reveals this little tidbit:

Most of us mere mortals can only expect to train our VO2max about 5-15%, while some elite athletes have more trainable VO2maxes, can can increase VO2max up to 25%.

So it seems that along side the elite athletes with superior economies, some of them, or some others, will also have well developed VO2maxes.

But don't worry anymore -- the book is almost 1000 pages, and I'll try to resist posting all of it here.

Voice of Ray-san wrote:

And physiologists will look back and laugh at ancient, disproven concepts like, foot contact, stride length, ankle height, achilles tendon, Central Governor and POSE.

I regret lumping the Central Governor in the same category with POSE. I believe all of our physiological ideas, including the Central Governor, as we know it today will evolve into something much different, by the time someone breaks the 12:00 5K.

I can see that the cold dry world of Mathematic-land is simply not enough to sway everyone's thinking. It's too easy to get lost or bored in this cold gray place with dry data, unsexy models, and Vulcan-like logical analysis.

Let's take a time-out, and visit an imaginary alternate universe. In this alternate reality, Dr. Daniels is not a well respected, world renowned athlete, physiologist, and top-level coach, but an evil and unethical genetic scientist. His sidekick, Dr. Gilbert is not a mathematical rocket scientist helping send men to the moon, but works along side Dr. Daniels, and is in charge of genome mapping, and modeling the effects of genetic modifications.

Dr. Daniels is so committed to, and blinded by, his brand of aerobic mythology, he decides to alter reality, confirming all of his theories, by hook or by crook. After decades of unethical research with gene splicing, genetic mutations, etc., in his secret lab, they successfully create their first prototype. They decide to call him Sudo-V-Dot-Max (named after Jack Daniel's motorcycle, and favorite puzzle, and Gilbert's mother Dorothy), or Max for short.

Max is a gifted athlete, genetically engineered with an unusually strong aerobic system. His muscle fibers are almost exclusively slow-twitch, or oxidative fast-twitch. He is an aerobic monster, created by his Drs. Frankenstein, that responds ideally to VO2max training. This athlete's ability to improve his VO2max is unreal. It knows no bounds measurable in the lab, or on the track, and perhaps is only limited by time and relativity itself, in the realm of sub-light velocities, or Earth's supply of oxygen.

Another incredible characteristic, is Max's broad range of competitive distances. Once Max has developed a certain VO2max, he can rip out equivalent performances at all distances from 60m to 100km, and beyond.

However, since it is the first prototype, Max has a few limitations. First, his economy, although not too bad, nor not too good -- one could even say "generic" -- is completely untrainable. Any improvements from training come exclusively from improvements in oxygen delivery and consumption. After all, Gilbert's modeling used a brute force approach for quick results, but Gilbert has some ideas for refinements in the area of economy. Second, Max has no anaerobic capacity. With sufficient training, he can develop his VO2max to 118, and equal Insane Bolt's 100m and 200m world records, but the performance is completely aerobic. He truly never "goes anaerobic". (Of course, no one ever does, except Insane Bolt. Turns out, Insane Bolt is an anaerobic prototype developed by evil, unethical scientists hiding in Jamaica -- but I digress.)

Drs. Daniel and Gilbert are incredibly happy with the results. Daniels wants to write a book, but Gilbert is obsessed with collecting numbers. He insists on training Sudo-V-dot-Max and attempting to find the limit. In a carefully controlled and recorded series of tests, Gilbert tests Max, at distances from 100m to 100km, starting with a VO2max of 30, and up, recording the time for each event at every VO2max. Max didn't mind -- he was born to run, and is addicted to oxygen. Gilbert calls his tables the Sudo-V-Dot-Max tables.

Meanwhile, Daniels quickly wrote his book, and decided to include the tables. At the time of printing, Gilbert and Max had just finished up to a VO2max of 85. (Max continued to improve, up to 120 and beyond, while Gilbert appended the table, but again I digress) The publishers didn't like the long name of the table (the font was too big to fit the name on one line), so they shortened it, without Daniel's or Gilbert's approval, to the "V-Dot Tables", and sent the book off for printing.

The publicity that surrounded Max in the press (both good and bad), generated an incredible demand for Daniel's book (the publishers also left Gilbert's name off, in a swift act of negligence and injustice). And athletes everywhere wanted to compare themselves to Max. They would ask themselves, after setting a PR in a 5K, "what was Max's VO2max when he ran a 5K as fast as me?", and "How fast did Max run the marathon with that VO2max?" and "how fast were his tempos, repetitions, and intervals?" Since the table was so complete, thanks to Gilbert's unusual obsessiveness, every athlete could identify their performance in the published VDOT tables.

[quote]wellnow wrote:

Can you ignore this study?:

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/211/20/3266

quote]

From your linked study ...

"Training has little or no effect on running economy; the best results were achieved after high-intensity interval training and resistance training and were in the order of 5–7% improvement (Bailey and Pate, 1991; Billat et al., 2002; Franch et al., 1998; Lake and Cavanagh, 1996; Midgley et al., 2007). This suggests that running economy is determined by intrinsic morphological and physiological properties."

Care to comment? Especially on the opening phrase; "Training has little or no effect on running economy..." This does seem to contradict your recommendation for jumping up and down a great many times.

wellnow wrote:

Why did you ignore the data of those elite athletes with a relatively low VO2max? That was disingeuous.

OK, I don't like being accused of being disingeuous(sic).

Since I don't have any real data, why don't we hypothetically include data from elite athletes with low VO2max values.

Lydiard said "Champions are everywhere", so now it's time to look everywhere -- not just American towns and universities, but African villages, Chinese villages, and Japanese semi-marathons.

Let's assume:

1) I found a really large sample of athletes representative of the world-wide athletic population.

2) 90% of my sample corresponds exactly to Daniel's tested subjects 30 years ago.

3) The remaining 10%, as a result of the world-wide search, are highly economical, elite athletes, capable of running a 12:37 5K, and/or a 26:19 10K, and remarkably they all have measured VO2max around 70.

Summarizing the profile of this new class of athlete, the economy curve was lower, and flatter. That is:

1) They showed unusually low VO2 consumption at all speeds

2) The difference in economy at slow speeds were smaller than at marathon pace, getting larger as the velocity gets faster

Let's recall here Daniel's economy curve:

vo2 = -4.60 + 0.182258 * velocity + 0.000104 * velocity^2

Where velocity is in meters per minute.

By pure assumption, because of the non-representative sub-elite sample, which favors high VO2maxes, Daniel's economy formula is really only valid for the range of VDOTs from 30 to 70 (sample size above 70 is just too small to be reliable).

Taking the raw economy data from the 90% of my "Daniel's like" population, and combining it with my newfound sample of "econo-Bekele" population, and crunching the numbers reveal the following new formula for economy:

vo2 = -8.11472 + 0.209728 * velocity + 0.0000479496 * velocity^2

Comparing the two economy curves shows:

1) Between the velocities 170 to 340 (approx. VDOTS 30-70), the curves are very similiar but the modified curve is slightly lower, up to about 1/2 of a VDOT.

2) The modified curve has a "flat" spot around the velocity 250 (approx VDOT 50), which is an artifact of fitting a quadratic curve over a broader range of velocities. The difference here is closer to 0.15 VDOTs.

3) At a velocity of about 400 (approximately a VDOT of 85), the modified curve is about 1.5 VDOTs less.

This means the "modified VDOT", let's say MVDOT, scale gives a new index of 83.5 to a 12:37 5K. This almost makes sensee, as 90% of the sample gave a curve fit giving a VDOT of 85, still outnumbers the newly added 10% population of econo-Bekele's with their VO2max of 70 (i.e 85*90% + 70*10% = 83.65).

"wellnow", I propose a new partnership similar to Daniels and Gilbert. Seeing as I'm the math-whiz, and you are the fizz-whiz, I'll play the role of Gilbert, while you play the role of Daniels. I'll crunch all the numbers, while you write a book with dubious physiology supporting the numbers.

Ray-San.

You have made some seriously thoughtful contributions to the thread but there really is such a thing as "too much". Perhaps you could give him a chance to one of them first

In fact, my money is on wellnow trying to use the sheer volume of your posts as a reason not to respond. I can hear it now: "Oh I don't have time to read all that."

WOW you really are obsessed with VDOT aren't you Ray-san?

Do you really believe that race times can be predicted with mathematical formulae?

You simply don't understand the point that the VDOT tables overstate the importance of VO2max and understate the importance of economy.

The high VDOT values are an extrapolation of the common economy, an average economy which also represents an average level of fitness. Elite runners do not have an average level of fitness.

You say:

"While you sit and guess what his VO2max and economy might be, we've known since 1979, that his VDOT will be 90.13, and that equates to a 25:03 10K, a 55:02 semi marathon, and a 1:55:19 marathon. Wow, now that's interesting!"

Do you really believe that the VDOT tables give accurate comparisons of race times? Do you really believe that those times are comparable?

You say:

"First a correction: VDOT does not predict pace, but performance. You could say it predicts pace, for any and every chosen distance. There can be no doubt it is a valuable and accurate performance predictor. Simply cross-referencing it with other predictors, and with personal experience, has shown this. There is no conceit. As a performance predictor, VDOT has passed the test of time. As you should know by now, it is based on the concept that VO2*economy=performance, a tautology by definition that can not be disputed."

VDOT doesn't predict pace any better than any other table, in fact it's much worse than many others, the conceit is that those calculations are somehow more accurate because of the time and effort that and the amount of data that went into them.

You say:

"You, and many others, misunderstand the role of linking performance to a generic economy and a pseudo-VO2max. By normalizing all performances to a fictitious "pseudo" athlete with a "generic" economy, this allows us to compare and equate different performances at different distances. Any attempt to recover any real VO2max data, or real economy data, or "represent" some other forgotten class of athlete is simply an exercise of futility."

I'm not misunderstanding anything here, you are the one who doesn't understand how this generic economy doesn't fit with superior levels of fitness.

Why have the conceit of mathematical formulae to predict race times anyway? Why not just have comparable race times tabled without reference to a "psuedo VO2max"

Coming thru wrote:

[quote]wellnow wrote:

Can you ignore this study?:

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/211/20/3266

quote]

From your linked study ...

"Training has little or no effect on running economy; the best results were achieved after high-intensity interval training and resistance training and were in the order of 5–7% improvement (Bailey and Pate, 1991; Billat et al., 2002; Franch et al., 1998; Lake and Cavanagh, 1996; Midgley et al., 2007). This suggests that running economy is determined by intrinsic morphological and physiological properties."

Care to comment? Especially on the opening phrase; "Training has little or no effect on running economy..." This does seem to contradict your recommendation for jumping up and down a great many times.

Yes I do care to comment. In order to get the most from our own genetic pre-disposition for economy, we have to improve power, and endurance, both of which have considerable trainability. Improvements in neuromuscular coordination have to be added to that 5-7% figure to get a real evaluation of how much we can improve race times.

wellnow wrote:

this generic economy doesn't fit with superior levels of fitness.

Why does this even matter? Generic economy is unlikely to fit any particular runner, elite or otherwise. It's an abstract concept.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Another guy just told Ray-San that wellnow would just restate what he had said over and over again on this thread, and you did exactly that. You didn´t come up with any constructive counter arguments. You are just behaving like the guy in the Monty Python sketch: "no, you didn´t!" "no, you didn´t!" "no, you didn´t!"

(Face it: you didn´t understand one tenth of what Ray San wrote. I bet that if you two had been in the same room you, wellnow, would have started a fist fight right now. That´s how less intelligent people behave.)

It must have been tough for poor wellnow that JD, one of the most well known ex phys guys in the world, more or less told him that he was stupid, and now wellnow is the laughing stock of the entire running world.

VDOT-er wrote:

Ray-San.

You have made some seriously thoughtful contributions to the thread but there really is such a thing as "too much". Perhaps you could give him a chance to one of them first

In fact, my money is on wellnow trying to use the sheer volume of your posts as a reason not to respond. I can hear it now: "Oh I don't have time to read all that."

OK, let me know when it becomes too much.

Seriously -- I guess I did pack a lot in the last couple of days. But unless I get some real data, my long theoretical "calculation" posts are finished.

I can't really tell if "wellnow" reads my posts anyway, at least from his feedback. The last couple were "bonuses" which I enjoyed writing -- I hope someone appreciates them.

Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate them. It just seemed you'd made the point clearly already.

Anyway, as you can see, they are completely wasted on wellnow. He's not looking for actual analysis. Particularly when that analysis shoots holes in his silly points

You thinks it's silly of me to point out just how pretentious VDOT is?

If you guys are so smart, then how come you can't address the issue here?:

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/211/20/3266