Universal intensity description for runners (%CV)

Ummm….there’s already a universal language to describe workouts to athletes who need concrete numbers based on their goals and current race times. What planet are you on? And furthermore, Tom Swartz has been doing the CV thing for decades as defined by roughly 10sec slower than current 5k pace. Splitting hairs down to the second make exactly zero real world sense as there are too many day to day variables with weather, terrain and fitness. Just stop.

Are you this Seth Demoor?

If you read here in this forum, at least every weak is a thread with something like 'I did a threshold run...' and it is not clear was the athlete means. Also in books and even papers, there are different terms in different ways used. So what planet are you on? Running has, so far, no common language thats a reality.

But you make me aware to post more in detail how CV can be calculated, and there are different ways to do so. If i have more time i will post that.

Yeah, that might be good enough, unless you are Tonga's marathon record holder at 2:58:51

Without names and some sort of evidence, your word is as good as the annoying Swede's.

Keep smiling!

An oldy but a goody....

VO2 Max doesn't mean anything
It's an oft-used and little understood term used by grad students to justify to their parents that their efforts and money have not gone to waste. University administrators have been duped by this sciolistic fog-machine, as well. How else could the waste of valuable resources, time and money, be covered-up with impunity? Parents and other intelligent, rational thinking adults could not possibly decipher this code. Do not try to yourself. You'll only make yourself look foolish reciting the catechism of the exercise-physio-geeks.
This nascent science of exercise physiology was born out of a failed genetics experiment in the early 60s; the breeding of an economist and a sociologist. The offspring from this pairing would say more and mean less than the combined blather of the two parents put together. Common sense would have told us how this experiment would have ended, but stubborn researchers pushed ahead, nonetheless.
The only numbers that matter are the ones that you receive at the end of the race. The most important of these is called place, and is represented as an ordinal. A '1' is the best indicator of your performance. If you get a '1' then you've done excellent. It's no small coincidence that '1' is a homophone for 'won'. Other excellent numbers to receive are '2' and '3'. Not nearly as good as a '1', but by tradition and convention the numbers '1', '2' and '3' are deemed to be the 'supreme ordinals'; that is to say, worthy of gold, silver and bronze, and are segregated from the other ordinals. The rest of the ordinals are represented by the formula: n + 1...(to infinity). There is a direct, inverse relationship between ordinal value and its worth. The closer to the supreme ordinals, the better you've done, the closer to infinity, the worse you've done.
One of the other numbers that matters much more than VO2 Max is time. Time is always secondary to place in it's value. Neither place nor time are given in the gerbil-wheel lab tests conducted by the exercise-physio-geeks. You will only receive them in the experiment that the real experts call competition. Time does not supercede place, but it is a way of comparing the place of two or more experiments from different venues and eras. The juxtaposition of time and place is the business of track statisticians, who, by the way, are also the progeny from the aforementioned failed genetics experiment.
Long ago, time was measured as a fraction of the earth's rotation in base 60: hours, minutes and seconds. It's still expressed as such, however, the predecessors to the exercise-physio-geeks have determined that time should now be measured in terms of the vibration frequency of irradiated Cesium atoms. Your watch has quartz crystals in it that will simulate this experiment for you (without the attendant radiation and disposal problems) and convert the results automatically, presenting them to you in the form of easily recognizable numerical glyphs. No complicated formulae to memorize!
Through complex mathematical machinations, physicists have proven that it is physically impossible for VO2Max to supersede either time or place in value. Physicist Richard Feynman once said, "VO2Max and five bucks will get you a cup of joe at Starbucks."
So far, in the history of sports, not one award has been given, nor has there ever been remuneration, for VO2Max results.
There are many other factors that are much more indicative of athletic performance, or the potential for performance, than VO2 max. I couldn't possibly begin to list them all: height, weight, hair color, skin color, shoe size, favorite TV show...the list is endless.

But do you or do you not use excel?
Use the graph function and then fit with logarithmic curves, it does everything excel.
With a few pbs of the athlete, we identify the intensity both in a univesal way that for the specific athlete, in a millimetric way and ends every discussion.

Someone said: "go a little slower than the rhythm 10k": true that experienced athletes throw it on the track in a very precise way, but it is inconvenient then having to decipher such speeds in threading, for example at a meeting of coaches.

It is not very indicative to say: "go at speeds of 9300 mt race pace..."

For this reason there is also the way to transform a race rhythm, whether it is 10k or 3k or marathon in a fixed percentage, universal for each distance and then also we have the intensity in percentage, intermediate between the different races seamlessly.

Thank you for posting your paper. TRIMP works quite well i would say.

Below paper is interesting in a way that it shows that 'the rate of neuromuscular fatigue development does not increase as a simple linear function ... , but is substantially accelerated above the CT (critical torque)'. This paper supports the Norwegian model, to do most of their training time below CV, which they do even by using lactate measurments (MLSS is related to CV as outlined above in detail).

CS/D’ takes the idea of something that scales with ability (Lactate/Heart Rate) and does it in a way that is easily testable(Race Pace) with a little more granularity than (Daniel’s VDOT).

If we front load a few workouts with standardized testing parameters(something like 2,6,15 minute tests) we can track where the improvements in fitness are coming from. And D’ lets us calculate if supra-maximal workouts are achievable

I’m a big fan of Canova and anchoring periodization and specific training to race pace, but CS is really useful in determining what Bowerman referred to as Date Pace. For the majority of training getting the internal training load correct is the most important thing, and to the original post’s point CS is a great anchor point when describing training in terms of duration and intensity.

I’m genuinely interested in the concept of CS but I can’t quite understand what you are saying in this post. Can you clarify?

Specifically, in the first paragraph, how is CS/D’ more easily testable and granular than someone running a race and using Daniels’ calculator (or Tinman’s, etc.) to estimate both training paces and race paces at other distances?

Also, D’, if I understand it correctly is just the distance you can run for a specific speed faster than your CS, so I don’t understand how that would contribute anything more than what can already be discerned from a race result? Particularly a race distance that is in the 2-20 minute range since that would be more accurate a predictor of CS than, say, a race that lasts for 150 minutes.

In the second paragraph, and going back to what I just asked about D’, I can’t figure out if you’re suggesting doing workouts faster than the paces associated with those standardized test parameters or something else? And is faster than CS considered supra-maximal or is faster than the speed associated with the particular distance that D’ would predict at that speed considered supra-maximal?

And in the third paragraph, how does CS determine Date Pace in a way that is any more useful (or informative) than using, say Daniels’ or Tinman’s training paces and race predictions based on a current performance?

To clarify, I’m not asking this in an aggressive or confrontational tone. I genuinely can’t make out what you’re saying in some cases and/or can’t see what this method is doing beyond what is already available, in a much easier approach (i.e. run a single race and get both training paces and predictions as opposed to run 3-5 races in a short time frame to get a single parameter, CS).

This is another very interesting thread that I've had to bookmark to check on every once in a while.

Btw, during the E-Mail exchange with you, i (we) made an very interesting discovery about the VDOT tables from Jack Daniels. His data set of running times gave

10k pace =100%CV

HM pace=96%CV

M pace=92%CV

And can be practical used for e.g. reps, as a starting point.

@hard2find I actually found your pdf in the other thread very useful and practical.

For my money, it's hilarious that lexel and his various personalities wants us to run so many time trials for the sake of it. When what you provided is probably in fact, actually more useful to the average person than CV anyway.

The question should be , will finding out my accurate CV make me run faster? Absolutely not. So the question has to be, what is the point?

To be clear though, and you know this, that was when using a distance based protocol to calculate CS, not a time based one. Meaning the predicted race times for 1km, 2km, 3km and 5km were used instead of say 3, 6, 12 and 18 minutes. That results in a significant difference in durations being used when calculating for VDOT levels from 40 to 80. And as you know, the more the time trials represent the slow end of the 2-20 minute protocol range, the slower the CS is relative to what it "should" be.

I like the CS model, but simulating CS using VDOT can result in a fairly large range in the predicted speed depending on what protocol is used (i.e. time based vs distance based, as well as how many time trials are used).

I would point anyone interested in this topic to this recently written article by John Davis. It's thorough, balanced, and practical.

runningwritings.com

The science of critical speed, critical velocity (CV), and critical power training for runners

John Davis

Link:runningwritings.com/2024/01/critical-s...

Which PDF exactly? LOL jk. Thanks for the compliment!

To me, the main objection I'd make about CS (not the physiology or model but the idea of converting everything to those terms), is exactly what you say in your last paragraph, does it change the paces you train at and/or the end result? Not really.

Even knowing CS, it's not suggested you then train at CS. You still want to be doing stamina workouts in the ~60-150 minute race pace range, so slower than CS, with a small amount of speed work faster than CS.

Sure, knowing CS would then allow you to demarcate exactly where that metabolic steady state lies and you could base workouts on percentages of that speed, but if those speeds then basically work out to the paces you'd run based on LT1 and LT2 or race paces in the 20km to 1500m pace range, what changed?

If we are talking about doing time trials to track progress and identify where improvements are occurring, I'd rather do something like a 200m-300m to test "power", 2000m-3000m to test "speed", and 10km-15km to test "stamina".

You nitwit. “ Critical velocity “ has always just been an ultra silly, re-wrapped, rebranded way of saying 10k pace. Have you broken 20min for 5k yet?

How dare you? I am the darts champion of Lesotho!

As you know, i do not like the VDOT tables, opposite to you :) but some people here are using it.

The article you shared is not correct on everything as e.g also a CV+ Rep, between CV and vVO2max is aerobic and not anaorobic.

The CV 2 parameter approach has its uncertainty(+-3%), and there are day to day variations. However, we should train above and below CV with a safety margin, agreed here with the article and never claimed different.

Its Not me, someone broke into my account.This Forum is very unsafe.

You should stick to darts.