Mr. Renato Canova: Could You Please Answer a Question About Effective Ways to Improve the Lactate Threshold?

Joe:

10 days of rest is for sure going to cause drop in blood volume. 10 days of very light training for someone who is in prime shape will result in poor aerobic efficiency after 5 days. Lactate will build at slower speeds, thus indicating that one will tire more easily at normal racing speeds.

Hypothetically, let's say Marius was in good shape and not overtrained with 11 days to go before his race. If he decides to cut his normal 25km per day of running to 10km per day, he will feel good at first, but by the end of the 10 days, he won't feel good after 1/3rd of the way through his race. He will have short-term power (snap in his stride) but a lack of endurance over the race duration. Instead of accumulating 8 mmols of lactate at 64 seconds per lap, he accumulates 10 mmols. Result? He hits max fatigue at 10 laps instead of 12.5 laps if he runs his normal 64 second pace.

If you don't get the lactate part, that is ok, because what really counts is the concept that it costs more energy to run at the same pace if you taper training too long. Fatigue accumulates quickly and you struggle to hold pace. No science is needed to understand that. We've all experience a loss of endurance; it's horrible! It doesn't matter how mentally tough you are: you simply run can't hold pace long enough in races. Tinman

In that case, I'm screwed, having not run due to injury in over 2 weeks. The worst thing about running; it takes a lifetime to build up enough to be good and you can lose it all in weeks.

To start with, I'd like to say that I'm of the same opinion as (seemingly) the majority of the people on here - that the Chinese WRs are dirty. However, like trackhead said, there is a very small chance that they are genuine clean performances...

Sir Lance-alot, I agree with most of what you say, however your explanation of the meets ("one meet in China") does a great disservice to the Chinese National Games (the quadrennial event in China where all of these records were set). With China being such a notoriously insular nation, these games hold FAR more importance (for both the athletes and spectators) than the World Championships and the Olympic Games. The athletes themselves spend a good few years in the build-up for the games, making sure they peak for exactly the right time. Grants and scholarships are awarded for success, which explains why a lot of these athletes were fairly young when they produced these great marks.

Also, sheer hard and respect for authority is at the core of the Eastern mind-set, so the athletes tend to strictly obey everything that the coach tells them. For the athletes who make it through all of the intensive sessions (including the infamous "marathon-a-day" schedule), they will inevitably produce astounding results (and yes, that includes 1500's at 3:50 and 10k's at 29:30).

There's also a distinct lack of information from Chinese sport - we seem to get very few results of athletics meets from China which, for a nation of that size, is very unusual. For all we know, there could be many many more athletics meetings going on in China that produce equally as good marks. For such a huge population, it's only natural that they can produce such a number of great athletes.

HOWEVER.. like I said above, the most likely situation is that illegal substances were used alongside the rigorous training.

Wrong. I do have a tape with some coverage of the 1993 Chinese games and believe me - those performances did happen. Also, if there was no drug testing, track measurements or lap counting, then the records wouldn't have been ratified by the IAAF.

Another thing to consider - it's not like these were mediocre athletes who took advantage of some partisan officiating in their home country (i.e. it's not like only ran 24 laps of the 25, or it's not like they only ran well in China). They DID run well outside of China - remember all the medals they won at the 1993 World Champs? And remember Wang Junxia winning '96 Olympic gold? OK, so their times weren't as fast as the ones they ran in China, but there was still a huge gap between them and the rest of the world. Plus, they won their races quite emphatically by putting in mind-blowing closing km's. Watching them at the '93 World Champs, it was obvious that they were capable of running fast times.

So, while I agree with you that they were most likely doped, some of your facts needed to be ironed out. ;-)

Hey,

The chinese women's performances continue to puzzle me.

If they were cheating, what were they using???

How did they run so much faster than others who were known or found out to be cheaters? (Eastern Europeans)

Whether they were or were not cheating, what other factors may have contributed to the performances??

I think there is a lot to be learned and understood here,

quite apart from the turtle soup/caterpillar fungus or whatever.

I was quoted at the time as saying something like this,

" We have had 5 or 6 women from Canada run somewhere between 4:00 and 4:06 for 1500 metres over the past 5 or 6

years." I see absolutely no reason why these women, if they were taken away from their families, their schools, and any other societal influences, at a relatively young age (12/13/14), and trained very, very hard, and with only the "strongest" surviving, why several of these women would not have run well under 4:00, with maybe the best under 3:55, and that's from a small country (population-wise) with a lot of winter climate. I still

believe that. And that's not even including the whole

psycho-socio-cultural thing of the Chinese/Asian mindset,

which I believe has some fundamental differences from our

"Western" mindset.....generality, I know.

I have seen interviews with Wang Junxia and always hard training.

Where do you get that she said using drugs????

If you have a link where she said this then post it so everyone cause see your false accusation.

The link above which said she made such statement, in reality says this:

"He (Ma Junren) and his athletes were steamed by charges about drugs. ?These people themselves are taking drugs,? he said, noting that the only secret substances his athletes indulge in is the concoction made from caterpillar fungus, and a soft-shell turtle stew."

Some admission????

I was very happy at the time of Wang, Qu, and the others smashing the records, and wanted to learn much more about them.

Unfortunately that was lost to everyone by the stupidity of ignorant westerners.

If only there had been some basic human decency at that time, then real progress could have been made -- rather than setting it back to where, most likely, we shall not see it again.

[quote]Sir Lance-alot wrote:

I agree with everything that Antonio and Racer1(both of you, GREAT posts) said about the Chinese female runners: there is NO WAY their world records are clean. NO WAY.

Renato, you are just wrong on this one, I would bet my life on it. How ON EARTH could they produce those female times, but not do the ANYTHING in men's distance running???? Name ONE male Chinese international distance star. You can't do it. Whenever one sees a disparity like that between the performances of the sexes within a country, and there is no good explantion for it, you know something is sour. And China is a country that used to penalize famlies for female births(and WORSE.....), or reward families for males. In short, China has NOT been a country where female rights are highly respected (things have changed a little bit for the better). Doping them to the max would not be considered unethical I am sure.

It will be very difficult to know the true whether the Chinese athletes of 1993 were doped. I wrote a brief anecdote about this Chinese distance coach working in Mexico City (page 78), but I think you might understand better if you read the following article from December 1993.

(Some of you might find Ma Junren contradictory and offensive ideas)

New Studies in Athletics

Issue No. 4, December 1993.

NSA Interview –3

MA JUNREN

By Rolf von der Laage (GER)

NSA: The phenomenal standard of performances in the middle and long distances by Chinese women during the IAAF WC in Stuttgart as well as during the Chinese games in Beijing only a month later, sent shockwaves around the world, How do you explain this rapid development?

MJ: After I was demobilized from the Army in 1970, I took part in a short term sports faculties training class and later became a sports teacher at the 55th Middle School situated in a mountainous area 40 km from Anshan City, Liaoning Province. I cycled to school everyday to train my students who were too poor to afford shoes and ran bare footed. After a few months of training they triumphed in local competitions. When I was transferred ton the 29th Middle School I could already rely on my experiences and also began to train women in middle and long distance athletes. This was also the time of my daily studies of books, magazines and all scientific material available from all over the world on the subject of middle and long distance training. I experimented, had successes and many failures, but never gave up. After 15years of work and numerous achievements, I was named a professional athletics coach atthe Anshan City Sports School. There I began the current national and world champions, whom I had recruited from the various spare time sports schools.

I can say that my key to success lies in two elements: selection of the runners and development of the skills. All the runners I chose are from rural areas in Liaoning Province. They are used to enduring difficulties. Otherwise, how could they bear to run the equivalent of a marathon a day at high altitude? Who else in the world does this? Furthermore, I keep all my runners away from disturbing influences. They are runners and they have to train to improve their performances. They have to follow my advice with dedication and not think of things other than running and performing well. This is my philosophy and it is proven by success.

NSA: Are your training methods based on any particular philosophy?

MJ: In the 1980’s I found that most of the training methods used by our coaches were outdated copies of those used in Europe in the 1950’s. Therefore, I frequently went to international meetings to observe advanced running skills. Moreover, I started research for my own running theory, I studied various training theories of well-known coaches from Australia and New Zealand, from the USA, from Great Britain, Sweden, Hungary and Germany. Besides learning about the various theories on training load and frequency, aerobic and anaerobic training, endurance, speed-endurance and speed training, it was interesting to learn that there were thoughts that women might be especially suited for endurance sports. This is something which is confirmed by the situation in my country. Moreover, I think that running skill is a very important factor. Therefore I went back to nature to study the harmonious and easy way animals use to move. Whenever I had the chance to go to a zoo, I observed the walking and running skills of different animals. To help my athletes improve running skills I often took them to the roadside to watch horses, donkeys and dogs run. I also studied the running skills of ostrich and deer and tried to adopt them in training. It is from the deer and ostrich that I found the key to success in distance running.

In general, one can say that I tried to adopt the experiences of many successful coaches of the past, combined these experiences with my own, studied carefully the opinions of the world’s best sports scientists and studied animals as well. Out of all this knowledge I tried to develop my own training theory taking into consideration all the environmental factors, traditional living attitudes and sport supporting pre-conditions in my country and in my province Liaoning.

NSA: Of what importance is centralized training within your theory?

MJ: Centralized training is of great importance: the coach must be able to control everything in the life of his athletes. As you know, I prefer the spartan life with my girls because it is that which protects them from seeking other pleasures in life. These young athletes are professionals. Thus, they should not even think about things other than their aim to be even better. My relentless training regime is the foundation of our success. I myself get up at 4:30 am everyday and prepare a chicken soup for my runners which they drink when they get up at 5:30 am. Training stars before 6:00 am with gymnastics and gentle jogging before my athletes set off for their morning run of between 25 and 30 km depending on the individual demands. Also, the pace over the different parts of the distance differs from athlete to athlete. In preparation for the World Marathon Cup, for instance, Wang Junxia had to run more km ata faster pace than Zhang Linli or Zhang Lirong. They, in turn, had to follow a higher loaded program than the middle distance runners.

After breakfast, washing up and laundry, the girls do their studies which include English and Mathematics. Lunch is at 12 noon. Those athletes who are under particular strain have to drink the fresh blood of soft shelled turtles which I myself have beheaded. Strict rest is maintained until 3 pm and we meet for training again at3:30 pm. This time rather than run on roads, we train on a exactly measured grass track with an undulating surface. We only work out on a cinder track once a week and only on a track with an artificial surface just prior to very important track races.

Dinner time is at 6 pm. After dinner is spare time which is used for physiotherapy. Bedtime is 9 p.m. Some medical doctors say that the stress these girls are under may be well above the normal tolerance range, but I think that my program and our way of life will do little serious harm to my athletes.

NSA: High altitude training seems to play an important role in your training program. Could you please tell us more about it?

MJ: Altitude training is perhaps the major factor in our success. I believe that 30 to 40 days is an ideal period. One month high, one month low, this how we can put it. I do not want to go into details. But I will say that the period after coming down from altitude before competition is also very important. The period of time is different from middle distance runners than for long distance runners. In China we have many possibilities for altitude training. I prefer two places, Qinghai Province (2400 m) and Kunming (2000 m).

NSA: You mentioned that the runners undergo a physiotherapy program daily. How is this conducted and what others means of medical care are taken?

MJ: My training loads demand good physiotherapy . The roads on which the girls have to run are hard and the padding in their shoes wears out easily. I myself do the physiotherapy with massages, electric massages and acupressure to aid the girls recovery. I use acupuncture on their injuries. I know a lot about Chinese herb medicine as well and so make full use this to strengthen the girls health and to treat them in case of injury or illness. It depends very much on the type of injury, but in many cases the girls have to continue with their training. Nature heals, of course and if they stop for injury, the fat they put on in a week takes four weeks to get of.

NSA: Please give us some idea of the girls’ daily diet.

MJ: You can take food as a delicacy and you can take food under the aspect of its nutritive value and power. I pay very close attention to the second. I put together the menu for my runners myself and even go to the market personally to select what should be prepared. The meals must be well balanced between carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins and trace elements. It is a science of its own to find the right balance for the different grades of training load and training types. During high altitude training we have to look for nutrition that helps in the production of red blood cells. To this end we use several nutrients and special Chinese medicines. Westerners and many Chinese might find the taste of our dishes repellent and the appearance unfamiliar but my runners eat it dutifully.

NSA: Where do you find your future athletes; how do you select them?

MJ: As I have already explained, we have many sports schools both in China and in Liaoning Province in particular. It is this type of schools where I look for talent and where I also advise coaches-teachers on how to support those athletes which I think could, after some time, make my group. I look for skill and a personal background, which promises endurance qualities. One finds this with athletes who have a rural, peasant background. Life in the country is hard. They have been used to running long distances since they were small. Their mothers think nothing of trudging 20 km to market with heavy baskets on their shoulders.

The father of Wang Jungxia, for instance, is a poor fisherman, 54 years old. Junxia helped him fish when she was a child. From the boat she dived into the water and scared the fishes into her father’s net. During her spare time she took part in sport with the boys of the village and it was soon discovered that the boys were no faster nor more persevering that Junxia. Her talents were noticed in school as well and at the age of 12 she became a member of the local spare time school. She was transferred to the Unlien Boarding Sport School at 15. She liked this life very much and was very obedient because it was much better than athome, where 5 persons of her family had to share two rooms furnished only poorly.

Even poorer is the family of Qu Yunxia. Her father is a peasant worker. The family of six was living in a two-roomed mud hut. Yunxia ran 6 km every morning to her primary school and the same distance home again. All of it barefoot because she had no shoes. When at the age of 12 she was invited to attend a specialist sport school because of her running abilities, her father had to sell his prize possession, the family’s only pig to buy her running shoes.

In general, what we need are talents with an endurance background. Such girls are also mentally prepared for enduring difficulties and setbacks on their long way up to the top. Such girls really want that way of life and the burden that is loaded on them. And we must not forget running skills, the ability to run in an easy and natural way, when we select talents. Just look at how many lng distance runners move, they simply do not know how to run. We see it even at the Wchamps and OG. There was, and still is a philosophy among many coaches that: If you are too slow for a shorter distance go to the longer ones, for atthe longer distances you do not need running skill”.This is completely wrong! Just think of how much ground you lose, how much time you spend in vain if you have no running skill, if you do not know how to run forward.

Once you have found the talent, you must treat it carefully. You must find a way to develop it which best suits each individual. The athlete’s aim is to be outstanding one day; this is what you want too. Thus, always have an eye on that target. You and the athlete must be patient. A gradual build up takes time. All disturbing influences must be kept away from the athletes. In my view a spartan way of life is the best way to reach it. A spartan way of life allied to the most appropriate training program. True, we have many talents in China, as soon as one falls aside due to permanent injury or illness or burn-out, there are another 30 to step in. But, if you think of the individual sacrifices the talented athletes are making on their way to the top, if you think of all your time and work involved you will be as careful as the athletes to be obedient and dedicated.

NSA: The rapid development in middle and long distance running in China at present (1993) mainly comprises the women’s events, why?

MJ: The answer is closely connected to the historical and socio-cultural background of men and women in Chinese society. The position of women in Chinese society is similar to many societies in many countries: a woman is a minor being in comparison to man, a man is always superior to a woman. Thus, women have to be more obedient, more modest, more easily satisfied than a man. They have learnt to undergo a harder way of life to carry heavier burdens and to be more patient. Patient is a typical feminine quality. This attribute is clearly connected to the general idea of endurance. We must also consider psychological, physiological and bio-chemical peculiarities when discussing the idea of endurance in its complexity. All this qualities are more developed by nature in women. That is why I agree with the theories that women are born and more developed for endurance tasks in life and thus also in sport."

(This interview is longer, but I have cut some things not related to the subject)

Marco:

Thank you very much for sharing the information about the Chinese women via the interview with the coach. Tinman

dunes runner wrote:

The link above which said she made such statement, in reality says this:

"He (Ma Junren) and his athletes were steamed by charges about drugs. ?These people themselves are taking drugs,? he said, noting that the only secret substances his athletes indulge in is the concoction made from caterpillar fungus, and a soft-shell turtle stew."

Some admission????

I was very happy at the time of Wang, Qu, and the others smashing the records, and wanted to learn much more about them.

Unfortunately that was lost to everyone by the stupidity of ignorant westerners.

Hi, Dunes! Good to know you're still ignorant as can be.

Try this out. And lest you attribute this bit of reportage to the journalist's bias, understand that it's one of many, many articles from the mainstream press on Ma's Tainted Army. Others are here (note the bit about Dong Yanmei), here (scroll to the bottom, if you can figure out how) and here.

The fact that Wang Junxia was not named is all but irrelevant. Here we have her coach, long heard to spout bullshit about fungus and turtle-shell soup, caught doping a slew of his best distance runners. Wang never ran faster than around 30:50 outside of China - well over a lap slower than her "world rercord" - and in fact ran consistently in that fast-but-not-unreal range. So in short, the level of credulity one has to harbor in order to believe the '93 marks are in any way legit is in itself astounding.

"Ignorant Westerners" indeed! How appropriate a term for you to sling around. But you've been a shit-fer-brains since time immemorial, so no surprise there. Remember how ardently you defended Regina Jacobs? This is take two.

Fungus,

You are mistaken as I have never defended Regina, nor have I attacked her.

She has certainly an outstanding history of excellent running, and I first saw her running a long time ago in cross country.

However I do not know Regina or much of anything about her.

My position has always been the same, which is that the drug test for EPO is not accurate. This is very clear for anyone to see who bothers to take a look at the test and the development of it's protocol. Based on the inaccuracy of the test, it is not qualified to be used as a determinate of athlete's having been on drugs, or not, or whether they should be able to complete.

Additionally, I do not have anything to do with drugs.

All the drugs tests and protocols are created by the drug companies to create more drugs and more use of drugs, more publicity for drugs, more money for them and it is all destroying athletics.

So my preference is to get drugs, which must include drug tests because that is the attraction for them, out of athletics and to keep them out.

This is a drug issue and I have no interest in drugs.

My interest is athletics and athletics performance.

Now perhaps you will better understand my position, but whether you do or not, it still is and remains my position.

dunes, evidently you failed to read the portion of the article I highlighted. Try again, this time reading what I said in the post.

About Ma Junren, this man is a cruel animal. That is not a coach; that is a butcher shop. Anyone can take 1,000 people, destroy 995 of them, and emerge with 5 champions. But that is surely not a good coach.

"Special Chinese medicines"? "Fresh blood of beheaded turtles"?

WAKE UP. IT'S DRUGS! He has no shame about introducing foreign substances into the runners' bodies.

As an aside, it seems Renato was quite correct about not running a half marathon PB close to the marathon;

Tergat ran 59:10, his 3rd best ever, and suffered today with 2:11:38.

What a surprising and disappointing race.

JonD wrote:

As an aside, it seems Renato was quite correct about not running a half marathon PB close to the marathon;

Tergat ran 59:10, his 3rd best ever, and suffered today with 2:11:38.

You're right. There could have been no other factors underlying Tergat's 2:11 - it had to be the PR half, case closed. I love the deep, analytical minds on thius board.

what happened in the marathon? why were the times so sloe fo rruto, tergat, and korir?

Hand Me That Diaper wrote:

You're right. There could have been no other factors underlying Tergat's 2:11 - it had to be the PR half, case closed. I love the deep, analytical minds on thius board.

It is especially amusing to me when witless sarcasm like yours replaces reasoned discussion. If you had read what Renato wrote, you would note that it may well have been Tergat's possible overemphasis on aerobic power, half marathon specific preparation as opposed to longer endurance work that saw him do fine up until 75 minutes into the race, then get dropped very early.

However, because you lack reason, simple points of logic escape you and you favor witless insult over discussion of a point civilly.

would this thread end!!!!!!

Blahmeoverab wrote:

would this thread end!!!!!!

some advice for you; leave. go away. if you don't like it, do not post, idiot.

did everyone begint oo fast in Londn? what was the half marathon split?

Marco Veledíaz

The argument to justify the 29:30 Junxia or that the Chinese girls they train hard as they are able - a marathon a day or more, a spartan life, whatever, training several years in that regime, as i read from Renato and some other posts in this thread as they claim it, and that the chinese they claim also - for me that´s no more than a fantasy to make make us blind - like the Walt Disney´s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, beeing the Snow White (Junxia) and the Cheif of the Dwarfs - Ma Juren and their auxiliars.

Why i say so? The extreme high mileage combined with hard training that´s not new. People and coaches and medicine man and soprt physiologists they try to understand the effects of that in a medium long term duration.

In another post about the mileage issue - Renato said that he doesn´t agree with the sentence "train hard win easily". He says that´s not just the volume or the intensity that we need to consider, but to train good, correct, proper - and according his concept that means a correct balance in between mileage and intensity, and that will be wrong and a mistake to put the emphasis in one of them, in detriment of the second (the other one) and this leads that to put the empahsis in both to the extreme that´s not interesting since that both - mileage volume and speed pace intensity - that plays in the opposite training direction and acts that one enable the other - that´s to say the more miles you run the less intensity you are able to run, and vice-versa, and the contrary is also true - if you do too much intensity that enables you to run high volume mileage. I still remember that Renato, a few times he did judge super-high mileage as incorrect in some situations - ex:commenting Michelle Jazzy weekly long runs of 2h30min or longer - close to a marathon - he says that it didn´t work and that´s not effective. Don´t that Jazy is a 1500m, mile, 2000m and 5000m specialist with some of WR in that distance events, but that doesn´t constrains Renato to say that´s wrong to do so many miles in a long session.

Once Renato also comments about some of the kenyan runners that he coaches - that - instead of doing an easy recover run for some 40min after an hard workouts they like to do a long run for some 3 hours, and that he thinks that´s wrong. How he will pretend that the Chinese girls did 300 kilos a week if not doing high mileage everyday, including the day(s)/sessions(s) after the hard exigent workouts ? How do you want that this would be done ?

Once he also said that he did knew what Gerry Lindgren did super mileage - and that he disagree with that high mileage training - that´s wrong and inadequate for such a runner. Now, in the defense of the Chinese Ma Juren runners - some of you you argue that the fact why they are good and did WRs etc., and 29:30 as Junxia did, the main reaosn is also because they did 40kilos a day - high mileage, hard intensity combined programme, for several years.

But all serious experiences and real examples i know of a super-high mileage programme (that includes speed intensity as well) and for a large period - they were a failure - even for the marathon distance event.

I know some experiences with the Finns and other nordics in the late 60s early 70s that did end in failure. They were gift runners, talent runners, track runners and marathon runners or runners that do orienteering - and since they think they can improve a lot with a super mileage regime based, they get out of their jobs to train exclusively all day long in my country or spain (warm temperature in winter) or any other place. People that runs 2-3 sesions a day covering 40-50-60kilos a day in - day in. If you read the book "Finish running Secrets" from Runner´s World publication there are some testimonies of what i say. They live a spartan life, train hard and longer - they did that pionner experience and delay that for years and years ....but the expect reward results from that hard training that idn´t come as expected. I´ve seen some analysis and concrete schedules of that runners. Ok, you may argue that some of them aren´t from enoough class - despite some of them were 2:11 marathon runners or 7:50 in 3000m or 13:45 in the 5000m or 28:50 in the 10000m performance results that Junxia didn´t ! You can claim that they hadn´t enough talent. But at least some improvement would be visible. But don´t. All of then did poor performances, even in the marathon event or 100kilos events - the ones that´s good sense to think that a super-high mileage programme may work and be effective. But don´t. But that works perfect for the Chinese ! And don´t teel me that the Chinese they are willinng to have sucess. If you did knew any of this runners that tried super-high mileage esxperience - they are so motivate that they run out of their jobs to try such an experience and they lived as spartans to look for some improvement, in a kind of alienation - only train and compete matters.

I think i did justify why i think that the artgument of the Chinese high-mileage that doesn´t work for me. For me this is a "show-off" or the "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" fantasy story, and I´m also very surprised that some of you, people with a such scientific mind - you don´t question the true of that 40 kilos a day regime. No injuries? Lots of progress, a 18-20years old girl resists to that regime? All perfect. But you know what did happen with Gerry - injuries. I know what happened with those who experienced that super mileage regime. I don´t buy that one. I don´t say that´s not possible in some cases - to be done and to be effective, but not in all, no way.

As fra as i know the Chineese they are only the ones that may resist to that extremely hard mileage/hard intensity regime regime - why ? Drugs it helps a lot, not faith in the Mao´s Red book - the faith in the Red book that had just conduct to the failure - that´s true for the Chinese "cultural revolution" as well as for the competiton results.