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

Yeah, he already told us how to improve LT. Mi, go buy a book or something or read the thread. LT is not that difficult to understand.

No, that's the point; he didn't.

I read this whole thread, followed it, etc.

Some high school asked a very simple question in the beginning wanting to improve his running. Renato comes back with something along the lines of "Well, Shaheen does 12 400's in 58 and 20 x 60m sprint uphill in Iten at atltitude."

That's all very exciting, but how does that help a high school kid? I know "everyone" on this board is a 1:48 800 runner, a sub-4:00 miler, or a 14:00 5K guy (evern though, if you added up the number of people who claim these times on this board with those who have actual results, the two wouldn't come close to matching), I bet the majority of people run in the range of 15-18:00 for 5K and are looking to improve and train more effectively. Simply put, Renato does not appear willing to answer the questions of non-Kenyans. Some guy a few pages back was talking about doing 14K split up at 2:51 per 1,000m. Clearly, an elite runner, and he got an immediate response. In fact, this whole threshold question was diverted when started talking about MAX Lass. The question was not about Max lass. The question was about lactate threshold. I read it all. Very few people in the entire world are capable of developing a Max lass like Shaheen at 12:48 5K pace. Simple, it's not true.

He also wrote that if you can become a professional runner, doing 120 a week, you can run 2:10 for the marathon. Sorry, it won't happen. I have seen people who work ridiculously hard relative to their abilities and whose times go nowhere. I can think of several people from high school that would do all this stuff; running in freezing, freezing temps when NO ONE was outside, running in the dark after school while sick (one guy wanted to do some hills, could not see, so shined car headlights up the road to clear a path), shoveling off tracks to do sprint workouts, doing good mileage, etc. And some of these guys could not, in senior year, break 5:00 in the mile. All the work was there, the motivation and desire was there, the pushing in races was there, and even the basic speed was not so bad, certainly enough to do 5:00. But there were many injuries, or, when healthy, performance stagnation. People like that become depressed if the work sees no results. In short, I wish all the pretigious coaches would also show a willingness to work with people who do not appear as talented. It may be with correct training, you can bring a lot out of them. MAny KEnyans have won medals using fire and brimstone training. It is important to develop this talent, too, but the world class guys and the sub-elite already know what they are doing. Gebrselassie trains himself, for goodness sake. The serious people who are not as fast merit some work as well. This is my point.

Well Mi, it's pretty simple, if you ever read anything on the topic. Let me summarize:

2 mile warmup

20 minutes at LT pace

2 mile cooldown

OR

2 mile warmup

4-5 x 1 mile at LT with 30 seconds rest

2 mile cooldown

OR

2 mile warmup

25 minutes at LT pace

2 mile cooldown

OR

You get the idea.

........use your imagination, it's high school.

There was somewhat more to what I meant than the mere semantics of an LT workout.

Mi: Try reviewing page 2 of this thread. Also, Renato corrects himself a bit towards the bottom of page 37 on this thread. Hope this helps with ideas for improving the LT also known as the AnT.

Renato's advice from the aforementioned page 2:

Perhaps someone can elaborate?

1:16 600's are supposed to improve the threshold? I think there is a fundamental divergence of definitions here.

Repeat 1:16's would more likly cause cardiac arrest than an improvement in the threshold. I tend to agree with this point about the elitism here; I sincerely doubt the original poster is an Olympic 800m runner, so the example, even with corresponding time alterations, is not in any way applicable or helpful.

God forbid anyone pick up a running book:

Lactate Threshold is:

About 1 minute + mile PR

4:30 mile best, LT = 5:30 per mile

93% of 5k velocity

16:34 5k runner, 5:20/mile = 320 sec/mile

LT = 5:44/mile

12-15 seconds per mile slower than 10k pace

24-30 seconds per mile slower than 5k pace

About 15k race pace for slower runners and about half-marathon race pace for really fast runners

The pace you could sustain for a race that lasts 55 min. to 1 hour.

About 88% of VO2 max.

Anything else?

This thread impresses me...on the way to 2000 posts!

Maybe nobody understands what he is saying in this thread because it was not presented in Power Point format.

Brett--

I know very well the formulas. I wonder, then, why a top coach advises precisely the opposite? 98% of 5K pace is NOT a lactate threshold workout, and 85% of this stuff does not apply to anyone but the most super of elites.

Ah I understand. Hmm. Didn't he mention there were TWO types of lactate threshold. The normal LT that anyone would build, such as what I posted and then an "event specific" LT. I think he said where you develop your LT fullest for like 2 years (the normal one). But now you can run longer with more lactic acid, such as a marathon originally at 1.8 mmol but now you can run the marathon on 2.3 mmol, or whatever. So a new LT for an 800 runner might be the 98% of 5k velocity he refers to, a more event specific type of lactate threshold? Doesn't fit our normal definitions but maybe that's what he means?

Yes, but the point is, the advice is tailored to 13:00 5K runners, and, with few exceptions, the posters are not 13:00 runners.

I got you. You are saying that even if we all adjusted our times accordingly, we would not want to approach it that way? Only very elites would?

A 13:00 5K runner running at 95% of maximum 5K velocity is completely different than a 17:00 5K runner running at 95% of maximum 5,000m velocity. The 13:00 man can run very close to max speed and have it feel EASIER even though they are running FASTER; the 17:00 5K guy might feel a lot harder at that same percentage of effort. There are innumerable factors to consider; lifetime base mileage, natural speed, untapped potential, response to training, etc. If you knew all of this in both athletes' cases, perhaps then you could adjust the times. It really is a precise art, and I am saying that it is a disservice to throw times out there when the people asking the questions will not know what it means, how to use them, or what they need to do BEFORE they attempt such workouts, in effect, TRAINING TO TRAIN.

Yeah you are absolutely right. Elites have years and years of aerobic base and probably have tapped that "aspect" of their training to the fullest. The only way to improve would be to do highly technical workouts like he is saying. There is no way we could do that, in the average crowd.

Master of obvious, why do you think that is easier running 5k at 95% of PB for a runner of 13:00 than for a runner of 17:00 ?

For a runner of 13:00 (2:36 pk), 100% of time is 15.6 every 100m, and 5% is 0.78, so 95% (in our system) is running at 16.38 each 100m = 2:43.8 pk = 13:39.

For a runner of 17:00 (3:24 pk) is 20.4 every 100m, and 5% is 1.02, so 95% is 3:34.2 pk = 17:51.

Do you really think that a 17:00 runner cannot run, in his training, a 5k in 17:51 ?

If you think this, it's clear that you are not able to increase your Threshold.

But for you what is more important : to increase your Threshold or to improve your PB ?

And, when you become able to run in 16:30 using a combination of training (long run at 80% from 1 hr to 1 hr 20:00, medium run at 90% from 30:00 to 40:00, short fast run at 95% from 15:00 to 20:00, long intervals of 3k - 2k at 100%, medium intervals of 1000m / 800m at 102/104%, short intervals of 600/400m at 105/108%, where those percentages are referred to the 5k time), without controlling every moment your Threshold, do you think that your Threshold is yet the same or that has increased ?

I think that you must become more pragmatic, thinking of the EFFECTS of training, not the PHYLOSOPHY of training.

Don't make difficult what is easy. It's easier improve from 17:00 than from 13:00, if you want. Believe me, for some one running 17:00, to run 16:30 is essentially a problem of quantity and quality of training. For someone running already 13:00, may be his effective limit, if he already trains with high volume and high intensity.

Mama and Papa have still their importance.

Renato Canova wrote:

Master of obvious, why do you think that is easier running 5k at 95% of PB for a runner of 13:00 than for a runner of 17:00 ?

For a runner of 13:00 (2:36 pk), 100% of time is 15.6 every 100m, and 5% is 0.78, so 95% (in our system) is running at 16.38 each 100m = 2:43.8 pk = 13:39.

For a runner of 17:00 (3:24 pk) is 20.4 every 100m, and 5% is 1.02, so 95% is 3:34.2 pk = 17:51.

Do you really think that a 17:00 runner cannot run, in his training, a 5k in 17:51 ?

Renato, I am involved with an American high school team, and I also know many other runners in the area. One kid I know works very hard, has a 17:47 5K PB during cross-country (somewhat hilly course, could have run faster on the track). This kid, in 7th and 8th grade, without training, always won the school fitness test over the mile and set a school record in 8th grade. In 7th grade, to test himself, he went to the track with a stopwatch in hand. It was raining and windy, no one else there, and he had a bunch of baggy clothes on. He ran 5:57 holding the stopwatch, without any sense of pacing. This kid was small, too, about 4 feet 10 inches, 75 pounds. In 8th grade in the school, they put the kids out on a football field measuring a mile. Without a warmup, he set the school record in basketball shoes with 5:42.

Perhaps it is not some Kenyan 12 year old running 4:15 or whatever it is they run, but he beat everyone else and appeared talented without any training and with a slight frame. Again, without training, at 13, still very small, he runs 19:02 on the road. No one else in the grade can beat him, and some others are big, strong athletes even for 8th graders.

Fast forward. His 8th grade year, Achilles tendonitis. In the summer, he runs on a trail and cracks his foot against a rock, breaking a bone. He doesn't know it is broken, so continues his training. He runs a road race of 10 km, breaking another bone, and loses 2 months. He comes back, begins training again, and doing a hard run on the tarmac in the winter (where there is snow, and no trails or grass to run on), he shatters another bone. He loses 2 more months. He returns, building up again, and does 18:51 on the road at 15. Only 11 seconds with 2 years training. He stays mostly healthy, runs track and runs 5:15 for the mile, 18:19 for 5K (with migraine headache after from the effort), and 11:19 for 2 miles. Again, not good, but he lacks the training. He has hit an all-time high in a week of 57, but his average is in the 30's; his training is poor.

In the summer, he trains more, and gets mononucleosis, but continues training. Every workout is a disaster; he RACES a mile in 5:37, that normally could be an easy workout for him. He keeps training, injures his ankle, loses 2 weeks, comes back again and injures the foot again, losing the cross-country season. He comes back, runs a 5 mile road race in 31:05, a PR, but strains his back. He loses 3 weeks again. He comes back in the winter. Where he lives, it is very cold, sometimes as low as -20 degrees Celsius. He circles a dirt parking lot in training to avoid stress fractures from running on the road. No one else in the school, not even anyone on the track team, runs. He is the only one in over 1,000 people. He does his hill workouts up a steep hill in several blizzards. In short, he is dedicated.

He gets the flu, losing more training, but comes back for track. All season he has bad allergies due to the air, and every meet he races the 150 and the 3,000, because no one else will do those races (the 3,000 is the longest). He goes from 4:54 to 4:49 to 4:46, then 4:46 again (sick with a cold), then 4:48, then 4:53 with bad allergies the last meet. He finishes the race on the ground on the track, in a fetal position, in great pain. No one can determine why he fails to improve. The other athletes, who have not trained during the whole 5 months of winter, start the season slowly and can take 30 seconds off their mile times, running 4:30-4:40 for the mile.

He begins again right away after the season for cross-country, training hard in the summer, reaching a highest week of 72 miles, other weeks of 63, 69, averaging in the 50's, his highest for fear of more injury. He feels very tired all the time, and begins the season badly running 18:26 for just 3 miles.

At the end, it is better, a PR at 5K of 17:47. He begins again in the winter for track, and loses more time due to tendonitis in the foot. Again, the winter is very bad, and one day, tired of the snow interfering with training, school is canceled and he goes to the track. There are 2 feet of snow. He is still of small frame, not big (5 feet 4 inches, 108 pounds) and shovels for 2 hours, clearing the track. Afterwards he is sick and vomits 15 times. The next days, still weak, he goes for a track workout in the cold. It snows again, and he shovels again. He did some training a few days where there were blizzards so bad that he saw car accidents while he was running. He wants a good track season.

Come to March, and he has raced twice indoors only, to prepare better for outdoors. Some workouts, just warming up by jogging, he is exhausted, always fatigued. He has threshold workouts, long runs, hill sprints, short strides, drills, mileage; he should be prepared. He runs his first race, a mile, in 5:23, feeling terribly sick.

His next race is 2 miles. The track is inside, only 150m (21 laps). He runs 11:15. There is a 14 year old girl later in the week in the same conference who runs faster in 11:07 for 2 miles. He is embarassed.

He keeps training hard, and, yet again, he injures the bone marrow in his foot where the growth plate is. He cannot run for 2 months again, losing his final year of track.

So, he goes from age 12 with 5:57 in the mile to age 17 with 4:46 1500 (5:06 mile). He goes from 13 with 19:02 5K to 17:47 5K at age 17. He can sprint 21 for 150 meters, all out. His speed is not good, but he works very hard with it using sprinting all the time. Another runner on his team, who ran 8:40 for the mile at age 12, this year at 17 runs 4:29 and 9:46 for 2 miles, training less, and having been much slower earlier in life.

What is talent, and what is running for this kid, to deovte thousands of hours in many conditions, injured, sick, or both, and when he is healthy, no improvement? I read from Scott Douglas that a Kenyan in his article was going to hang himself because he was injured. Was he injured this much? Running is important to these people that invest so much time in it.

To tell someone he will not succeed because his mother was not a world class athlete born at altitude is discouraging. Few people wish to hear this.

There are cases like this story above where someone works very, very hard and does not improve at all. And yet others improve with such ease, even though they are already running fast, like Nicholas Kemboi, already 28:00 for 10K, and he runs 26:30. Where this is explainable, it is difficult to hear "You do not have good genetics; you won't make it, no matter how hard you train."

Easier for the 13:00 man according to Marius Bakken: The lactate at threshold for a 13:00 runner may be 3.0 mmol, but for a 17:00 man, it could be 4.0 mmol. Easier for the better runner to stay relaxed and maintain fast speeds with less effort than someone struggling at 17:00 pace.

Hello Renato and you all

I think that Renato, he wants to pass the message that the training principles are the same for everybody, and applied for no matter what´s the runner category. In a proportionality range of result the 17:00 runner may try the same 95% 5000m race pace workout than the 13:00 runner. I think that this Renato idea is correct.

But I don´t agree that´s the same for a 5000m/17:00m runner or for a 5000m/13:00 runner to run in 5000m/100% less 5% for their 5000m race pace.

May be that´s the same effort or may be don´t !

First let´s keep I mind that if an effort that´s in duration of a certain intensity, to spend 17:00min in a such intensity of his own talent , and assuming that the 13:00 runs that 5000m in the same intensity effort than the 17:00 runner, one spends 13min and the other 17min in that same level. That´s more time spend for the 17:00 runner, more 4 minutes. This may cause that according a pace intensity the 17:00 runner ther´s a large change that according shorter runs capacity (ex:1500m) the percent of pace he uses in that 5000m/17:00 is lesser than the 5000m/13:00 runner also according the same short distance. I know ther´s the other side of the same problem – what Renato refers,that´s the human performances have a limit, then the one that does 13:00 is in a level of the human capacity and consequently his own personal capacity higher than the 17:00 according the human performance limits.

More important than this my argument – time spend/duration in a certain level of effort – is that´s may be that´s not the same level of effort for each one. Also may be 2 runners with the same 5000m/PB or close that´s not the same effort for both to run in 95% their 5000m Race Pace.

Ex: (imaginary runs)

Runner A pb´s – 1500m/3:35 – 5000m/13:00 – 10000m/27:20

Runner B pb´s - 1500m/3:35 – 5000m/13:00 – 10000m/26:45

Of course that are imaginary figures, but that can be real. I guess that runner A, by the way that´s not distant from the german Dieter Baumann.

In principle for the Runner A, that´s harder to run in 95% 5000m race pace than runner B - which that´s easier for the B, because in what Renato considers Max.Lass effort ther´s a large change that the runner B feels more comfort than runner A in that 95% submaximal pace 5000m than runner A. In this consideration ther´s a good chance that the runner A have a weak max lass than Runner B.

As you understand that´s the same for both runners with 17:00

Runner C pb´s – 5000m/17:00 – 10000m/36:10

Runner D pb´s - 5000m/17:00 – 10000m/35:35

That´s similar to the runner A and runner B example. Now imagine that you relate runner B with runner C or runner A with runner D – in percents of their performances of course. Really that´s not the same a 95% 5000m effort for everybody.

In this my analysis I also don´t atke in consideration something that´s vital if you want to consider the human performances and more important than that that´s “the rate of perceived exertion”. Resuming the perception of each effort (activity) zone that´s not the same for everybody, then ther´s one more strong reason that one runner in his perception and motivation for the effort he have a natural refusal, or a natural desire to run under some effort percent – according the time and duration. I still remember Renato´s post that he said that the runner he did refuse to do an hard check test – arguing that he will do that in a real run against El Guerrouj. May be his rate of perceived exertion to the a training effort don´t motivates him to do an hard check test in training when in competition he is able to do so, the level of motivation different. That may also happen with both runners with identical performances face to a 5000m/95% 5000m race pace intensity. And then that´s easier (or harder) to the 13:00 runner to run that workout than to the 17:00 runner. A good coach nee to consider that. From my experience what makes a top runner – apart from mother and father – that´s also the quality of doing hard/intense workouts, and in that respect the faster runners/top class are also the best to resist to a certain effort “without complain”. One more reason to believe that´s harder for the 17:00 runner to perform that workout.

About this topic I advise you to read Borg author.

www.humankinetics.com

Now I want to profit the occasion to express a my own idea – about this issue. Ok, a 95% race pace for the same event distance that´s considered a specific effort, a kind of check test if you wish. But when you get distant from the needs of the specific efforts related to the competition race pace – more we observe large disparities from 2 runners with the same performance.

Ex:

:

Runner A - 800 (1'58) - 1500 (3:56) - 3000 (8:12)

Runner B - 800 (1:52) -1500 (3:56) - 3000 (8:50)

This is a real example from 2 of my runner´s.

I did use for both this 2 interval workouts.

Workout number 1 - 15 x 400m rec/40sec/100m ahead on track

Workout number 2 – 10X400m rec=70sec/standing

Runner A did a better answer (fast average range) to this workout number 1. Runner B did a a better answer and did fast laps average in workout number 2.

The different answers of both runners to that training unities i consider that runner B have te best anaerobic capacity than A and also more speed capacity, meanwhile the runner A have more aerobic capacity and a great capacity to train in the hard efforts delay, because workout number 1 that´s more dense. Neverless both have the same 1500m performance but as a 400m workout is weak and distant from the 1500m needs – then this short interval reps are consider a general stimulus not specific for 1500m, that´s the reason that each one does different workout results.

Now if you do a stimulus that´s closer to the 1500m specifics – a check test as follows ex:

Check/control test number 3 - 3X800m/100%-105% 1500m Race Pace rec=5minutes/standing

or this one (that´s the best one for 1500m)

Check test control number 4 - 3X1000m/race pace rec=8 to 10min/standing

Now both runner´s have similar results in that check test workout number 3. because this 3X800m stimulus is closer to the 1500m race needs. The average range result did 0.8sec range

For both runner´s. they did 3X800m/2:02 to 2:03 average. We did that 3 times.

Then when I tried that workout number 4, what did happen. Runner B did a refusal to that workout: too long for his training capacity. Firt time I did try I did need to resume that to 2X1000m+500m to able the runner to complete the check test.

As you may understand, even in trainings that are pace stimulus similar to the race pace 2 runners from the same performance they have different capacities to run that workouts.