Double Whammy? Hadd do you know what he is taking about

It is hard to say exactly what could be the reason for your difficulty being able to handle the kind of mileage you used to be able to handle. I will try to hit on all the areas that I can, using the information you have provided. Perhaps one of them is the reason. You will have to try each one of them and be patient, progress can be slow.

First off 6 mmol/l in an all out run test is pretty low. This is about what a marathon runner might see when he or she is ready to race. It should be higher if you are trying to increase your aerobic capacity. How far did you run in your all out test? Olbrecht recommends 600m. You can do a 400m test but your lactate levels may be about 1-2 mmol/l lower. Don't run longer than 600m though. If you run for too long your aerobic system will catch up with your energy needs and start to bring your lactate levels down.

How many blood samples did you take after your all out test? You should draw blood within a minute after you finish the run and then continue to take blood at 2 minute intervals until you see your lactate value come down. If you only take one or two you may not have gotten your highest lactate value. It takes a little bit of time for arterial blood lactate levels to catch up to what is actually going on in the muscles.

If you take a long time off from training it can take a while for you to rebuild the mitochondria that are responsible for energy production and endurance. It does not take as long for someone who has recently been fit to gain fitness back though. Your capillary system that you developed from high mileage should mostly be intact so you shouldn't have to develop that.

I would look at your strength. Have your muscles atrophied at all from inactivity. It may take a while for you to gain the necessary strength necessary to run high mileage again. I would look into doing some specific hill work to build your running muscles.

I like to prescribe short hill sprints that take about 15-20 seconds to perform. This is basically anaerobic capacity work but you don't get the pounding that running on the flats gives you. It works your muscles a little bit more also. You need to ease into this though, because you don't want to overstress your Achilles tendon and calf muscles. Start running them easy at first and then increase the intensity a little bit every time you do them. Take about a 2-3 minute walk recovery after each one. Do them once to twice a week depending on what other workouts you are doing.

You could also try some strength exercises using weights. You may be week in some area and need to work on it. Jump rope is a good exercise. So are calf raises and squats. Some hamstring work on one of those big exercise balls might also help. Hamstring curls don’t do much for runners.

As for translating Olbrechts book into running workouts. Basically you need to take the swimming distance and multiply it by 4. So if Olbrecht talks about doing repeat 100's in the pool, you could do the same workout on land but you would do 400's instead (4 x 100 = 400). The same goes for all the other distances. This is also how you can compare race distances. A 200m race in the pool is the equivalent of an 800m race on the track. The time necessary to complete the two distances in a race is about the same.

As for recoveries, you would basically multiply Olbrechts 15 second recoveries by 4 also. So instead of repeat 100's in the pool with a 15 second recovery you would perform repeat 400's with a 60 second recovery. You can take more rest if you need it though.

Olbrecht recommends that you only do a minimum amount of aerobic power work and anaerobic capacity work during workouts in the base phase. He talks about limiting it to 600m in the pool. Again, you just multiply this number by 4 and you will get 2400m, the amount you should do running on land. He has suggested that you can do a bit more than this though, about 2 miles worth, but probably not more than that, and that is only for aerobic power workouts not and anaerobic capacity work. You probably want to limit that to a mile on land. You can only sprint near to all out too many times. If you do more than that in a workout he suggests breaking the workout up by doing about 4 miles of easy running in the middle of the workout.

Have you thought about your diet? Maybe you need more iron (take vitamin C with it).

Maybe you need more protein about 1g per pound of body weight.

Maybe you need more carbohydrates. It is very difficult to increase your mileage if you are already glycogen depleted when you start. The more mileage you run the worse it gets. I kind of think this is probably the one area you would benefit most from if you aren’t already eating enough. Eat high glycemic carbs within the first 30 minutes to an hour after your run, and then try to consume low glycemic carbs the rest of the time. Drink plenty of water with it too. You store a gram of water for every gram of carbohydrate you store in your muscles. A little bit of weight gain would not be a bad idea if this is the reason for it.

From what I hear you saying I would probably work on your anaerobic capacity. Do as much easy running as you can the rest of the time and take days off if you need to. Don’t do any long runs over 90 minutes until you feel you are ready to.

I hope this information helps you.

Balance,

Thanks for all your input. It helps a lot. It definately is a strength issue for me from what I can tell. I\\\'ll try the short hill sprints where I can or at the very least just some 10 second sprints on the flats.

The testing I did on myself where I got only 6 mmls was an all out run of just under 90 seconds, so I didn\\\'t quite make 600 meters but was close. (between 500 and 550) I also drew blood samples at 1 minute 3 minutes and 5 minutes to make sure it peaked. Which it did at the 3 minute interval.

As for my diet, I try and eat a balanced diet and typically eat about 2000 to 2200 calories a day plus 100 for every mile I run. So that shouldn\\\'t be the problem. Though I am fairly thin being 6 foot and 153 pounds but with only 3% bodyfat. I\\\'m fairly muscular for a distance runner. I have noticed since doing a little more intensity the last few weeks that I\\\'ve been feeling stronger.

I thought about doing two hard workouts a week with one being 3 times a mile at roughly my 10 mile race pace and a few (maybe 4) times 200 meters at mile race pace afterwards with full recoveries. The other workout would be just some 200\\\'s or 300\\\'s at mile pace. The rest of my running would all be easy. Do you think I should only do 2 miles of of aerobic power work rather than 3? Seams like so little?

Unless you think I should just run easy and do the hill sprints and striders. I have found adding the AT running the last few weeks has helped my strength.

Thanks again for your input.

Paul

I can see that you are a true Daniel's Follower by the workouts that you are trying to do. I believe Daniel’s knows most of the why’s but he doesn't necessarily know the how’s. What I mean is he knows what you need to do to be a good runner, but he doesn't necessarily know how to apply it. The fact that he has such specific workout programs developed in his book that everyone is supposed to be able to follow tells me he may not understand how different each athlete is. Although I am sure he knows because he has worked with so many athletes. His Vdot pace chart is amazing though.

Phase one if his program is basically 4 weeks of easy running. The problem is who knows how long it will take before you feel strong enough to start running any type of workouts. And when you do feel strong enough you may not want to start running anything longer than 100m at anything close to mile race pace. Daniel’s likes to start people in on 200's and 400's at this pace. How do you know you are ready for any prescribed pace at this point in your training? Daniel's charts are only good if you know your current fitness level, and you need to race to know that. If you are just starting your training again, how would you know what Vdot to start at? This early on in your training I would not concern yourself with pace. I would just run the prescribed workouts at whatever feels comfortable, especially if you run anything over 200m.

Threshold workouts are great to do during the base phase, but you need to be careful not to do too much or you will overtrain. Again don't go by any prescribed pace. Find out what is currently comfortable for you and then work on improving your fitness from there. I have a feeling you might be trying to hit some predetermined pace during your repeat miles and this may be what is breaking you down every time you try to up the volume of intensity in your training. If you have a good 2 - 3 months of easy running at 50 miles per week you should be able to do 3 x 1 mile at your anaerobic threshold and still feel like you could easily do 3 more. If you don't feel that way then you are probably running them too fast and that is why you can't seem to get over the hump. A good place to start is to find out what pace you can comfortably run the desired workout and then improve on it by increasing the pace a little bit when you feel like the workout is becoming too easy. You will stay within your current fitness level and work with your body instead of against it. Leave the Vdot stuff for your precompetition phase (Daniel's Phase 3) when it is important to work on acquiring the necessary aerobic power to race at your desired speed.

Thanks! This has helped quite a bit.

Hi, Balance. Looks like no one chose to answer question about lactate levels in a mile race on lap 1 vs. lactate levels on laps 2 and 3. My guess is that lap 1 lactate levels would be lowest. Other opinions?

Hi, Balance. I have a question about lactate. I read that Michael Phelps (the swimmer)had a relatively low lactate (maybe 6)on an all-out lactate test. The article (ESPN magazine?) said that most swimmers would have a lactate of 20 on such a test. If these numbers are accurate, why isn't Phelps a distance swimmer? Maybe he is now, since he just won the US Trials (for the World Champs) 400 freestyle. But, I've never heard of him doing the 1500.

Peter

I´m not Balance, but before Balance good advise what you read this artcle ?

ááEvery Athlete is Unique

By: Michele Ferrari

Published: 26 Mar 2004

http://www.53x12.com/do/show?page=article&id=41

One more comment. The speed this thread is going on it shows that readers have interest in the issue.

I hope that this can expand as much as the big LetsRunCom threads.

I have read that Michael Phelps lactate level taken immediately after a 100m freestyle race was an exceedingly low 5.0 (5 millimoles per liter of blood). Other swimmers after such races have been reported to typically produce levels of 10 or 15, or sometimes higher.

I have two possible explanations for this. The first one is that this may not have been an accurate measurement of Phelps peek lactate level, because only one blood sample was taken, and that it was immediately after his race. Multiple lactate samples may have been needed to get an accurate reading.

The other possible explanation has to do with what we call lactate clearance. It is possible that Phelps has such an extraordinary aerobic capacity that his muscles may be able to clear away more lactic acid than other swimmers. Lactate clearance is a hard thing to train, but it appears to have a direct relationship to how high the aerobic capacity is.

Of course Phelps may just be a Freak of nature that we can not explain. He may be what researchers call an outlier, because he falls outside of the norm.

Here is some extra info on lactate.

First your muscles create lactic acid, then it is converted into pyvurate so that it can be used as fuel by the muscles. Your mucles will utilize as much pyvurate as they can, but your aerobic capacity is the limiting factor to how much can be used. If it is quite high you can utilize a great deal of the pyvurate that was created. Once your aerobic capacity is maxed out on its ability to use its fuel sources, any left over pyvurate will be converted back into lactate. It has been observed that very fast swimmers can have higher lactate levels in the blood than slower swimmers because they are able to utilize more of it, so more can be created before they actually slow down.

That was very informative Mr. Cabral. Thanks for sharing. That article just clarifies our understanding of how different each athlete can be. A really good coach will recognize this and adjust their training methods to the athlete in stead of making the athlete adjust to some strict method.

Some thoughts on adaptability:

Lactate is either buffered or is reconverted to other metabolites through various pathways (involving MCT proteins or dehydrogenase enzymes, etc.) There may be some genetic ceiling to each athlete's ability to "clear" lactate. Hence, there is a point in the training of each athlete at which raising the maximum lactate value will likely come at a detriment to the goal of shifting the "lactate performance curve" to the right (i.e., being able to attain a faster "lactate threshold velocity"). While improvement of both capacities at once is possible (and desirable), each athlete may make use of these traits in a different balance. The author Michele Ferrari describes this as an athlete using "his own motor in a different way."

To further delve into the art of preparation, some of an elite athlete's work (particularly that which hovers within a few percent of race pace for the primary distance) should ideally point toward being able to handle rounds and being able to handle sudden accelerations (as in championship races). In addition, some runners need to be able to judge their own race pace (without the benefit of a rabbit or a pack) and run hard yet intelligently alone in the event they find themselves with either a sizeable lead or large deficit in a relay race. This is to say that while it is of importance to train for fast times in rabbited races, it is of equal importance to prepare for solo efforts and for kicker's races. Hence, sessions which target each physiological aspect of fitness (oxygen consumption, metabolism or buffering of lactate, etc.) should not only work synergistically to each runner's needs, but they should also take racing into consideration.

Once you spend enough time researching the whys and wherefores of various training procedures in an attempt to fine tune your training as much as possible, you will come to the realization that you cannot perfectly maximize every aspect of endurance or sharpness at the same time. At this point, you will concede a couple of things: One, there is a heirarchy of the importance of training procedures, related to the aspects of fitness they target and related to the cost-effectiveness of time spent training. Two, periodization is crucial in order to ultimately achieve an ideal blend of workouts, and a period of general conditioning must precede stages of specialized conditioning.

Once foundational principles of development are understood, the "art" plays a major role. If you are an athlete, you can use the tried-and-true fundamentals as your basic template and tweak your workouts in the right direction once you discover enough about how you respond - how your "motor" works. If you are a coach, you must pay attention to the signals your athletes send when it comes to responsiveness and recovery. While everyone has plenty of things in common, we aren't clones (not yet, anyway), and the path to excellence is a wide path with plenty of room for individual idiosyncrasies. Each season may also present new variables. These include weather conditions, hours of daylight, diet and hydration, sleep patterns, availability of facilities or trails or hills, jet lag, ... the list goes on. So be flexible - there may be some rules you don't want to break, but you should learn how and when you can bend them.

Balance,Antonio and ZuZu please continue.

Zuzu's petals,

As far as I'm concerned that was the most informative and best writing you have contributed so far. I am glad to see that we are still moving in a positive direction with this thread. Thanks for the info on reconverting lactate "to other metabolites through various pathways (involving MCT proteins or dehydrogenase enzymes, etc.)" It has been a while since I have seen this information. I guess we could start a discussion on each one of these but that might get a little bit tedious. Although this thread has been heavily science based, I am still try to keep it practical for training purposes. So far I think it has been. I must admit a lot of what We have been talking about is a bit advanced if you don't have a strong background in exercise physiology. You don't need a degree though, just too much time on your hands and a warped sense of what is fun to read.

If anyone has any questions on a particular statement I may have made I would be glad to try and break it down and simplify it for everyone. I believe I have been relatively clear (minus the typo’s). Some of my posts are a bit long I must admit though. I try to do the best I can.

By the way I read Renato Canova's most recent interview article. He apparently is really into prescribing 20-40 minute hard runs. This sounds very similar to what I have seen from the Moroccans. I was aware that the kenyan's tend to run close to the Anaerobic threshold very often. I am not sure if this has become the norm by accident or whether it is specific to the coaches. Renato believes these runs are what give his runners their endurance base, and that long slow runs don't really contribute to true endurance. I am not sure I would totally agree with him on this point though. It seems to me that his observations tend to be the norm, but it is my understanding that there are some very successful programs that don't emphasize these types of hard runs at all. It is my understanding that the Portuguese tend to emphasize long track intervals in stead. Not that they don't run moderately long hard runs because they do, but they don't necessarily put a strong emphasis on this. From what I hear they tend to do them when they want to, and when they feel recovered enough from the track work to do so. Antonio, do you have any information on this that you could share? I'd love to hear it.

As for the hard 20-40 minute hard runs, these are definitely tempo runs or anaerobic threshold runs. They may be run just under the threshold or right at it. They may even be over it a little bit. These runs will definitely give you great strength endurance. They are very demanding though and it can take quite a while for a runner to get strong enough to be able to handle doing them on a regular basis. I suggest start doing one 20 minute run a week and when you feel strong enough add another. Only once you can comfortably run two of these a week should you try to run them longer. I think 40 minutes is an upper limit myself. If you run longer than that at that intensity you might as well run a 10-mile, 20k, or half marathon race. Those races can take two weeks to recover from, and is probably not conducive to training. It is better to do a little bit often then kill yourself in one session.

He probably does realize that long, slow runs can contribute in a more developmental mode, but is trying to drive home the point that they do not do as much for an experienced and aspiring elite runner's specialized conditioning. The long, slow running certainly does play a role as early groundwork, inasmuch as adequate balance of the fat/glycogen substrate utilization is most safely and efficiently acquired through use of slower running as a prelude to faster long runs. However, for an experienced elite marathoner to piddle along at three minutes per mile slower than race pace for two-and-a-half hours every week or two is a waste of at least two of those hours. Among other things, endurance training precipitates a "glycogen sparing effect," so with increased endurance comes a need to run faster to access the glycogen within the FT muscle fibers. Slow running alone won't cut it forever. This illustrates Renato's point that the same stimulus only brings about adaptations for a given time before you need to modify it.

If they are done effectively, they will certainly exceed the threshold, but only for a short time. This faster running is better than slow running for increasing mitochondrial enzyme activity, although the slow running is also required for recuperation, weight stabilization, lipid metabolism, and for summoning the smallest motor neurons, which are instrumental in stability, posture and cultivation of the most efficient, effortless, subconcious ("zen state") stride patterns. This slower, relaxed running is de rigeur for complete development, but running moderatley long as fast as possible without experiencing undue difficulty or acidosis is more cost-effective in terms of developing most facets of endurance. It is possible to exceed the threshold briefly without laboring or hyperventilating, but knowledge and discipline are required to play this daredevil's game of brinksmanship - laughing in the face of acidosis, so to speak - without going too hard too often.

Continuous runs of 20 minutes which finish slightly above the threshold can be balanced with somewhat longer runs (35-40 minutes) which feature the majority at a fractionally slower pace but which still exceed the threshold for a brief period near the end. Interchanging these sessions provides diversity in the routine and yields a slightly different stimulus from workout to workout. Moderately long repeats with rest periods which are short relative to the run periods can accomplish the same purpose.

Well put Zuzu, well put.

The interesting thing about Daniels book is that there is is so much information in there. Schedules on detraining and such. If you are coming back to training you can estimate your VDOT from that or as he says from a recent AT run. Then work from there.

I agree with you that 400's are too long to begin with on rep work right out of base training. I personally don't like running more than 200 meters in the begining. Once I feel stronger then maybe some 300's, but I hate doing 400's.

I also think that there needs to be a little more of a transition between the base training of doing slow easy running with some striders to the early quality training of reps and tempo runs. Maybe some marathon paced running even done in reps just to get the specific strength a little higher. In his second edition he advises an option of switching some tempo runs for some marathon paced runs every other week. I think this will balance things out a bit more.

Something I've read that Daniels will do with his athletes is based on the type of runner they are, middle distance vs. long distance. He might have them do their tempo runs at 1 or 2 VDOT's higher for the 800 meter runner. Something he doesn't set forth in his books, but individualises when working personally with the athlete.

Just my thoughts.

Mainly we have 3 variants in the anaerobic threshold runs. That´s the pace intensity , that´s the lactic acid concentration by acid lactic meters (mmol) and also that´s also time run duration/distance that the AnT occurs. That´s what that lactic acid tests they test.

For the same runner, while he trains, several things that may happen. About lactic acid concentration, one of them is that the AnT (the curve turns to the right) in a lower - or higher - value than before. The other – about the pace run intensity - is that your pace is faster - or slower – in the same lactic acid figure - than before.

In all the cases that by reading the data that make us to think that the runner did an AnT improvement – ther´s a large chance the only improvement that´s in running economy. By running economy I want to mean that by your running movements/dynamic you are able to run with a less oxygen consumes, relate to the same pace or any different pace, including in the races, of course. The only way to test that is to use the lab test with oxygen consumption. Despite that you may do that in a ergo-bicycle or a treadmill that´s not the same than in the real terrain (while running), Of course that running economy and running movements - and then also oxygen consumes that changes a lot – from real running to that artificial lab tests.

Then, this may not be a plateau justification or anything else but running economy that eventually you did achieve while you did train in what supposed to be AnT training.

I have used 1000m reps (3-5X) as the bridge out of basework and intro into more specific work. These reps start at threshold the 1st 200M and gradually increase the pace each ensuing 200M with the last being at around 1500M pace (Daniels R pace). The accumulated pace is between 3-5K pace. I borrowed this workout from Tom Osler's acceleration 800M reps. I have found that it takes 4-6 of these sessions before the athlete is ready for traditional speedwork.

Ok, I finally thought of some stuff I want to talk about.

I have been pondering a couple things in my mind that I have been struggling with. I did not want to talk about them until I had it clear in my mind that I understood it before I would mention it here.

Basically since the beginning of this post I have been touting the great importance of Olbrecht's work. I am not sure if I have mentioned this but Olbrecht believes that you must be careful to not do too much running at the so called anaerobic threshold. He believes that because the perceived sense of effort at threshold pace is relatively low compared to much more intense workouts, runners may be in danger of doing more than their aerobic capacities are ready to handle. I have also mentioned that Olbrect tends to advise against doing too much volume of aerobic power workouts during the base phase of training. He does believe some is important though.

My personal belief is that you can do much more running at the anaerobic threshold than Olbrecht recommends, and that this is actually important for your overall development. I have mentioned how tempo runs are great for strength endurance. I believe that tempo runs are the real foundation for the faster workouts that you would perform during the precompetition phase of training.

Olbrecht is right however you must be extremely careful when performing tempo runs during the base phase of training. If you are not careful you can overstess your aerobic capacity and actualy lower it instead of increase it. This is where gradual increases in both volume and speed come into play, as well as careful attention to recovery and regeneration during your easy days. Diet is also important.

Renato Canova's recently published article talks about the importance of 20 - 40 minute hard runs. He believes this is the foundation work for other stuff to come. To him it is all about creating an adaptation that creates the utilization of the correct fuel sources in the correct percentages. I remember reading another article where Tudor Bompa (father of modern periodization) was asked what areas of track and field was the US was week in. His answer was the distance events, and especially the 10k and marathon. When asked what the reason for this was, he stated that he believed that US runners did not do enough long repetition running of 20-40 minutes each. I am not sure he meant that runners are supposed to do repeat 20-40 minute runs, but his point is clear. He believes we need to run relatively hard for these durations. Not lots of shorter repetition running. His reasoning had to do with increasing fatty acid utilization. This is basically the reasoning behind Canova's idea about doing these runs.

Canova mentions how fatty acids may be utilized more at longer and slower runs, but that running longer and slower will only teach your body to become better at utilizing fatty acids at slower speeds. He believes you need to run faster, but still over relatively longer distances to create the desired changes. I believe this is also the reasoning behind Bompa's ideas.

Ok so we know we want to do more tempo runs of 20-40 minute duration’s. The problem is still trying to do these without overtraining. You can't just send your runners out and tell them to run hard for 20-40 minutes. They may just listen to you, and the problem with that is that although they can perform the runs, they might not be ready for them, or worse run them too fast. It is common for runners to become overtrained if they venture over the anaerobic threshold too often. The trick is controlling the runs so that they can walk that find line of running right at it or just under it, but never over it. Or at least not too often.

More to come….

OK, the point is we want to do as much anaerobic threshold running in duration’s of 20-40 minutes as we can during the base phase, but we don't want to over train. How do we do this? Two ways: test and monitor. We test by using lactate tests, and we monitor by observing the athletes reactions to the workouts, be it by asking how the runners feel as well as making note of increases in heart rate (specifically when resting).

Olbrecht believes there are 13 different reasons for a shift in the lactate curve to have occurred. It is very complex, and I will give you a couple of examples of how you can interpret lactate tests.

Olbrecht recommends testing every six weeks to monitor progress, or lack there of. During the base phase, an increase in the speed at a blood lactate value of 4 mmol/l would represent an increase in aerobic capacity as long as the anaerobic capacity did not go down. If anaerobic capacity went down a couple of points and your speed at 4mmol/l is not a substantial improvement you more than likely did not increase aerobic capacity, and may have even lowered it.

Also, if the anaerobic capacity went down, and the increase in speed at 4 mmol/l is not very significant, then more than likely you are overtraining and your aerobic capacity is paying the price.

Again more to come as I put it together in my head.