For a sustained period of time?
For a sustained period of time?
Depends on intensity.
And length
and the individual
and recovery methods between sessions.
87% - 90% mhr x 5 a week and one interval session a week here.
The tempo runs where short(25 minutes) the interval session was something like 200's at at 10 km but minutes became seconds so 29 - 31 seconds. But it became harder as i got fitter. With harder i mean 400's in 64s. Or 2400's(only 2) at 66s(peak lactate training) with 3' rest
Did an easy AM crosstraining session(s) every day though. And ofcourse i did a long easy run at 65% - 70% mhr. My crosstraining was also that easy. Somethimes i'd run an extra 20 minutes easy.
I made huge progressions, but i was disciplined to stay in the zones. To never race on training sessions except when asked for. Trained 6 months but it was a bit more complex then this.
You need to build yourself in harder training and prepare the other systems as well. And second every hard session should have recovery sessions etc...(i didn't run on those recovery sessions though, i used to fill the gaps by swimming, cycling)
Also depends on age.
Yeah, it really depends on a lot of things. For me, it's usually two, no more than 3, and I'm only 27 years old. I'm pretty prone to injury and burnout. I enjoy doing hard interval sessions on the track, but I've really gotta be careful and not get carried away. I need lots of recovery between workout days. In fact, I try to swim a couple days a week in lieu of an easy run to facilitate the recovery process. I'm probably one of the more injury-prone runners out there, though.
Bx, what kind of times were you running before and after that training cycle?
3-4
The problem with questions like this is that they sort workouts into "hard" and "not hard," which, while convenient, is factitious. Like most everything in nature, workout intensities, as defined in terms of how much stress they place on the body, occur not discretely but along a continuum.
A similar issue exists when people talk about "training different systems." They conceive of LT days, VO2 max days, and "pure endurance" days, as if training a highly integrated physiological system were akin to dealing with a car's engine bock on one day, its transmission and drive train the next, and its aerodynamics the next. In reality, if you go out and do 5 x 1000m at <5k pace, you'll gain aerobic power more than you will in other types of sessions, but it's not as if you don't get some neuromuscular training in as compared to a long steady run or fail to stimulate some degree of lactate clearance and tolerance. Hell, just walking around is LT training to some extent. And tempo runs boost not only that which we label VO2 max but assist the body in utilizing fuels in "race-like" proportions and in a "race-like" sequence.
Had I posted this in a way that made a lick of sense, I would have emphasized the idea that you have to look at where you are along a recovery/stress continuum at any time based on your most recent X number of runs/workouts spaced an average of Y hours/days apart. There are an unlimited number of combinations that can keep you toward the red (stress) end for just a little too long to result in a maximally effective training stimulus, or, if you're lucky, for just long enough so that with judicious recovery you come back stronger 7-10 days later and in a position to repeat the cycle, albeit using a different combination of workouts.
I am confident that this does not answer jack shit.
Well what I've always wondered was about the recovery. If you do that 5x1k how is the body affected between a 30s rest or a 3m rest. Obviously a lactate acid buildup, but beside that. Is it not worth it to have such a long rest between reps? Obviously more time between reps also make the workout easier and you will recover quicker from it. Is there a place where I can read about or does anyone know a lot about the nature of recovery between reps?
With a 30 sec rest, the metabolism never shuts off entirely, so, you 1) maintain the VO2 stimulus to a certain extent 2) allow some recovery while maintaining 1); and 3) minimize the O2 deficit (anaerobic aspect) of the intervals. Granted, with the shorter recovery, you need to back off the pace a bit, as opposed to a faster interval with longer rest. AS you extend the rest period past 30 sec, metabolism begins to go back to rest levels, so that if you took 3 min rest 1) you remove the stimulus to VO2 during much of the rest phase, and 2) incur and O2 deficit (anaerobic metabolism) upon starting the next interval. The upside to the longer rest is that you recover more, and hence will likely be able to run the intervals slightly faster.
Steve
Steve, what would happen if I did 50x200 at 3k race pace with a full minute recovery. What is my body doing in relation to maintaining a high heart rate and building lactate acid?
All of them. It's the ones lacking in quality that will get you.
Well, that's going to be a big workout, isn't it? The full minute recovery will result in a reduction in VO2 during the second half of the rest phase. As a result, you'll likely not get to VO2 max metabolically, and maybe not even above "threshold (MLSS) VO2", depending on fitness level, but you will be training at that *pace* during the 200s. So, you'll be training the biomechanics of running at your VO2max pace, or thereabouts (3k), but not the metabolic/VO2 components.
Contrast that with a 30 sec recovery and your VO2 will get up above threshold VO2 (likely) and stay there for the most part. You'll still be training the biomechanical aspects, and get closer to the metabolic/VO2 aspects of the 3 k, or VO2max. Granted, you may have to cut a couple reps, but everything's a compromise.
Lactic acid? I prefer to refer to it as lactate, and I wouldn't worry about it. It's inconsequential what happens. It certainly won't accumulate to a great extent using either of the above approaches, but again, lactate isnt' really the important thing other than as an *indicator* of what's going on.
Hope that helps.
Steve
That does help. Do you know anything about the heart rate aspect of it though?
Like Steve says above...3k pace for 200s is not that fast...and it is not going to be a V02max stimulus workout. I personally like these kinds of workouts (more fun is 20 by 400m at 3k pace...w/about 1:30 rec.) If you run high volume these workouts are comfortable.
The main point of doing that kind of workout is improving your economy (a neuromuscular stimulus mostly) at around race pace...to make velocity at V02max more comfortable. You get the heart rate up, but it does not create too much lactate as to damage aerobic enzymes...not inconsequential I'd say.
Even if you cut the rest to say, 30sec it would not be a good V02max workout. Better to do 1000s and 1600s to work that aspect of training.
Now the original post questions the amount of quality one could do in a week...well there are too many variables to answer that. One of the great mysteries of training is the delicate balance of quantity versus quality.
And then the types of workouts you do and how that is integrated in periodization...
Well you could view the body as an organism in need to stimuli. It is constantly evolving, or adapting to stimuli of training that you go through. Wouldn't you always want to challenge it with slightly new stimuli over periods of time so that is constantly adapting, constantly improving?
You go too hard all the time and the body breaks down. You go hard quite a bit and the body eventually adapts (if given the chance through some rest) and supercompensation occurs...you fitness improves.
In theory you could do a kind of short tempo run everyday...but that same kind of stimulus isn't going to allow you to reach a peak.
So its better to always be changing things up a bit, a V02max workout one day, a Lactate Threshold session the next...or changing up the emphasis of cycles of training spanning weeks or even months.
Well all that was kind of vague...
Sage can you shoot me an email so I can ask you a couple questions about training?
In general, I personally feel HR as a metric is of little value, and for these specifically, of none. FYI though, in the two scenarios that were presented (e.g 30 vs 60 sec rest), after ~ 3 repeats, HR rate will pretty much reach a steady state and remain fairly constant. Whereas with a 60 sec rest, HR will decline then increase, and lag during the subsequent 200.
Steve