Why can't you run VO2 Max and race pace intervals year round?

meltdown wrote:

bump.... How can these theories be applied to Masters runners, where at 45 it takes me FOREVER to recover from a hard workout?

Thanks.

I suggest that the reason it takes you so long to recover is that you have fallen into a rhythm of doing extreme workouts and then needing many days to recover. This will happen regardless of your age.

To break the cycle, change the way you train, instead of doing extreme workouts, do workouts that you know you will recover from in 2-3 days, with easy running in between.

Runningart2004 wrote:

What he did was 100% right for him.

Alan

Alan, what are you eating for breakfast that gives you the ability to read the minds of others?

Can you point me to the article talking about Deena vo2 max increasing with mileage. It definitely isn't normal to get close to a 20% increase in vo2 max going from 70mpw to 100.

Every research article I have every read suggest that intensity boosts vo2 max much higher than just plodding. While the research has some flaws (pretty short term projects) evaluations of the training of the Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Moroccans suggest they do a lot of high quality vo2 max work (and then for fun make do a shitload of volume).

The other thing is that vo2max workouts actually do a very good job of improving efficiency and LT at race paces. Long distances improve efficiency but at training paces.

Flying Low wrote:

You can. Lot's of people do it.

It seems like lots of people missed basic grammar in grade school, too.

Some help for you:

There can be an increase in V02max with increased, easy running, weekly mileage....not 20% though...that is too high.

"luv2run" Yes, I meant to say Vigil had his athletes doing mile repeats all year- BUT the paces they did them at changed throughout the year so that perhaps most of the time they were run more as threshold workouts (not V02max). For a half-marathoner that might be slightly faster than race pace though.

Running economy is going to improve with increased yearly mileage....and by recruitment of muscle fibers (both ST and FT) when doing reps at 1500m to 10k race pace....so that is going to in turn result in improvement of your velocity at V02max.

Do them year-round (could just be strides) and you are always working towards progressing, always working towards a "goal pace" and improving your economy while developing hip mobility and better mechanics. Just don't burn the candle too hot all the time and you can preserve a relatively high level of fitness.

http://www.geocities.com/sagecanaday/index.html

the thing to remember is that her total volume increased not just mileage. this means that her threshold work was more per week. her vo2max work was more. so its not that she just added more slow miles. she added to everything. remember, daniels had % of mileage guides for each type of workout. and vigil does too im sure.

just an example...

for a VO2max workout maybe she was doing 5x mile when she was only doing 70-90miles. then she improves that to 6x mile when doing 110. thats only a 1% affect on her total mileage but its a 20% increase in VO2max work per week. easy to see how that will make a huge difference over time.

You train to race...that is why.

Too many of you live for your training. You can't post good times so you run more and more and more. It gives you something to brag about.

That is why we see people on here say, "I can run 6 x mile in 4:45 with a 400 jog, what can I run a 10k in?"

There training is ALL wrong. They are maxing out in practice ALL the time and then race like crap. I have been coached by Daniels and read his research. I think people over-look one key principle here, the goal is the RACE, not the training.

Physiologically the body gets stronger when it rebuilds the torn and broken down tissues. Without rest and recovery this process does not happen. Even with days off the stress eventually builds and will break you down. If you don't take the time off, your body will...in the form of injury.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Why are we questioning Ryun?

Because he's the best example we have of what can happen when one does too much anaerobic work.

Like you, there are other posters who think that Ryun's career is off limits to criticism. Some of them say that his coach, Bob Timmons, was obligated more to KU than to any notion of a "long career" for Ryun. Others say that careers were short back then because there was no money to be made, so you had to go for it in college. My reply is: Why did Ryun fall apart his senior year in college?

Living in the Past wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Why are we questioning Ryun?

Because he's the best example we have of what can happen when one does too much anaerobic work.

Like you, there are other posters who think that Ryun's career is off limits to criticism. Some of them say that his coach, Bob Timmons, was obligated more to KU than to any notion of a "long career" for Ryun. Others say that careers were short back then because there was no money to be made, so you had to go for it in college. My reply is: Why did Ryun fall apart his senior year in college?

Correlation is not causation. There are number of other theories (never really recovered from mono, mental fatigue after coming in second, pressure, getting married, injury,...) which are equally valid. Pick any training approach and we can come up with people that failed.

Was Lindgren a bigger failure than Ryun? He ran a shitload of mileage but never got any faster than he was at 19. Was that due to all the slow miles he ran? I think other things may have contributed.

Unlike you, I don't consider Lindgren or Ryun a failure. Lindgren was still dominating NCAA cross country as late as 1970, when he was 24. And he set his two-mile PR in the 1967 NCAA championship, when he was 20. So I disagree that he never got any faster than he was at 19.

Some of the factors you mention in the case of Ryun's decline probably stemmed from his overtraining. He finished second to Liquori in 1969 because of overtraining, his mono was exacerbated by, if not a direct result of, his overtraining, and his injuries in 1968 before the Olympics were likely a result of his overtraining. So you're confusing symptoms with root cause, which was too much anaerobic training.

Living in the Past wrote:

Lindgren was still dominating NCAA cross country as late as 1970, when he was 24.

LITP, you idiot, Lindgren's last NCAA cross country championship was in 1969. Don't post on here unless you can get your facts straight first.

(And BTW, congrats on those brilliant forecasts regarding Carlos Sastre and his breakaway performance on l'Alpe d'Huez and his overall title.)

you have to remember the adaptive response is highly variable between individuals with training. 15% is average but there are genetic freaks who can improve much more than 20% and others which improve only by 0-3% doing the same high intensity interval program. there was a study which demonstrated this concept in twins by bouchard and others.

mmmm i do intervals an tempos all year round.. but more specific speed and endurance depending on the season an distance of races im training for.

runfree,

I did forget about individual changes, but I was talking about the difference of running all easy miles (ie 40mpw to 60mpw) and how that jump in just mileage helps V02max.

With high intensity intervals (ie real V02max repeats) and some even more anaerobic workouts, someone could drastically improve their fitness beyond a 20% increase (ie in 5k race performance).

Living in the Past wrote:

Unlike you, I don't consider Lindgren or Ryun a failure. Lindgren was still dominating NCAA cross country as late as 1970, when he was 24. And he set his two-mile PR in the 1967 NCAA championship, when he was 20. So I disagree that he never got any faster than he was at 19.

Some of the factors you mention in the case of Ryun's decline probably stemmed from his overtraining. He finished second to Liquori in 1969 because of overtraining, his mono was exacerbated by, if not a direct result of, his overtraining, and his injuries in 1968 before the Olympics were likely a result of his overtraining. So you're confusing symptoms with root cause, which was too much anaerobic training.

I don't consider either of them a failure. But Lindgren was not significantly faster (convert his 6 mile time to the other distances.) than he was as a 19 year old. Not to mention he didn't make the olympic team in 68 or 72.

Overtraining happens with every program. Come up with some names of people that you think trained properly and we will find a long list of injuries. It goes with the territory. It is too easy to decide to too a just a bit more than last year (110 was good last year so I am going to do 130 this year) and cross that line from training to straining.

Everyone loves to say Ryun was the greatest talent ever. If he doesn't train they way he does maybe he would have been another 3.54 runner instead of a legend.

Blah wrote:

Everyone loves to say Ryun was the greatest talent ever. If he doesn't train they way he does maybe he would have been another 3.54 runner instead of a legend.

Or maybe he would have run even faster as a senior in college than he did as a sophomore in college. In other words, 3:49.

Most people would at least want to run faster as a senior in college than as a senior in high school.

You can run these paces year-round and do okay. The key is in the recovery. If you're running a traditional MaxVO2 workout with 1:1 recovery, you might go stale after x number of weeks or might not continue to improve on the roads or track.

However, what would happen if you increased the rest to full recoveries? You're still getting the workout in, but you are not dealing with the increase in lactic acid as you would in a traditional workout.

Someone mentioned Vigil. In his book Road to the Top, he mentions that his runners do mile repeats year-round. They start off at 80% of best mile pace, so it's not much more than a tempo run. The pace increases throughout the training year until they are running pretty darn fast (somewhere around 94%) in relation to their mile PR. He also advocates repeat 800-1000m w/ 3-5 minute recoveries.

As you age, it might become even more important to do a workout such as race pace every week to two weeks, especially if you don't race often. I've learned the hard way that once you neglect the fast stuff, it's harder than hell to get it back.

1. LITP: Let it go. Why the need to drag out the Great Ryun Complaint on every thread. Ryun's enormous anaerobic training load has nothing to do with the initial question about using faster intervals year round. There was no suggestion that these intervals would be a mainstay of the training. I swear if I read another thread with you invoking the GRC I may actually weap.

2. You can use speed work year round. It is a matter of focus. During a base period, if performed, it should be de-emphasized, with less overall stress and less need for recovery. This is accomplished by training the at pace in short intervals with good recovery. This work is not about lactic acid, it is about recruiting the fibers needed for running these speeds.

3. Lactic acid does not destroy enzymes. This makes no sense whatsoever.

4. This has nothing to do with VO2 max. If you are training to increase your VO2 max you are misguided. If you think the advantage of VO2 max workouts is that they increase your VO2 max you are misguided. Actually calling something a VO2 max workout has benefit only in that your listerner probably understands the type of session you're referring to.

5. The general point of interval training is to increase the endurance of fibers you'll use during a race. It is no different than increasing the endurance of your slow twitch fibers, except that these fibers aren't recruited at all during your normal base training. It is odd that one would believe that these same sorts of adaptations in mitochondria etc. that they spend over an hour a day developing year round in slow twitch fibers can be developed in race-specific fibers with one to two sessions a week over a 4 week sharpening phase.