Alan55 wrote:
Charlie,
that's a nice read, thanks for the link. I should have grasped all this stuff, as I just bought Pete Magill's "Fast 5k" and "Your running body", as well as Joe Friel's "Fast after 50". The latter advocates more fast sessions for older runners, so I'm a bit confused at the moment.
At the same time, I'm coming back from several injuries and preparing for the European 10k masters champs in 54 days, so it's a tricky balancing act. I'll be back with some questions to the team soon.
the thing i liked about this article is the fairly straightforward explanations of some of the science that i usually struggle with; the second anyone mentions mitochondria, my eyes usually roll back in my head and i start seeing visions of sugarplums. with that in mind, my explanation for the root of your confusion should be taken with a grain of salt.
one area where the article may or may not apply to us--and it admits this--is our various training histories. it's like the studies that show how HIIT (high intensity interval training) improves athletes and makes them world-beaters--if you're a couch to 5k athlete, it will absolutely have a huge impact, but if you're already training hard in other ways (threshold runs, etc.), then HIIT may have a minimal impact, or even an adverse impact. same with the recommendations in this article--think the reverse: imagine giving cheptegei this training philosophy of more slower miles and see if he brings down his 5k world record further. this is not a criticism of the article, by the way, it's just that we all lie somewhere between these extremes of 5k-to-couch and cheptegei.
then add age as a factor, where we have make clear choices between increased fitness or increased health and longevity, and you can see where it gets to be messy.
then add various muscle fiber compositions, and it gets messier. for example, since i come from a miler background, it's clear i have a higher percentage of intermediate and fast twitch than the marathoners here. i could devote a lot of time to training my slow twitch, but more often that would be at the expense of training my intermediate twitch which is my bread and butter, and i would likely only get slower. so for me, i've found my sweet spot is modest volume with almost daily intensity--for example, i may benefit more from 10 miler with a few 6 minute surges at 70-80% tempo-ish effort (at current fitness that would be 7:30-ish pace on the easy part, sub-6 on the tempo-ish parts) than a 14 miler slow jog at 8 minute pace, but the 10k/marathoner probably needs the 14 miler more. that may change with age (i'm "only" 52"), decreased testosterone, etc., but so far that's held true for me up to this point.
anyway, i enjoyed the read, and it's quite possible--even likely--that i'm full of $#!+, so follow anything i say at your own risk...
carpe crepusculum,
cush