VO2 max for 10k?

What Peter Snell study ?

Older than Pete studies, and bigger than pete study. On that issue peter is just an apprentice. He says nothing new, or relevant to this subject that hadn´t been said earlier or that is not confirmed by the decades, from physiologists to methyodlogists to just trial and error experimental training.

Specificity is a fundamental principle of training. As early as 1945 Brouha studied the concept of specificity.

Most effective distance training are specific workouts and specific workouts are done by intermittent training – interval workouts.

Since long ago that the physiologists know that is the intermittent training – those of intervals –the efficient training type relate to distance training.

Long continuous endurance runs like LT runs or TEMPO RUN places the greatest stress on aerobic mechanism, but however studies by scientists have indicated that the reserves for anaerobic work have a role in prolonging aerobic activity. Runs anaerobic lactic utilizes the stored reserves of the body.

In the intermittent training type like the interval training the pace slow down during the recovery length period between the fast running components will delay the accumulation of lactates, allowing more intervals to be performed.

Some physiologists shows that running fast shorter distances with brief periods of recovery, what is the interval training concept, develops the anaerobic mechanism and the runner gets tolerance for the oxygen debt, but the stresses the aerobic mechanism as well.

After a few fast seconds of run where energy is supplied anaerobically, the metabolic process then turns to the aerobic mechanism to supply energy for further work.

The value of the interval training can’t be obscured or ignored or denied in every training phase considered if the target is aerobic development.

Merely continuous runs can’t replace the effect of intermittent runs because don’t get the positive effect of easy activity during the recovery period.

HOWEVER TO ABLE EFFECTIVE INTERVAL TRAINING IT SHALL BE DONE WITH MECHANISM CONTROL: RICH PACE, REST, NUMBER OF SETS etc, etc, and don´t do as some do, spontaneous without control, kind of “do until you get tired”.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE INTERVAL TRAINING IS TO CONSIDER IS THE NEED OF EASY DAYS TO RECOVER AND OVERCOMPENSATION.

For some that stress the aerobic development as the first training priority of the run distance approach they can’t ignore how undeniable is incorporate interval training in the train program as the best way to improve the aerobic mechanism.

In consequence in every period that can’t be ignored the effective way to improve the aerobic condition by train in anaerobic intensities to some extend done by the interval training. While look for the aerobic development, that’s what is the interval training.

malmo wrote:

Endurance training IS a high priority for the 10k. The problem here is that people are fooling themselves to believe that long runs and tempos runs are the most important, or even highly important for developing endurance. Most important 10k training would be consistent and frequent (read doubles) training stresses of any kind. Preferably, those include regular sessions at or near race pace. Anything else is gravy. Tempo runs and long runs are ancillary pieces to the puzzle -- they are not the necessary pieces.

Malmo, you had sub 4 minute mile speed before you had 4.30 mile 10k speed, but what was your 200 meter speed? Low 25?

"Tempo runs will make you a stronger miler, a faster 5-K runner, a more powerful 10-K runner, and a less-fatigued marathoner."

It must be true, its in Runner's World. ;)

It is true. For a magazine noted for its sound bites that's one of the better ones.

I wonder how you can tell what Merga did in the whole season from the last 19 days of his training log. I also wonder why you raise questions you must already know the answer to.There are no doubt differences between the two approaches you describe. There are also similarities.Lydiard focused on race pace training the 6 weeks before the competition (see the 1962 book "Run to the Top" for a detailed description of the progression towards specific training). This latest phase includes race paced time trials, interval training, and wind-sprints. When you analyze the Lydiard approach, you also see a progression from general support phases, towards race-pace specific training. Early training is generic, but the training becomes more customized and specific to the event as the athlete gets closer to the start of competition.(Interestingly, the 1962 book doesn't use the words "aerobic" or "anaerobic", describing training with terms like "marathon conditioning", or "track training". Also Lydiard describes two kinds of athletes, a speed type, and a stamina type, not unlike your "2 kinds or runners", and how they will react in the different phases of training.)For all your education and historical knowledge, you have failed to show or quantify any negative consequence of ignoring race pace based training in the off-season phase 3-6 months before competition. If there is a negative impact, it must be measurable over a suitable controlled sample.All of your assertions that a non-linear general/special/specific approach is superior to a linear aerobic/anaerobic approach seems based on faith. Do you also have some material and documented proof, besides individual anecdotes and personal faith? You might point to current performances by East Africans, as superior to historic performances by Europeans/Americans/Oceanians, but your documented proof should show why current performances are due to changes in training, rather than race or genetics or racing environment.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Some physiologists shows that running fast shorter distances with brief periods of recovery , what is the interval training concept, develops the anaerobic mechanism and the runner gets tolerance for the oxygen debt, but the stresses the aerobic mechanism as well.

What do you think about the idea of equal or longer recoveries for VO2max intervals?

For example, doing 1k repeats at VO2max pace with 5-6 minutes of recovery instead of 2-3 minutes?

Depends what you mean by VO2max intervals? Because maximum oxygen uptake is reached in all races from 800 to 5000m (towards the end)

For the workout you suggest to be effective, you would need to be running your 1k repeats about 5-10 seconds faster than your target (realistic) 5000m pace.

rekrunner wrote:

There are no doubt differences between the two approaches you describe. There are also similarities.

When something, some idea, some theory is similar or equal, ther´s nothing to debate, no material to discuss.

I see that you did progress from past posts when you didn´t see nothing different, to admit some differences. It took you years to admit.

Similar or equal training doesn´t constitute one training method. One method is named one training method mainly because does something different or detach from the others.

If run is resumed to run, no way you run differently, if one mile is one mile no way it´s different to what it is. Eventually every training is resumed to run.

I was right in this previous point. Some aspects of one training are different to the other training. I think you might do you intellectual penitence.

rekrunner wrote:

Lydiard focused on race pace training the 6 weeks before the competition (see the 1962 book "Run to the Top" for a detailed description of the progression towards specific training). This latest phase includes race paced time trials, interval training, and wind-sprints. When you analyze the Lydiard approach, you also see a progression from general support phases, towards race-pace specific training. Early training is generic, but the training becomes more customized and specific to the event as the athlete gets closer to the start of competition.

In what page, in what part of the Run to the Top or every other document, every other quote, every other trustful source from legitimate Lydiard training, it´s said that the specifics is the important part of the distance training approach or that the specifics are done as prime interest, on the top of interest during every training phase ?

What I read about that 1968 - 6 weeks training is: “anaerobic type repetitions; time trial / sharpening trial”.

Read once again. ANAEROBIC type of repetitions and time trial / SHARPENING trial.

As far as I know the meaning of anaerobic isn´t race pace or specifics, and as far as know the meaning of sharpening isn´t race pace or specifics, and in no case the word “race pace or teh word specifics or both” is written about that 6 weeks of Sir Pete Snell and Ron Davies, the 2 that did that trainig log.

I didn't reference anything from 1968 (did you mean 1978? "Running the Lydiard Way"?), nor any training logs of Sir Peter Snell and Ron Davies. And certainly, you did not find "anaerobic type repetitions" in the 1962 book. As I said, the words "specific", as well as "aerobic" and "anaerobic" do not appear in the original book that describes the training approach that led to world class success.

The repetitions and wind-sprints are defined with different parameters, so are not necessarily "specific", but the "time trials" are the specific training. The six weeks before competition incorporate a systematic use of time trials, and development races, to prepare the athlete for race pace, at the race distance. So wherever you read about time trials, and races in the coordination phase before competition, in any Lydiard reference, this means "race pace" and "specific".

The concept of time trials are introduced at page 63-64, for cross-country training.

Pages 81-83 give a more detailed description of how to effectively use time trials during track training.

Another indication of Lydiard's appreciation of specificity appears on page 132. He explains that training over 1 mile, and over 6 miles does not guarantee running a good 3 miles. You must accustom yourself "to the actual speed required over three miles by means of time-trials".

What do you mean by "coordination phase" rekrunner?

I agree that wind sprints are not necessarily exclusive to the race specific period of training. I think they help during base training. I think that wind sprints and/or downhill sprints are an essential form of training, without which we can't progress with the endurance training, because they enhance basic techniqe and power production at all paces.

I called it the 6 weeks before the first important race.In the 1962 book, for the hypothetical athlete in New Zealand, the year is split up into different phases according to the New Zealand seasons:- Marathon training- Hill training- Track training- Cross Country training- Road Racing trainingThe "Marathon training" develops endurance and stamina. The "Hill training" drills develops muscle strength and flexibility. The "Track training" phase is 12 weeks long. The first 6 weeks are for developing speed. The last 6 weeks are for tying together, or "co-ordinating", all the individual components endurance and stamina, strength, and speed, under simulated race conditions (near race pace and race distance), using the time-trials.In later descriptions of the training, the "Track training" is split up into two (or three) phases, called "Anaerobic training", and "Coordination training" plus "Freshening up" (tapering). For example, from the presentation at the Lydiard Foundation the phases are called:I. ConditioningII. Hill ResistanceIII. Anaerobic TrainingIV. Co-ordinationV. Freshening upBy "specific" Antonio means "race pace", e.g. 95-105% race pace, rather than a time of the season, as in "specific period of training".

J.O. wrote:

What do you mean by "coordination phase" rekrunner?

I agree that wind sprints are not necessarily exclusive to the race specific period of training. I think they help during base training. I think that wind sprints and/or downhill sprints are an essential form of training, without which we can't progress with the endurance training, because they enhance basic techniqe and power production at all paces.

But what do you actually think?

You asked me two or three years ago about the effectiveness of assisted fast running such as wind sprints and downhill running. You actually asked me so many questions that I couldn't answer them all, but it was the assisted running that I thought was the most important to discuss because everyone talks about everything but this, when in fact it's probably one of the best ways to develop running talent.

Think about it. If you do 200m sprints down a 5% grade, how much faster can you go? And the answer is, not much faster, even though running it the other way, slows you down considerably. Therein lies the real conundrum of running talent development. Because, although you can't go much faster downhill, you can, with practice, repeat the effort many times, because you learn to relax at speed in a way which is impossible when sprinting on the flat.

Maybe then it won't be hard to see why I wondered for so long what the big fuss was about when it almost seemed like "there's nothing to debate, no material to discuss".For a long time, the differences seemed to be just differences of opinion, about interval training and periodization. Seemed like there should be more than that. If anything, these modern changes seem trivial to incorporate, if one is so inclined.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

When something, some idea, some theory is similar or equal, ther´s nothing to debate, no material to discuss.

I see that you did progress from past posts when you didn´t see nothing different, to admit some differences. It took you years to admit.

Similar or equal training doesn´t constitute one training method. One method is named one training method mainly because does something different or detach from the others.

If run is resumed to run, no way you run differently, if one mile is one mile no way it´s different to what it is. Eventually every training is resumed to run.

I was right in this previous point. Some aspects of one training are different to the other training. I think you might do you intellectual penitence.

confused- wrote:

Hi, just a quick question. Is doing work at 5k or faster pace (800s, 1000s, 1200s etc) beneficial to do ever week or so while training for the 10k? I know threshold/tempo and long runs are of importance, but how often should someone do work at VO2 max pace?

Every pace is important from slowest to fastest, they all support each other.

Yes, it helps to run faster than 5k pace regularly. If you look at the best 5k/10 runners, they have superior speed endurance at every distance. They can run 400m very close to their 100m pace, etc etc.

I like hard tempo runs more than malmo did, but I agree with him that it's very important not to run them too hard, but to increase the pace and run within yourself rather than turn it into some kink of punishment ritual which is what many runners do.

Rerunner

Don´t be tricky, don´t play with words. Don´t insist in entropy argument.

Everybody that understands the minimum of Lydiard training knows that the Lydiard main concept of season progress and shape to able performance enhance on the peak season moment is about from aerobic build-up training in the attempt to increase the aerobic efficiency supposedly to able to resist to the next late season phase – the anaerobic one – when the workouts are getting faster, sometimes time-trials, but don´t have the link with race pace target distance whatever or the relate with specifics, that is just fast because the main idea is to train anaerobic.

This Lydiard philosophy is detailed in most of his work, documented in books, conferences, articles, interviews etc, and as far as I know he never gets out to a different training direction. The Lydiard main idea of go from aerobics to anaerobics is repeated to the hexaustion during decades.

It´s hard to you to admit what I say, but it´s the true. As it was hard, and took years to admit that most of the world known runners and coaches don´t use regular long runs as a norm while training for distance events, excepts in the case of the marathon.

For some people that lives in the cave of Plato´s it´s hard to come out of the darkness.

Do you really think that one phase/period of 6 weeks during one season or double season periodisation with FASTER-ANAEROBIC training would be enough to justify the use of specifics. Not at all. The use of specifics, as it´s done in modern training, starts very early in the season combined with the aerobic runs. This is what is defined by multi-lateral peridisation or non-linear periodisation, if you wish, to include and combine every type of effort zone in some percent during the same training phase/cycle/period, and not to confine one phase to one single target, as Lydiard does with marathon phase anaerobic phase. In each of this Lydiard several phases the main goal is just one. It´s by this linear-training target that he reduces the anaerobic training variables during the aerobic block and he reduces dramatically the aerobic training variables during the anaerobic block. This is outdate, this is a season periodisation that is outdate, comes from the olf fashion Matveiev ideas.

One day, with time I can tell you why IT´S ONE MISTAKE AND ONE TRAINING DEFICIENCY TO THINK THAT THE TRAINING ENHANCE AND THE SEASON PERIODISATION SHALL NOT START BY DOING AEROBIC RUNS MAINLY. As the Lydiard dogma idea that the long run is necessary to middle to long distance training is WRONG, the dogma idea that the aerobic training is the first/early one to target it´s also wrong and a dogma.

But continuing with the reply to your post.

You say “systematic time trials”. First that is not systematic by the little frequency that is done during the 6 weeks. Second and more important that time-trails are all EXCEPT RACE PACE ORIENTED. That are just fast runs but “all flat out runs”. The rare occasions those time-trail-race are ON RACE PACE IT´s BECAUSE THE RUNNER COULDN´T RUN IT FASTER.

I send you some examples to what I want to say.

I mean one file that generously Mr. Nobby send me long ago by email , that he said to me it´s the 10 weeks training of 68 Peter Snell and Ron Davies before Tokyo. The file is titled “Lydiard's Track Schedule for 1,500 meters / 1 mile”. Please remember, don´t forget “schedule for 1500m /1 mile !”

I don´t post the file because Mr. Nobby ask me to keep it private and I will keep it until I died. I´m a man of honor. However I will use just a little of that info to let you know by facts my argument.

The file contain is day by day training of the 6 weeks of training until Tokyo Olympics. It´´s on that file that is written “Yellow high-light is anaerobic type repetitions; blue high-light is time trial / sharpening trial” it´s not me that invented or add the meaning anaerobic type repetitions or “time trial /sharpening trail”. I think that who did it does credentials to write what is written. He defines the training as anaerobic and he defines the time trails as sharpening.

But let´s continued. On that file on the left columns it´s write “RUN TO THE TOP(1968)” and on the right column it´s write “Peter Snell Prep. for Tokyo”.

Why 2 columns with different training ? He writes that the left column was the real training, not what is write on the book.

On 10 weeks (70 days) before the Olympics, it´s scheduled that Peter Snell did 7 time-trials ! It´s one time trial average by each 10 days. You say it´s systematic ? What systematic ?

Among what is considered “anaerobic repetitions” he did 7 in 10 weeks also, and by instance, I might read “20X220 yards in 27.45 seconds average and I read “5X880 yards in 2:13” or “6X880yards in 2min 10seconds”. Do you really think that for peter Snell that did in 800m final 1:45.1 and some say that he could have done faster, but he constrains himself for the 1500m heats and final where he did 1500m heat 3:46.6, and 2 days later on the semifinal 3:38.8 and one day later on the final 3:38.1.

Do you really think that workouts like 5X880 yards (800m) in 2:13 or 6X880y in 2:10 aveage is time trial-race pace oriented ? One runner that did 1500m in 3:38.1 that is each 100m in 14.5 and 800m split/or average of 1:56, he does race pace time trials of 5X800m for 2:13 ? ! Race pace oriented ? ! Race pace determined ? !

Well, I don´t want to omit that among that 7 time trials he also did 1X660 yards in 1:19 or 1X800m in 1:47 or 1X¾ mile (1200m) in 2:56, but again, this is fast training, mainly because the training target it´s anaerobic training, if that´s race pace or race pace connection it´s a coincidence, not the target.

Please, read more of Lydiard, not to search for the forgotten word of "specifics" in some part, but to see that i´m right.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

You say “systematic time trials”. First that is not systematic by the little frequency that is done during the 6 weeks

Not 6 weeks but 10 weeks on the peter Snell and Ron Davies schedule that i did mention.

rekrunner wrote:

For a long time, the differences seemed to be just differences of opinion, about interval training and periodization.

The diferences aren´t just intervals and periodisation. Eventually the difference is the entire package, but i may admit that many of the Lydiard training is not the world´s best training but ther´s are many other distance methods worst than the Lydiard one. the diferences are the long run for instance, and a few other fundamental differences

Right now, keep out the interval training difference and keep in the periodisaton.

Do you really think that periodisation it´s not a huge difference ?

See...periodisation is a combine of efforts during one timed length period, but

it´s not like mathematics addition (summ). In mathematics we can use 2+5+7 on that order or 2+7+5 or 5+7+2 or 7+5+2 or 7+2+5 every kind of sequence order that you got the 12 as result. But training it´s not like mathematics, don´t you think ? If you don´t why in the Lydiard training the aerobics comes earlier and the anaerobic comes next ? It´s because it´s not the same precisely, if the order of things is reversed. This is as the periodisation. If you have the similar training but in different order of sequence it´s a huge difference.

Well that's seems like an open question. What do I think about what? I'm losing the context. I don't remember asking that specific question, but it's not unlike me to ask more questions than you can answer.When I think of my own personal training, I've only raced in the spring and the fall. In the summer and winter, I may sign up for road or trail races, but don't care about the result. So I don't mind extended periods of "off-season" training where I'm not planning race-paced interval training to maximize my potential. Maybe this costs me precious minutes in races. I hope not.I can see how fast downhill running can help develop form while running fast, without expending a greater effort than can be sustained on the flat.