Like how does your body adapt to be able to run faster races when you bump up the amount of mileage your doing? What's going on in your body that makes it possible? Just wondering because I'm new to distance running and have been told by my coach to go from 40mpw in XC to 50-55 for base for track an I just want a simple explanation as to how it helps
Increased blood volume. Increased red blood cells per unit of blood volume. These increase Oxygen content of blood.
Stronger and larger heart. This allows greater blood output during maximum efforts, and allows the heart to be more efficient at submaximum efforts.
More capillaries in the muscles - Greater delivery of oxygen and blood glucose to working muscles, greater removal of carbon dioxide and metabolic acids away from working muscles.
Greater number of mitochondria and mitochondrial enzymes in muscles. This means grerater work capacity/endurance of each muscle fiber.
So, to clarify your question a little bit. Running more mileage will not give you a higher top end sprint speed. But running distance races is not about top end sprint speed. It's about the ability to maintain as close to that as you can for as long as you can. If you and a friend have exactly equal top end speed, but you can maintain 75% of that speed for longer than he can (because of all those adaptations listed above), then you'll out run that friend over longer distances.
Nice, succinct explanation.
Where is the threshold for mileage?
50MPW at
The Stache wrote:
Increased blood volume. Increased red blood cells per unit of blood volume. These increase Oxygen content of blood.
Stronger and larger heart. This allows greater blood output during maximum efforts, and allows the heart to be more efficient at submaximum efforts.
More capillaries in the muscles - Greater delivery of oxygen and blood glucose to working muscles, greater removal of carbon dioxide and metabolic acids away from working muscles.
Greater number of mitochondria and mitochondrial enzymes in muscles. This means grerater work capacity/endurance of each muscle fiber.
So, to clarify your question a little bit. Running more mileage will not give you a higher top end sprint speed. But running distance races is not about top end sprint speed. It's about the ability to maintain as close to that as you can for as long as you can. If you and a friend have exactly equal top end speed, but you can maintain 75% of that speed for longer than he can (because of all those adaptations listed above), then you'll out run that friend over longer distances.
Great explanation. I was going to search for an Ed Eyestone article explaining this very thing, but you did it perfectly. Thanks.
Stache nailed it.
One thing to note is that you won't necessarily open your season feeling super fit. The gains from higher mileage take place after a few workouts and races, so if you don't see improvement from the miles alone, wait until the season progresses and it will become more apparent.
I opened my JR season off low mileage with a 4:30 and eventually 4:27/9:46. I opened my SR season off high mileage with a 4:30 as well (I was trying pretty hard) but got down to 4:20/9:20.
Also ran 16:30 as a JR and 15:50 as a SR, same course.
Thanks for the clear answers. One more question, when you start the season should you lower your mileage or do you have to keep up the high mileage to see the results?
And for further reading...
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/lore-of-running-4th-edition
Mr. Poe wrote:
And for further reading...
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/lore-of-running-4th-edition
Add to that Pete Magill's Build Your Running Body. Great explanations of the physiology of running in there, plus so much more. Great book:
http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Running-Body-Ultramarathoners-Run-ebook/dp/B00IIXLKQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415076751&sr=8-1&keywords=building+your+running+bodyThere are many situations in which increasing mileage would not improve performance. Many times it would simply result in overtraining and injury.
And, you lose weight and get thinner.
It doesn't make you faster. Just look at ultramarathoners, who run more volume than anybody. Are they fast?
You adapt specifically to how you train. If you run 100 kilometers at 8 min/k then you will adapt to running exactly that fast for a long time.
Now, you might end up losing weight, and gradually improving your running economy and fitness so that you can increase your training speed at a given effort. Then you adapt to running at that faster speed. But only because you deliberately sped up. To run fast, train fast.
Bad Wigins wrote:
It doesn't make you faster. Just look at ultramarathoners, who run more volume than anybody. Are they fast?
You adapt specifically to how you train. If you run 100 kilometers at 8 min/k then you will adapt to running exactly that fast for a long time.
Now, you might end up losing weight, and gradually improving your running economy and fitness so that you can increase your training speed at a given effort. Then you adapt to running at that faster speed. But only because you deliberately sped up. To run fast, train fast.
It certainly can make you faster. And your example isn't even right. Whether you consider an ultra runner fast has nothing to do with whether running made them FASTER. Idiot.
Also many ultra runners run LESS than serious runners. Having longer races doesn't mean they train more.
All of the adaptations listed above apply to any sort of endurance training. Volume is simply one of many factors which contribute to these adaptations. No single training variable assures you distance running success.
The Stache wrote:
Increased blood volume. Increased red blood cells per unit of blood volume. These increase Oxygen content of blood.
Stronger and larger heart. This allows greater blood output during maximum efforts, and allows the heart to be more efficient at submaximum efforts.
More capillaries in the muscles - Greater delivery of oxygen and blood glucose to working muscles, greater removal of carbon dioxide and metabolic acids away from working muscles.
Greater number of mitochondria and mitochondrial enzymes in muscles. This means grerater work capacity/endurance of each muscle fiber.
So, to clarify your question a little bit. Running more mileage will not give you a higher top end sprint speed. But running distance races is not about top end sprint speed. It's about the ability to maintain as close to that as you can for as long as you can. If you and a friend have exactly equal top end speed, but you can maintain 75% of that speed for longer than he can (because of all those adaptations listed above), then you'll out run that friend over longer distances.
This guy knows his physiology. I second the above, with the addition running economy has a direct correlation to mileage completed. Physiologically speaking, running is a very complex action with many adjustments made by the body outside of your conscious control. The more you run, the better your running economy is and this is a rule so fundamental I'd hazard to dub it a law.
For example, I took three months off running for injury and as a consequence was completely detrained. I ran a 12k fun-run, covering the entire distance and pulled up with minimal soreness. I expected not to be able to cover the distance, ot to pull up with tendonitis at the very least. this surprised me, and I put it down to resudial muscle memory and consequent running economy.
Shawn H wrote:
Mr. Poe wrote:And for further reading...
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/lore-of-running-4th-editionAdd to that Pete Magill's Build Your Running Body. Great explanations of the physiology of running in there, plus so much more. Great book:
http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Running-Body-Ultramarathoners-Run-ebook/dp/B00IIXLKQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415076751&sr=8-1&keywords=building+your+running+body
Co-writer is the d*ckhead Tom "tinman" Schwarz who posted on LR a few years ago, but he couldn´t handle that people didn´t agree with him, so he started his own website where he is the indisputed guru.
The guy is so full of himself it makes you want to puke. He has said that basically all great coaches has stolen their training concepts from him and that if the best marathoners in the world had been coached by him they would run sub-2,02 by now.
hrtf wrote:
The Stache wrote:Increased blood volume. Increased red blood cells per unit of blood volume. These increase Oxygen content of blood.
Stronger and larger heart. This allows greater blood output during maximum efforts, and allows the heart to be more efficient at submaximum efforts.
More capillaries in the muscles - Greater delivery of oxygen and blood glucose to working muscles, greater removal of carbon dioxide and metabolic acids away from working muscles.
Greater number of mitochondria and mitochondrial enzymes in muscles. This means grerater work capacity/endurance of each muscle fiber.
So, to clarify your question a little bit. Running more mileage will not give you a higher top end sprint speed. But running distance races is not about top end sprint speed. It's about the ability to maintain as close to that as you can for as long as you can. If you and a friend have exactly equal top end speed, but you can maintain 75% of that speed for longer than he can (because of all those adaptations listed above), then you'll out run that friend over longer distances.
This guy knows his physiology. I second the above, with the addition running economy has a direct correlation to mileage completed. Physiologically speaking, running is a very complex action with many adjustments made by the body outside of your conscious control. The more you run, the better your running economy is and this is a rule so fundamental I'd hazard to dub it a law.
For example, I took three months off running for injury and as a consequence was completely detrained. I ran a 12k fun-run, covering the entire distance and pulled up with minimal soreness. I expected not to be able to cover the distance, ot to pull up with tendonitis at the very least. this surprised me, and I put it down to resudial muscle memory and consequent running economy.
How can you say he knows his physiology if you don't know yours?
Gary Oldman wrote:
hrtf wrote:This guy knows his physiology. I second the above, with the addition running economy has a direct correlation to mileage completed. Physiologically speaking, running is a very complex action with many adjustments made by the body outside of your conscious control. The more you run, the better your running economy is and this is a rule so fundamental I'd hazard to dub it a law.
For example, I took three months off running for injury and as a consequence was completely detrained. I ran a 12k fun-run, covering the entire distance and pulled up with minimal soreness. I expected not to be able to cover the distance, ot to pull up with tendonitis at the very least. this surprised me, and I put it down to resudial muscle memory and consequent running economy.
How can you say he knows his physiology if you don't know yours?
Given I'm studying it right now, your passive aggression is so very LR I do believe you just made my day.
I've left a very open retort there so I do hope you use it. Go for the LR clean sweep tiger. I know you can do it.
hrtf wrote:
Gary Oldman wrote:How can you say he knows his physiology if you don't know yours?
Given I'm studying it right now, your passive aggression is so very LR I do believe you just made my day.
I've left a very open retort there so I do hope you use it. Go for the LR clean sweep tiger. I know you can do it.
**POTD**
Bad Wigins wrote:
It doesn't make you faster. Just look at ultramarathoners, who run more volume than anybody. Are they fast?
Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that ultra-marathoners "run more volume than anybody"? I wouldn't be surprised if a serious 10K guy or marathoner actually ran more mileage over the course of the year than an ultra runner.
Anyway, there is a lot of selection bias, here. People may pick the ultra distance because they aren't fast. So how can you parse the impact of mileage vs. the impact of natural ability? It could be that a given ultra runner would be slower if they ran lower mileage.