| Author |
Topic: The point of training. |
fred urie
unregistered |
 posted Jul-02-2002 05:25 PM
 
Ritzenheim was born at Rockford, Michigan, and Alan Webb
was actually born at Ann Arbor, Michigan, so following
Silverda's logic, if you aren't born in Mich. fegetaboutit.
IP: Logged |
CoachB
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-02-2002 05:28 PM
 
quote:
Originally posted by tigger:
"So, with this in mind, I will attempt to simply break down the variables that result in faster race performance.1. Ability to areobically metabolize glucose or fatty acids (VO2 max)
2. Ability to anaerobically metabolize the same substrates
3. Ability to tolerate the byproducts of anaerobic metabolism
4. Running efficiency
5. Desire." Um, CoachB, these were your words....I don't see high mileage among them.
Tigger, were you one of those annoying people in my college classes who only read the introduction to each section and then claimed to have read the section? For someone who claims to have a working knowledge of Ex. Phys., you don't display it very well. VO2 max is HIGHLY dependant on time spent training, as was illustrated to everbody buy yourself in section one of my post. I am not claiming to have all the answers, I was simply trying to put out this information for those who may not have been exposed to it already.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 05:51 PM
Coach B has the right info.Alan Webb was doing 60 miles a week this year, and was
being brought along so as not to destroy his potential. On the other hand there are young Kenyans who are
training at a severe level of intensity. If they should burn
out, self destruct or get severely injured there is another to
replace them. Such is life in Africa. If Ritzenheim got down to 13:27 5k. at age 19, I'd like to see
how he did it. Mileage and intensity.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 06:07 PM
Marius Bakken lived in the U.S and showed promise, but
his career did not take off until he started doing LACTATE
THRESHOLD workouts.
He recently only ran 13:58 at 5k while injured, but who can
run that fast while injured. I'm sure he will use this setback
to push through the workouts leading to sub 13:00.
No one ever talks about the emotions involved in gutting out
exremely tough workouts.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 06:25 PM
The top 2 middle distance runners in Canada, Kevin Sullivan
3:31 1500 and Nathan Brannen 1:47 800, lived in cities 20
miles apart in Ontario, and now both train in Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
IP: Logged |
kiwi battler
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 06:28 PM
jib wrote :Fred wrote that even his 47 year old girlfriend can do 100 miles a week. Now that's either insulting to those people who spend a lot of their time running that far a week - or insulting to his girlfriend if she actually does run that much a week. I'm sure that she would feel it's an acomplishment and that she has to work hard at it. How many 47 year olds can do that? As many able bodied 47 year olds that want to. ryan1 wrote :
If you look at *everyone* who finishes a marathon, 100 miles is, indeed, high mileage. I doubt that more than 3% of people who finish a marathon run that much. It might be high in the minds of those 97 % peoples minds, where as you point out it might be high - moderate - or low in the other 3 % peoples minds. If you want to be the best you can be try joining the 3% group. If your scared of getting injured or have one or more of the multitude of excuses not to, then stick with the other 97%. No Racer wrote : Another thing is, how would I know what I'm capable of if I don't try? I don't like defeatist attitudes. I will never be of that ilk. Bang on !
IP: Logged |
tigger
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-02-2002 07:34 PM
CoachB,I won't drop to your level. Suffice to say your response isn't the first time you've used your "education" to set you up as the expert. I originally thought that was possibly your underlying goal in all this. I hope I'm wrong on that count. I'm merely pointing out that the vast majority of CR members would benefit far more from putting in a few extra miles then from trying to coax another half a percent from VO2 max improvement, and I would think that any discussion of how to run faster would put that in BIG LETTERS up front and not on Page 10 in the fine print. Certainly it would be understood by competitive runners, but then you didn't write your thesis for them did you? They already know this stuff. As for the other CR members....if you go over to the other forums you'll see questions from people running 10 to 15 miles per week and asking how do do speedwork to improve their race times. Should they start doing VO2 max workouts or should they just relax and put in a few more miles?
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 08:00 PM
Fifteen miles a week could be a base if you were running
them at 4:00 to 5:00 minutes a mile.Hypethetical: Mon. 5 miles@ 4:40 pace
Wed 3 times a mile at 4:10 with 2 min. rec.
Fri 3 miles@ 4:50 pace
3miles@4:20 pace
1mile@4:00 pace Anyone simulated this?
IP: Logged |
skylander
unregistered |
posted Jul-02-2002 08:19 PM
I don't completely disagree with you Cj-Blbr one of my roommates in college ran 13:56 at Mt. SAC that season and to this day never has broken 2min. OH, yeah his last 2laps were 2:00.xx. That was the race of his life, with someone as tough as him he probably should have been a 1:55 guy going in and he would have had an easier time. Another roommate ended up running 14:00, 8:06, and 8:42 but also ran a 1:53-they both basically finished the same vacinity at XC NATs in their best seasons. I think the speedier steeple guy had the overall better college career because he could do more things. By the way neither of them ever ran more than 100miles in a week during college. Strength doesn't always mean total number of miles. Ritzenhein was mentioned-it is pretty well documented that the BUFFs run one-a-days and if you've seen them on their "off days" and/or have run FLAGSTAFF you'd know it's more than number of miles that makes them strong.
IP: Logged |
kemibe
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-02-2002 08:22 PM
quote:
Originally posted by fred urie:
Fifteen miles a week could be a base if you were running
them at 4:00 to 5:00 minutes a mile.Hypethetical: Mon. 5 miles@ 4:40 pace
Wed 3 times a mile at 4:10 with 2 min. rec.
Fri 3 miles@ 4:50 pace
3miles@4:20 pace
1mile@4:00 pace Anyone simulated this?
If 3 miles at 4:20 pace is aerobic (which by definition "base mileage" is), this runner had better be capable of 3 miles under 12 minutes going flat-out. That's pretty quick. This is getting ridiculous. For one thing, people arguing passionately in favor of low-mileage programs are lumping 800-meter specialists and milers a year out of high school and veteran marathoners into the same category for training purposes. Why not argue as well that the training suited for a top college field-hockey player be adopted by the NHL? I think the whole "Well, not everyone wants to be the best they can be" is bullcrud. Everyone who competes and competes hard in a running race wants to excel, relative to their own concept of excellence. The reality is that some people simply don't have the time to put in the required work because of other life obligations (or won't make the time), so they'll fall short of "the best they can be." Fair enough - but I notice the overwhelming fraction of people arguing this point are also happy to say that "high mileage doesn't work for everyone," a hypothesis far easier to make when you know with certainty you'll never have to prove it in your own case.
IP: Logged |
jib
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 11:24 AM
quote:
Originally posted by kemibe:
I notice the overwhelming fraction of people arguing this point are also happy to say that "high mileage doesn't work for everyone," a hypothesis far easier to make when you know with certainty you'll never have to prove it in your own case.
High mileage doesn't work for everyone because some people simply cannot handle high mileage - their bodies break down. That doesn't mean that they are lazy or don't have time or whatever to do the training, just that their bodies cannot handle it. They may still be talented, and may still want to reach their full potential - they just have to go about it in different ways, and not use the high mileage route or at least the very high mileage route. (I'm not talking about marathoners - more 5k runners). Talent in distance running may have just as much to do with how much work your body can handle as how much raw speed you have.
IP: Logged |
kemibe
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-03-2002 01:52 PM
quote:
Originally posted by jib:
High mileage doesn't work for everyone because some people simply cannot handle high mileage - their bodies break down.
Absolutely true. But a lot of people never really give a gradual build-up an honest effort before dismissing the idea. I'm really focusing more on the people who, rather than speaking from experience, tout runners such as Nathan Brannen (800m specialist, 19 or 20 years old) and Alan Webb (19 years old, primarily a miler) as examples of successful "low-mileage" distance runners. In the main, they really aren't distance runners (in my mind, such athletes focus on the 5000m and up -- just as we workaday runners do owing to the lower limit of road distances).
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 02:56 PM
I stated that they were middle distance runners.
Sullivan did some 110 mile weeks in his base phase this year.Sullivan ran a 1:53 800 when he was 14 when he was running
five days a week, and doing speedwork.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 03:01 PM
Alan Webb may have been running "low mileage" because
with the media buildup, no one would want to be accused
of overtraining him.If he was training in Kenya, his workload would be
different.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 04:19 PM
If your stats are 4:00 mile, 8:39 2 mile, 46 min. 10, and
2:12 marathon, I humbly apologize and offer no further
comment.
IP: Logged |
kemibe
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-03-2002 04:31 PM
quote:
Originally posted by fred urie:
If your stats are 4:00 mile, 8:39 2 mile, 46 min. 10, and
2:12 marathon, I humbly apologize and offer no further
comment.
Not sure what that has to do with the logic or lack of it in anything I or others have written here, but an inane comment like that would seem to shed some light on the downward spiral of your attitude. I maintain, based on comments from hundreds of runners over the years, that most of the people who claim that not everyone needs high mileage to reach their potential are ones who can't or won't run high mileage. Who under such circumstances wouldn't want to believe that, accurately or otherwise? I don't have a million bucks, so therefore, I state for the record that I have everything I want. Et cetera. Moving on to further infighting, the idea that 10 miles at 4:00 pace equals 20 at 4:20 pace equals 50 at 5:00 pace equals 100 at 6:00 pace, in terms of "base building," is a proven crock. If such methods were effective, they would have been implemented over time in favor of the overwhelmingly effective Lydiard-type model of aerbic-foundation building (which may or may not mean 100-mile weeks, of course), followed by strength-building, sharpening, and goal racing periods. There are great runners who have never believed in peaking, such as George Young, but one need only look at the bulk of successful runners rather than outliers (which can be found in any sample) to learn the truth.
IP: Logged |
jib
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 04:46 PM
Kemibe,
In your reply to my last message you said that not many people have given gradual buildup an honest try. Well I am probably one of those people (I was, thankfully, undertrained in college) and have been wanting to try and build up my mileage but not sure how which is why I'm so interested in this topic. Just wondering what you think is gradual, and also how long do the imporvements take to show. I've heard some people say it takes years and years for any improvement.
IP: Logged |
jib
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 04:53 PM
quote:
Originally posted by fred urie:
If your stats are 4:00 mile, 8:39 2 mile, 46 min. 10, and
2:12 marathon, I humbly apologize and offer no further
comment.
Fred, I don't understand your point here. I thought you were a big advocate of high mileage - but your recent arguments are confusing. What are you trying to say?
IP: Logged |
skylander
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 05:40 PM
Some people might consider finishing 9th at NCAA XC NATs (29:29) as a FROSH an accomplishment. Josh Spiker did that, here is a piece from a recent interview.You obviously ran really well at cross country nationals, but focused on the 1,500 in outdoor track. That's really good range, what kind of mileage and training do you do? "My highest mileage week this year was 74, which was in September. Through track I was running about 60 until the injury." FYI-the injury wasn't related to training.
Amazing how he can have a "decent" year out of maxing at just 74miles. Makes me wonder, maybe 70-80miles is a good place for many competitive(not pro) DIST runners.
IP: Logged |
Goel
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 06:34 PM
quote:
Originally posted by skylander:
Some people might consider finishing 9th at NCAA XC NATs (29:29) as a FROSH an accomplishment. Josh Spiker did that, here is a piece from a recent interview.You obviously ran really well at cross country nationals, but focused on the 1,500 in outdoor track. That's really good range, what kind of mileage and training do you do? "My highest mileage week this year was 74, which was in September. Through track I was running about 60 until the injury." FYI-the injury wasn't related to training.
Amazing how he can have a "decent" year out of maxing at just 74miles. Makes me wonder, maybe 70-80miles is a good place for many competitive(not pro) DIST runners.
Josh Spiker had been injured for most of his senior year of HS and part of his freshman year in college. I believe that he was getting injured at much lower mileage before, so actually 70-80 miles for him is quite a step up. If anything, he is a perfect example of someone who is gradually building up towards higher and higher mileage. He is only starting now. Anyways, using frosh milers coming off of an injury as representatives of what mileage you can maximize your potential at is pretty silly. Why don't you look at what real pros do - Paula Radcliffe, 140+ mpw, 2:18. Paul Tergat, marathon a day, 2:06. Mo Greene, 10 miles of drills a week, 9.79. Wow, maybe this 10 miles a week thing is really worth looking into! Anyone has his schedules? Should be useful for runners trying to maximize their marathon potential.
IP: Logged |
skylander
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 07:56 PM
I said many, not all. Many "competitive" runners are women, have had to deal with injury, are young/growing, and/or interested in racing the mile, 3000, and XC. A young lady(22) I know and former NCAA champion typically runs 65-70mpw. Her times this season are 15:55 and 32:50, I consider her to be a competitive runner. By no means is she a miler(4:26 1500) and her best 3K is 9:25. I think 85mpw this past year would have kept her on the "disabled list" more than she already was.
I'm a realist in that 13min for the 5K I think is close to 4:10 pace and 27min 10K seems to be close to 4:20 pace. There aren't a lot of people that have the physical abilities to do that-no matter how hard they train. There are some people that should aim to gradually develop mileage during college instead of trying to train at "elite PRO" mileage/intensity too quickly.
Fred said before there are a lot of young Africans that "ultra/over train" in search for fame-that's the impression I've gotten. My impression from this board is many coaches would have had someone like Spiker make his lowest mileage week be 74, even considering he is a "miler", has had frequent injury, and is rather young(when compared to other Americans).
IP: Logged |
silverda
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 08:09 PM
Most would consider that there are at a bare, bare minimum three critical factors in training: distance, variety in workout type, and some measure of average pace (given workout type). Clearly we will disagree about how important one is v. the other, but I believe that it makes no more sense to run 100 miles of endurance work per week at 12:00/mile than to run 5 miles of endurance work at 5:00/mile. Can we agree that we should all strive for some balance, hence, a reasonable proportion of DISTANCE/PACE? The US Institute for Distance Running offers a rough guideline for training paces for different fitness levels ( http://www.usidr.org/Running%20University/calculator.htm ). It suggests that a 3-hour marathoner should run endurance workouts at a pace somewhere between roughly 7:20 and 8:20/mile (+30 seconds on recovery days). What do you all think of a general guideline that if a 3:00 marathoner can't average 8:20 miles in endurance workouts that he/she should not increase mileage until he/she has built the necessary speed to get the full benefit of the endurance workout? In other words, find the right range given your current racing speed and see how out of whack your mileage/speed ratio is for endurance workouts. Then raise/lower your mileage accordingly. To really do this right, do the same for other workout types, to be sure your legs aren't too dead from your distance work to properly meet the (very wide) ranges of times for the speed and stamina workouts. (Or too fresh!) If you are training sub-optimally, your race times will be relatively slow, making the training zones even more attainable. I'm curious to get a sense of how attainable these ranges are for the high-mileage runners. Please let me know. Thanks!
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 09:11 PM
Sorry Kem, I thought those were your stats. My personal
belief is not to argue with those who have walked the walk.
IP: Logged |
fred urie
unregistered |
posted Jul-03-2002 09:22 PM
There are systems of training that have not been discovered
yet, and there are other non-typical innovations that are not
part of the current training mainstream.
Salazar could do a ten mile workout that involved alternating
4:30 and 5:00 minute miles.My personal belief is that last years racing speed should
become this years training speed.
IP: Logged |
malmo
Cool Runner |
posted Jul-03-2002 10:52 PM
quote:
Originally posted by CoachB:
[B] Tigger,were you one of those annoying people in my college classes who only read the introduction to each section and then claimed to have read the section? For someone who claims to have a working knowledge of Ex. Phys., you don't display it very well. VO2 max is HIGHLY dependant on time spent training, as was illustrated to everbody buy yourself in section one of my post.
B]
CoachB, you're full of it. VO2max doesn't mean anything. It's an oft-used and little understood term used by grad students to justify to their parents that all of their efforts and money have not gone to waste. University administrators have been duped by this fog-machine, as well. How else could the waste of valuable resources, time and money, be covered-up? Parents and other intelligent, rational thinking adults could not possibly decipher this code. Do not try to yourself. You'll only make yourself look foolish reciting the catechism of the exercise-physio-geeks. The 'science' of exercise physiology was born out of a failed genetics experiment in the early 60s: the breeding of an economist and a sociologist. The offspring of this pairing would say more and mean less than the combined blather of the two parents put together. Common sense would have told us how this experiment would have ended, but stubborn researchers pushed ahead nonetheless. The only numbers that matter are the ones that you receive at the end of the race. The most important of these is called PLACE, and is represented as an ordinal. A '1' is the best indicator of your performance. If you get a '1' then you've done excellent. It's no small coincidence that '1' is a homophone for 'won'. Other excellent numbers to receive are '2' and '3'. Not nearly as good as a '1', but by tradition and convention the numbers '1', '2' and '3' are deemed to be the 'supreme ordinals'; that is to say, worthy of gold, silver and bronze, and are separated from the other ordinals. The rest of the ordinals are represented by the formula: n + 1...(to infinity). There is a direct, inverse relationship between ordinal value and its worth. The closer you get to the supreme ordinals, the better you've done, the closer you approach infinity, the worse you've done. One of the other numbers that matters much more than VO2 Max is TIME. TIME is always secondary to PLACE in it's value. Neither PLACE nor TIME are given in the gerbil-wheel lab tests conducted by the exercise-physio-geeks. You will only receive them in the experiment that the REAL EXPERTS call COMPETITION. TIME does not supercede PLACE, but it is a way of comparing the PLACE of two or more experiments from different venues and eras. The juxtaposition of TIME and PLACE is the business of track statisticians, who, by the way, are also the progeny of the aforementioned failed genetics experiment. Long ago, TIME was measured as a fraction of the earth's rotation in base 60: hours, minutes and seconds. It's still expressed as such, however, the predecessors to the exercise-physio-geeks have determined that TIME should now be measured in terms of the vibration frequency of irradiated Cesium atoms. Your watch has quartz crystals in it that will simulate this experiment for you (without the attendant radiation and disposal problems) and convert the results automatically, presenting them to you in the form of easily recognizable numbers. No complicated formulae to memorize! There are many other factors that are much more indicative of athletic performance, or the potential for performance, than VO2 max. I couldn't possibly begin to list them all: height, weight, hair color, skin color, shoe size, favorite TV show...the list is endless. ------------------------------------ What is VO2 max? Simply put, the oxygen consumption capacity of the body during exercise. It's value is expressed as: Volume of oxygen (O2) consumed, per Unit Body mass, per time interval or: milliliters O2/Kg body/minute. Check that out, two variables and one constant in the formula. Look at the denominator of the formula: Kg body mass. Want to improve VO2 max WITHOUT TRAINING? Lose weight. At rest, the human body has a VO2 of 3-4 ml/kg/min. According to the Exercise-physio-geeks: Sedentary individuals have a VO2 max of 40-50. Trained grasshopper runners 55-65. Mantis runners 65-80, and Super-Mantis runners 84-92. The truth of the matter is that there are no distinct boundaries separating these groups. Many grasshopper runners have higher VO2 max (80s) than mantis and super-mantis runners. Many super-mantis runners have lower VO2 max (70s) values than the grasshoppers. Take a sampling of runners with PR differences of just 2% in their specialties. For example, that would be three sets of athletes collected together like so: 1) 1500m (3:29.7-3:34.0) 2) 5000m (13:00-13:16) 3) 10,000m (26:57-27:30) Now fly in exercise-physio-geeks from monastaries around the world and geek-out: treadmills, oxygen ventilators, calipers, rectal probes! Collect the data, crunch the numbers and what do you get? Sets of highly-trained runners with similar PRs (2% differentials) with VO2 max values that vary wildly: 10 to 15 percent (sometimes more)! Runners with slower PRs having higher VO2 max. Even using the EP geek's dogma for top runners (VO2 max of 84 to 92) the variation is over 8 percent! How is that predictive of performance? As a generalization, I'll agree with you that trained runners will have higher VO2 max than the sedentary. That is called the common sense doctrine. We teach that Kung Fu at the Shaolin monastery. Within samplings of like-performing athletes, on the other hand, there is no direct correlation. As I've said in the satire above, "VO2 max doesn't mean anything."
Steve Prefontaine,US runner, 84.4
Frank Shorter, US Olympic Marathon winner, 71.3 Ingrid Kristiansen, ex-Marathon World Record Holder, 71.2 Derek Clayton, Australian ex-Marathon World Record holder, 69.7 Rosa Mota, Marathon runner, 67.2 Jeff Galloway, US Runner, 73.0 Paula Ivan, Russian Olympic 1500M Record Holder, 71.0 Jarmila Krotochvilova,Czech Olympian 400M/800M winner, 72.8 Greg LeMond, professional cyclist, 92.5 Matt Carpenter, Pikes Peak marathon course record holder, 92 Miguel Indurain, professional cyclist, 88
IP: Logged |
 |
