DCM Class of 2011- the continuing challenge

Younganne wrote: »

Ecoli,
i know there is a reason why we train at different paces but can you give me a quick explanation of why and the benefits of doing the session at the pace prescribed and not at all out effort...

eg when we do intervals you might say 10k pace or 5k pace but for me it doesn't always seem to go at the 10k or the 5k pace but faster...this is no benefit to me so, is it?
Hope the question is clear:o

The old saying of practice makes perfect is true even in running. The best way to get better at something is to do it over and over. Some people use this approach when they start running. They go out 2-3 days a week and do X distance as hard as they can and in fairness they see rapid improvement. You will also hear people sometimes us the terms “racing will bring you on leaps and bounds” or elites talking about “racing themselves into shape” this is because races are the best training and the quickest way to improve.

So why is it that we don’t all go out and give it 110% in every run/session like so many football/rugby players etc are told day in day out at all levels of sport. The difference being that running is a condition based sport unlike many skills based ones such as football etc. This means that people can spend hours upon hours developing a skill to get better without taxing the body to the point of breaking down so skills can improve without putting stress on the body (or at least very minimal)

If you look to condition based sports you see that the improvement for the most part is predominantly physically based - i.e you get fitter/stronger/faster. The only way that this can be achieved is as a two part process – Stress and recover/Adapt. We need to work the body hard so that we can break down the muscle, which creates huge amounts of physiological changes in the body (muscle micro tears, change of PH balance in the blood etc). Once this happens in order to improve we must give the body sufficient time and fuel to recover.

If you think of it in terms of Weight lifting you don’t just start off lifting huge weights you build up. Your muscles are broken down through training and when you recover the muscles repair themselves and build back stronger (known as “supercompensation”) you body adapts to be able to take on a greater load the next time.

Without proper balance of training and recovery you cannot improve. If you don’t have adequate recovery the body will eventually breakdown (can be seen as injury or illness which are often associated with over training). Because of this we cannot race every run so we must break training down in order to give the body the same stimulus of a race with sustainable recoveries. This is where coaching comes into playing as each person reacts differently to different forms of training and recoveries which is why there is no one size fits all super training plan which all Elites use however there are some common elements of training which are known benefit the body in certain ways. This is where paces and recoveries come into play (Sorry about being long winded but I promise I am getting to your question now )



Why train at particular paces and what happens if you exceed them?

As I said before the idea behind sessions is to simulate different physiological affects within the body that help simulate different aspects of racing. I will give a rough outline of what some of the paces are aimed to develop


1500m/1 mile pace
Reps at this pace are normally aimed at working on improving economy. The idea behind them is normally to improve economy and get the body working as efficiently and as comfortable at high end speeds as possible. These are not quite all out but close enough and are usually given with long recoveries (equal to the distance of the rep as a minimum)

3k-5k pace
This is also known as Vo2 Max pace or CV pace. Basically these are usually longer sustained hard efforts with roughly equally recovery. The idea of these is to work on the bodies ability to transport blood and as a result oxygen to the muscles needed to sustain race efforts for longer durations

10k-HM pace
This is known as your lactate/ Anaerobic threshold. This is the pace which your body begins to produce lactic quicker than it can clear it from the muscles. This in itself is not a bad thing as the body can use this as fuel but Hydrogen ions are a bi product which cause fatigue (this is what most people mistake for lactic acid in the legs)

When you are devising your training plan you are trying to make sure that you are using the training sessions that will benefit you working towards your goal race. There is no point in doing sessions that are great for 800m runners and will make them really efficient at 800m if they are targeting a marathon. That is not to say that they can improve a runner. Every type of training your do will improve you but its about getting the best bang for your buck from the training you put in.

Because of this the recoveries are set on the basis that you are aiming to get the effects from running at the pace prescribed. Run it too fast and you change the dynamics of the training. Take Half Marathon pace for example you are aiming to develop you Threshold pace to get faster at that pace.
If you run these too fast your body is not becoming more efficient at threshold pace but rather will work towards transporting blood around the body (i.e not getting the right benefits from the sessions that you are aiming for). This can be good but with the recoveries usually associated with these is a lot longer than the slower pace and in fact you are coming into the realm of “racing workouts” which means you will need to give your body a lot longer to recover than a session would have and as such are hampering future training.

It is okay to be slightly quicker however as sometimes you are not racing too often so in fact when you are running at 5k pace from a few months ago you could in fact be a lot fitter and that is now your new 10k race effort. You need to learn to judge the effort of sessions based on feel as well as pace. External factors like the wind/tiredness come into play and sometimes your paces on a given day can be too hard/too easy

You should have a few questions both before and after a session on any day and these are a great habit to get into. So every session day ask yourself this:

Before:
What type of benefit will this session do for my body?

After:
On a scale of 1-10 how hard was this? (10 being crossing the line falling to the ground after a PB)
If I was asked to do one more rep with same pace and same recovery would I be able to do it without too much effort?

This is some of the basic theory but to be honest I have only scratched the surface as its not something I think anyone has fully cracked but hopefully it should be enough info to try and answer your question (Sorry about the rant )

Hi Folks

Here is the plan for this week

|Mon|Tue|Wed|Thur|Fri|Sat|Sun|
|Rest|5 mile easy|1 mile easy, 8 x 1 min on/off fartlek 1 mile easy|5m|rest|5 miles easy|90 min Pace Change run*

* 20 min easy, 5 min HMP, 10 min easy, 20 min MP, 10 min easy,5 min HMP, 20 min easy

HMP - Half Marathon pace
MP - Marathon pace

total run time: 90 min

sunflowerRo wrote: »

E.Coli sorry but I have another training question. I'm desperate for a structured plan at the min. There's 6/7 weeks till the DCM 18 wk plan starts. I desperately need some speed in the legs. I was thinking of doing the HH 10 km advanced plan for those 7 weeks? I'm doing around 30-35 miles a week now so I'm thinking that a bit of focus on speed now would be better than just churning out miles for the sake of it?
Any help would be very welcome!!?

To be honest the plan that I have been putting up week in/week out is ideal for that. The idea is to build up the fundamental all round running fitness fitness before we start on specific race training (in this case marathon training)

Though we are targetting Dunshaughlin 10k as a target race and the aim has been to achieve in the target races along the way
In the fundamental phase we are laying the foundation for the marathon training cycle, so that when we start to
build our race specific fitness in the Specific Phase we know that we will have a solid base to stand on.


There are two main goals in the the last few months training have been:
1) We want to increase our base level of fitness as high as we can. Not just one component of
fitness (like endurance) but all aspects of our running fitness.

2) We want to shore up any weaknesses we have, so that our base is even across the board and we don’t have any major areas that will hold us back
In the second phase of the training cycle, the specific phase, we build up our goal race level of fitness.

To do so we will focus our work on the workouts which best prepare for the specific demands of the
race. This lopsided approach (heavily loaded to certain workouts) in the specific phase will only work if
we have a strong and even foundation from which to build upon. That is what we have been doing since this thread started, building the base from which the specific phase can reach the highest specific
fitness level.