Knowing your best race distance?

hypersonic

how do people work out what their best race distance is?
so say you training for the mile, the mile will be your best distance, but may be you could be an even better 200m/marathon runner, how could you tell? are there tests you can do? eg if you can only 70sec 400m is it time to hand up the race shoes and go long?

ecoli

hypersonic wrote: »

how do people work out what their best race distance is?
so say you training for the mile, the mile will be your best distance, but may be you could be an even better 200m/marathon runner, how could you tell? are there tests you can do? eg if you can only 70sec 400m is it time to hand up the race shoes and go long?

Depends on how your PBs match up and what kinda training you were doing. Say you trained as a miler, look to your 800m and 3000m times. These should give you an indication also look at what types of sessions and what mileage you are doing.

My advice would be for everyone to work on their weaknesses at some point no harm in working on speed as a distance runner or build a bit of endurance with over distance training every once in a while

Sometimes this can help push through a plateau

If you listed your PBs and what kind of training you do people would sure to be able to offer some insight.

Filibuster

Go and do a VO2 Max test. If you score a high score your probably better focusing your natural ability on endurance sports.

ecoli

Filibuster wrote: »

Go and do a VO2 Max test. If you score a high score your probably better focusing your natural ability on endurance sports.

Only problem with that is aerobic endurance plays a role from 400m up.

Also you could argue that unless you are well trained you are going to have a lower vo2 max as it is something that you can train (to a point)

hypersonic

ecoli wrote: »

Depends on how your PBs match up and what kinda training you were doing. Say you trained as a miler, look to your 800m and 3000m times. These should give you an indication also look at what types of sessions and what mileage you are doing.

My advice would be for everyone to work on their weaknesses at some point no harm in working on speed as a distance runner or build a bit of endurance with over distance training every once in a while

Sometimes this can help push through a plateau

If you listed your PBs and what kind of training you do people would sure to be able to offer some insight.

summer pb's would be
1 mile 5:23
5 mile 30:32
10k 36:57

I would love to crack the 5 min mile, but 23sec is a huge chunk of time and I'm heading for 34 so I want to be realistic.

right now I'm not really training as I'm coming back from a back injury, when healthy typical training would be 6 days a week, with plenty of cross training, I can't handle high mileage. mile pb was set while "training" for oly tri.

edit: also I've leaky heart valves.

ecoli

hypersonic wrote: »

summer pb's would be
1 mile 5:23
5 mile 30:32
10k 36:57

I would love to crack the 5 min mile, but 23sec is a huge chunk of time and I'm heading for 34 so I want to be realistic.

right now I'm not really training as I'm coming back from a back injury, when healthy typical training would be 6 days a week, with plenty of cross training, I can't handle high mileage. mile pb was set while "training" for oly tri.

I would imagine that with your tri training there was very little work done at quicker than tempo pace? (Maybe fartlek)

Saying that I would say that you have decent natural speed but ultimately endurance is your strength. Having said that if you were mainly doing lower intensity work I reckon that there is plenty of room for improvement of that mile time.

First thing I would look at though is why your body can't handle the higher mileage and hopefully look to rectify the underlying issue here as speed training can be more severe on the body and as such could lead to breaking down just as much as high mileage.

dna_leri

You won't really know unless you try.

However if you enter your times in McMillan's calculator on http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/ you can get some ideas.
Your 5 mile time shows a mile "equivalent" of 5:18 and a 10K of 38:15.
Since you have done better than that for a 10K, (and worse for the mile) it indicates that you are probably stronger at the longer distances. However it could be that your training has only been focussed on these distances.

You will also get some idea from how you finish a race. Do you have a good finishing kick? If so it might indicate an ability for speed that you just have to develop.

I do not think Vo2 max will tell you anything, it's more about the mix of slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibres that you have (and even that can change).

As ecoli said, everyone can benefit from running shorter and longer distances and you might find a talent you did not know of.

Caveat: make sure you are healthy enough to train hard before you push to find your limits.

crisco10

dna_leri wrote: »

You won't really know unless you try.

However if you enter your times in McMillan's calculator on http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/ you can get some ideas.
Your 5 mile time shows a mile "equivalent" of 5:18 and a 10K of 38:15.
Since you have done better than that for a 10K, (and worse for the mile) it indicates that you are probably stronger at the longer distances. However it could be that your training has only been focussed on these distances.

You will also get some idea from how you finish a race. Do you have a good finishing kick? If so it might indicate an ability for speed that you just have to develop.

I do not think Vo2 max will tell you anything, it's more about the mix of slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibres that you have (and even that can change).

As ecoli said, everyone can benefit from running shorter and longer distances and you might find a talent you did not know of.

Caveat: make sure you are healthy enough to train hard before you push to find your limits.

Interesting question and approach to answering it. It's a hard one though as sometimes your times are very specific to a particular race and the training going up to it.

I did the same as above and got a clear indicator that my 10km is the "strongest", however it was the only race I really targeted with distance specific training. The rest were races that fit into my marathon plan to keep me interested.

Clearlier

crisco10 wrote: »

Interesting question and approach to answering it. It's a hard one though as sometimes your times are very specific to a particular race and the training going up to it.

I did the same as above and got a clear indicator that my 10km is the "strongest", however it was the only race I really targeted with distance specific training. The rest were races that fit into my marathon plan to keep me interested.

It might be worth thinking back to when you were a child. Were you always the quickest in your class/team/group of friends or were you the one who could keep going the longest? It's not a definitive answer, some people at a low level of endurance have a huge capacity for improvement but it should give you a good idea as to whether you're a natural born sprinter or not because if you have got fast twitch fibres it'll show as a child.

menoscemo

Clearlier wrote: »

It might be worth thinking back to when you were a child. Were you always the quickest in your class/team/group of friends or were you the one who could keep going the longest? It's not a definitive answer, some people at a low level of endurance have a huge capacity for improvement but it should give you a good idea as to whether you're a natural born sprinter or not because if you have got fast twitch fibres it'll show as a child.

As a child I was always much better at 100m and Longjump.
When I first started running in my early 30's I was much better at mile/5ks even though I was 'traiining' for a marathon.
Nowadays my strongest results are at Half Marathon/Marathon.

Point I am making is that despite any natural inclination towards a best distance; a few years consistent and appropriate training will overcome any 'genetic weaknesses'.

ecoli

dna_leri wrote: »

You will also get some idea from how you finish a race. Do you have a good finishing kick? If so it might indicate an ability for speed that you just have to develop.

I think this is a pit that alot of people fall into. Most people see your finishing kick as a source of speed but to be honest this is actually a source of strength moreso than speed. The reason for this is that you have to be strong enough to have energy left to implement any kick. Mo Farah would be a prime example of this in the ETC this year dropping a 50. is last lap only because he was strong enough that effectively the first 4600m didn't take that much out of him

menoscemo wrote: »

Point I am making is that despite any natural inclination towards a best distance; a few years consistent and appropriate training will overcome any 'genetic weaknesses'.

I don't know if this is strictly through. Moving up in distance is often advantageous as your aerobic capacity is something which is highly trainable. On a muscular level the fibre composition does not have as much of an influential factor given that a person can train type II fibres(fast twitch) to exhibit characteristics of type I (slow twitch) much easier than a person trying to recruit more of a finite number of type two fibres to develop more speed

Clearlier

menoscemo wrote: »

As a child I was always much better at 100m and Longjump.
When I first started running in my early 30's I was much better at mile/5ks even though I was 'traiining' for a marathon.
Nowadays my strongest results are at Half Marathon/Marathon.

Point I am making is that despite any natural inclination towards a best distance; a few years consistent and appropriate training will overcome any 'genetic weaknesses'.

My thinking is broadly in line with ecoli on this.

It's possible to train yourself to perform better at almost any discipline - that won't meant that it's the area that you're most suited to which is what I understood the OP to be asking about. I'm reasonably confident that my best distance would have been the 800m but I'm better trained for longer now and towards the end of my teenage years and my early twenties when I was playing rugby I probably would have done relatively better at 200/400 given the training I was doing.

There are a multitude of factors that go into determining what race distance someone is best suited to - I do think that you can get a good idea of your sprinting ability as an untrained child because of the influence of the muscle fibres that ecoli mentioned but for longer races I don't know of any better way than through experimentation.

P.S. It is possible to get a muscle biopsy done to determine the different mix of muscle fibres that you have and I have heard of one coach who does it - not something that I'd particularly fancy doing though!

dna_leri

ecoli wrote: »

I think this is a pit that alot of people fall into. Most people see your finishing kick as a source of speed but to be honest this is actually a source of strength moreso than speed. The reason for this is that you have to be strong enough to have energy left to implement any kick. Mo Farah would be a prime example of this in the ETC this year dropping a 50. is last lap only because he was strong enough that effectively the first 4600m didn't take that much out of him

I get your point ecoli but in my sample of one it's not true. I do not have the strength (endurance) to run 10 consecutive 6 min miles but after running 9 miles at 6:2x pace I can still hit a 5:50 in the last mile. Likewise at the end of a tough cross-country race, I can out-kick most over the last km.

What I rationalise happens is that for most of those recent races (10 mile and 8K XC) I have been plodding along on my relatively weak aerobic ability but I can still dip into my anaerobic reserves at the end. There were lads finished ahead of me in the 10 mile race who ran steady 6:10 pace but don't have the leg speed to pick up the pace - horses for courses.

Krusty_Clown

hypersonic wrote: »

I would love to crack the 5 min mile, but 23sec is a huge chunk of time and I'm heading for 34 so I want to be realistic.

Age is irrelevant; commitment is everything!

Instead of thinking in terms of specialization, why don't you think in terms of periodization? Why not focus on shorter distances for a while, and use that speed to have a craic at breaking 5 minutes for the mile. Then later in the year, bring that speed into longer distances, before wiping the slate clean and starting over again. After a year or two, you'll have a pretty good idea of where your strengths lie. The only exception is sprinting, where you'd need to look at a completely different structure of training.

dna_leri

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Age is irrelevant; commitment is everything!

Instead of thinking in terms of specialization, why don't you think in terms of periodization? Why not focus on shorter distances for a while, and use that speed to have a craic at breaking 5 minutes for the mile. Then later in the year, bring that speed into longer distances, before wiping the slate clean and starting over again. After a year or two, you'll have a pretty good idea of where your strengths lie. The only exception is sprinting, where you'd need to look at a completely different structure of training.

Krusty is right as usual.
Regardless of your natural ability, you can break 5 mins for the mile, if you want.

I was over 40 when I ran my first mile, progression was as follows:
2008 - 5:51
2009 - 5:28
2010 - none
2011 - 5:16
2012 - 4:57
2013 - 4:49
Still think I could get under 4:40 if I tried hard enough.