Scott Johnston
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I’ve listened intently to both those Drive episodes and feel San Millan does a great job of explaining the physiology around training the aerobic base. From my experience, I would say that where you place the higher lactate portion of the session depends on the training effect you are trying to achieve. If the workout is meant to focus on developing speed-endurance or power-endurance where the quality of movement, speed, and power is the focus then put the higher lactate portion soon after the warm-up. If the intention is to train mainly endurance like developing a kick at the end of a race put the higher lactate well into to the workout so that glycogen is somewhat depleted when the taxing bit comes on.
I have used both these methods extensively. In the overall training cycle, one must first develop the ability to: pull hard (in climbing), run fast (in running), ski fast (in XC skiing/skimo) when you are fairly fresh (like early in a workout) before trying to ski fast, run fast or climb hard when you are fatigued late in a workout. If you can run fast when fresh how are you going to run fast when tired? Like Tony Yaniro says: If you can’t pull the move, you have nothing to endure. So, the timing of these different stimuli is important.
The only exception I had to the way San Millan presented his whole Z2 talk was his failure to differentiate between how an elite athlete with a very well-developed aerobic base/high AeT would train vs how someone with aerobic deficiency would approach their training. Very different approaches are needed.
Scott
Hey Mark!
Great to hear from you. I hope Dave’s keeping you busy. Great question. And like all great questions, the answer is: It depends. That’s really helpful, right?
Seriously, these “A”/Superman days don’t come along very often, so when they do it can be a nice little reward for all the capacity-building work you’ve been doing to get to toss in a bit of utilization work. See this article for more on those two terms https://evokeendurance.com/capacity-vs-utilization-training/.
The way I handle these days when I am planning an aerobic base training run is that after a good warm-up wherein I assess that I have a bit more spring in my legs I will push into Z3. I do this in several ways.
1) Least stressful and metabolically demanding: toss in a few 10-15sec strides. Not sprints. Accelerate up to a fun fast; “damn I feel good” pace and then jog and relax for 3 or so minutes before the next. Usually,2) 4-6 of these will be good leg power stimuli.
2) Next would be to include a block of 30-30s (more on these in an upcoming article). 30sec at a fun fast pace, 30sec jog allowing HR to drop no more than 5-7 beats. Repeat 5-10 times.
3) A 15 min tempo run. Let HR settle into mid-Z3 and relax into running.In #2 and #3. Stop before you notice any fatigue. It can be tempting to push yourself these days. The point of these days is to let the horse out of the barn but not to get him all lathered up. These runs are a celebration of your fitness. Don’t overdo them and wake up with a hangover the next day.
I hope this helps.
ScottRadu:
Thanks for those recommendations. I concur with all of them. A few additional comments. Science of Winning is hard to find. I got min from a swim shop in the UK. Steve Magness’s Science of Running was self-published and is full of typos. He badly needed an editor so be prepared for that. But the info is solid. If you are well-versed in Canova you can see that it is mostly cribbed from Canova. He does a good job but sadly does not give credit to Canova for the inspiration that obviously heavily influenced his thinking. John Davis similarly has done the Reader’s Digest version of Canova. He actually got Canova’s blessing to do it. It does a great job of summarizing Canova, who can get rather rambly, although his rambling always has nuggets i=of great interest. I prefer to go straight to the source with Canova but his writing is mostly scattered through the Let’s Rum Forum. If you can find Canaova’s marathon book let me know where you got it. It is long out of print and I have searched with no luck. Good luck with your studies. ScottTamas:
Great question and one I hear a lot. I have written a lot about this topic. Rather than re-write all that here can you access my last book Training for the Uphill Athlete please read the part on pages 56 and 57. If you have Training for the New Aplinism please read pages 102 and 103. There I explain in detail why I think it is a mistake to focus on raising the maxVO2. It is just one number and we are far too complex to be accurately defined by one number. It is not one that correlates all that well with performance. Your speed at the anaerobic to lactate threshold correlates much closer to performance. I have coached some World Cup Nordic skiers with maxVo2 values that say they should not be competitive but in fact they were beating skiers with much higher maxVO2 values. I have heard it said this way: Having a high maxVO2 is like getting invited to the high school dance. You got in the door, but that alone does not guarantee that you get to dance with the prettiest girl. Does Kilian’s high maVO2 help him? Yes, but is that what allows him to win races, probably not. I would focus on improving the things that correlate better with performance: Running economy and speed at lactate threshold (either skinning uphill, running, or whatever modality you are most trying to improve.
Please read those book sections I really think they will help you.Scott
Radu:
I use the same protocol with Tom Evans who is self-testing during some of his workouts (not for zone determination). As long as the protocol is close to the same each time you test you will be comparing apples to apples as they say. You do not really care what the absolute Lactate number is, you care what it is relative to you and the last time you did the same effort. If the protocol is the same I think you are wise to accept the number. I’ve no experience with the shirt you mention. I think nose breathing is an amazingly accurate ventilation test and pretty cheap compared to a fancy shirt with sensors. 😉
I hope that helps,
ScottTomas:
Thanks for writing in with your question. It is an interesting approach that I have heard of being used in such detail. I tell my athletes to focus on what they can control, themselves and not on their competitors, whom they can’t control. Say you beat one fo your traditional rivals. Did you beat him because you had a great race or was it because he had a bad race. Say you had a the race of your life and still placed below others in the race that you expected to beat. That can color your perception of what was an outstanding race for you.
What if your rival, who normally fades late in the race o the uphills has changed his training and now is a beast on the hills and you are hanging back waiting to make your move. Especially in these ultra long races there is so much time elapsed and so many ups and downs I just don’t think that sort of calculation can be super successful. It doesn’t even work 100% in a 5000m on the track when there are far fewer unknowns.
I hope this helps,
Scott
