VO2max

The monthly newsletter of RunCoachJason.com

Dr. Jason Karp, running & fitness coach, consultant, freelance writer

June, 2007

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In this issue:

Mileage vs. Speedwork

Improving VO2max

Running and Anemia 

Setting Goals

Athlete Spotlight

In Press

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Mileage vs. Speedwork

(excerpted from Karp, J.R. The Errors of Our Running Ways. Running Times. July/Aug. 2006, 338, pp. 28,30-33.)

While speedwork and lots of races seem to be the method of training at most high schools, they are not the best way to meet your potential as a distance runner.  Speedwork gives you more bang for your buck, improving your performance faster than simply running lots of miles, but any short-term success may likely occur to the detriment of your long-term development.  

Whether you’re training for the mile or the marathon, it all starts with mileage.  That’s because aerobic running develops many physiological and biochemical traits needed for good endurance.  For example, it increases the number of red blood cells and the amount of hemoglobin contained within them, giving your blood vessels a greater oxygen-carrying capability.  It also increases muscle capillary volume, providing more oxygen to your muscles.  Finally, it increases mitochondrial volume and the number of aerobic enzymes, allowing for a greater use of oxygen. 

The more you attend to these qualities of aerobic metabolism, the more you will ultimately get from your subsequent speedwork.  Since recovery is an aerobic process, being more aerobically fit allows you to recover faster during the rest periods of your interval workouts, which means the sooner you can begin the next work period.  Also, a faster recovery allows you to run more repeats in a single workout.  Since one of the keys to maximizing VO2max is to spend as much time as possible running at VO2max, the benefit to being able to run five one-mile repeats compared to three is obvious. 

The more aerobically fit you are, the faster you will also recover between workouts.  The rapidity with which you recover from intense workouts will dictate how often you can perform other intense workouts, which may ultimately influence your ability to reach your running potential.   

So, how much aerobic work is enough?  That’s a difficult question.  It depends on a number of factors, including your genetically-determined propensity to continually adapt to high mileage and tempo runs, the amount of time you have to run, and the specific racing distance for which you are training.  Obviously, the longer the race, the more mileage you need to meet your potential.  In my study on the training characteristics of the 2004 Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers, published in the March, 2007 issue of International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, I found that the male marathoners averaged 90 miles per week with a peak mileage of 120, while the female marathoners averaged 72 miles per week with a peak mileage of 95 for the year of training leading up to the trials.  The best way to determine how much aerobic work you need is to slowly and systematically increase your mileage from month to month and year to year, taking care to note how you respond to the training stimulus.  Don’t increase your mileage unless your prior training and racing experience gives you reason to believe that you will continue to improve with more mileage.  If you haven’t reached a plateau in your performance at 60 miles per week, there’s no reason yet to increase your mileage to 70.  

Want to read more?  Go to http://runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=8287.

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Improving VO2max

Many runners seem to think the way to get faster is to run their interval workouts faster.  After all, it seems logical that if you want to run faster races, you should practice running faster.  But since the optimal stimulus for improvement in VO2max is to run at 95-100% VO2max, running at 105% or 110% VO2max doesn't improve VO2max any more than running at 100% VO2max.  Remember that the goal of training is to use the least stressful stimulus to elicit the desired adaptation.  All running faster does is increase the stress of the workout without gaining any extra benefit.  To make the workouts harder, add more repetitions or decrease the time of the recovery periods rather than by running faster.  Only increase the pace of the workouts once your races have shown that you are indeed faster.  Whether you are using long intervals (e.g., 3 x 1 mile or 5 x 1,000 meters) or short intervals (e.g., 30 x 200 meters or 15 x 400 meters) to improve VO2max, the pace should be the same since the goal is the same—to improve VO2max (there are other types of short interval workouts you can do at mile race pace to improve anaerobic capacity).  Want to learn more?  In my popular CD collection, The 3 Players of Distance Running, you’ll get all the info you could ever want on VO2max, lactate threshold, and running economy, including specific workouts to help you reach your running goals!  Purchase any CD for $9.95, any 2 CDs for $17.95, or the whole set for just $23.95 (plus $2.95 shipping).  Just go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise or e-mail jason@runcoachjason.com.

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Running and Anemia

Iron deficiency is a common problem among distance runners, especially women and when living and training at altitude.  A severe loss of iron can lead to anemia, a deficiency of red blood cells.  If you’ve been feeling lethargic during or after your workouts, you should get a blood test to determine your iron status.  Since iron is a key component of hemoglobin (the protein inside red blood cells that transports oxygen through the body), check your hemoglobin concentration and hematocrit (the percentage of blood composed of red blood cells).  If you run a lot, you can have lower hemoglobin and hematocrit values than the general population without being iron deficient, since the plasma volume of the blood increases from endurance training.  So you should also check transferrin (the protein that is bound to free iron in the blood).  If you’re iron deficient, you may need an iron supplement, which you should take with Vitamin C to increase iron absorption.

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Setting Goals

All successful people, whether they sell used cars or win Olympic gold medals, have specific, definable, and difficult but attainable goals.  Goals provide direction, motivation, and a sense of purpose.  After you’ve defined your goals, surround yourself with others who support them.  And visualize yourself attaining your goals.  I know an Olympic track gold medalist who sat in a dark closet the night before his 400-meter race, visualizing the race from every lane of the track.  Not knowing which lane he would draw until the morning of the race, he prepared himself for every possible scenario.  Seeing yourself do something before attempting to do it makes the real thing feel familiar, like it’s something you’ve already done.  You also must have the right attitude.  Say to yourself, “I will do this,” rather than, “I want to do this.”  I want to earn a million dollars, but the likelihood of that happening is not as good as if I say, “I will earn a million dollars” and mean it (maybe this strategy will even work for me completing my Ph.D.!).  With the year almost half over, choose something you want to accomplish this year, set a goal, and go after it.    

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Athlete Spotlight

Gabriela Hnilkova-Jenks

A professional triathlete and duathlete from the Czech Republic now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Gabriela began working with Coach Jason in January, 2007.  This spring, she placed 8th at the Powerman Alabama Duathlon (the qualifier for the 2007 World Short Course Duathlon Championships) on April 15th in Irondale, Alabama, crushed the field by nine minutes to win the Atomic Man Duathlon on April 29th in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and won the Jay Benson Triathlon on May 13th in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  On June 2, she'll be competing at the Deuceman Half-Ironman Triathlon (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run) in Show Low, Arizona.  All this despite working full-time as a middle school teacher and being the mother of a toddler!

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In Press...

Nix Your UnderButt; Refine Your Abs, my descriptions of specific exercises for developing your butt and abs so you can look good in your bikini this summer, appears in the Summer Body Special section of the June, 2007 issue of Marie Claire.  

The Three Players of Distance Running: An In-Depth Look at VO2max, Part 1 of my series that explores the physiology of distance running, appears in the Summer, 2007 issue of Track Coach, the official technical publication of USA Track & Field.

Hey! Back Off! Tapering for the Marathon, my article that describes the physiology of tapering and gives advice for the best tapering strategies, appears in the May/June, 2007 issue of Marathon & Beyond.

Have you ever wanted to wear spandex at the gym or a miniskirt out on the town but didn’t feel you had the thighs for it?  Sexy Thighs, Part 5 of my Better Body series that describes how to get the thighs you’ve always dreamed of, along with a thigh training program, appears in the June, 2007 issue of Ultra-Fit magazine.

The Top Three Marathon Workouts, my article that describes the three most important workouts to prepare for a marathon, appears in the May/June, 2007 issue of Washington Running Report.

My Fitness News contributions on training to burn more fat, exercise and your bones, and how to get awesome abs appear in the June, 2007 issue of Oxygen magazine.  

My Fitness News contributions on training smart, the best warm-ups for asthma, supplements, pre-exercise nutrition, and training using multi-joint movements appear in the July, 2007 issue of Oxygen magazine, on newsstands in June.

Also look for my advice on cross training in the June, 2007 issue of Runner’s World.

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©2007 Jason Karp.