Tuesday- 3miles- 31mins ( a walk/ run mix)
as for recovery....I can now walk normally, go up/down steps, and run for 1-2 minutes at a time. Quads still destroyed. I need to use Alberto Salazar's Anti-G treadmill!!! I actually went to use the pool yesterday for some no impact aqua-jogging, but it was closed for a special function...damn.
I had some thoughts today after reading some other great blogs about the Jack Daniel's training methods and his incredible 45 years of physiology research and the great physiology fitness tables he produced. Others have taken these tables and made performance calculators out of them.
Although many argue (stupidly in my opinion) about these tables being crap and you have to prove your fitness on the track/road/trail. I find them a great tool to gauge my present fitness and then use that to set up appropriate training paces / intensities. Why? Well because I feel like my entire career -6 years of varsity XC and Track in high school, and 4 years of collegiate running (Div I, Junior College, and Div III) I trained above my fitness level and succeeded in little other than beating myself up and on a 2-3-or 4 time a week basis adding stress to my training program that was too much for me to adequately adapt to. Causing me in many many seasons to finish the season running times that I ran the first week of the season or worse.
When you look at my personal records I have achieved much better performances at shorter distances than longer. This despite considering myself a DISTANCE runner and logging 2,000+ miles a year for the last 19 years.
How did this happen? Well, when you pound short repeats quickly on a regular basis you get good at running short distances quickly.. I mean lets not over complicate it. The workouts I never did in high school and rarely did in college that I am trying to do now are not so hard and fast, but are aimed at improving my lactate threshold, and ability to hold a steady pace for a LONG period.
Here is a look at some of my PR's and the fitness level they signify:
400m-53.9 = 78.5 Vdot
800m- 2:02.8 = 70.0Vdot
1500m-4:11.0 = 66.6 Vdot
Mile-4:29.71 = 66.9 Vdot
3000m- 9:15 =64.3 Vdot
5000m-15:57 =64.8 Vdot
8K- 26:22 =64.3 Vdot
10K- 33:37 =63.7 Vdot
10miles- 57:23 =61.4Vdot
1/2 mara- 1:18 =60.0Vdot
Marathon-2:54:31 =55.5Vdot
50 mile- 6:24 = 47.6Vdot
How depressing is that?! Either I was supposed to be a sprinter...... or I have not really trained very smart. That is a pretty blatant example of decline.
If you contrast me to an elite runner (because hey fast guys are fun) like Alan Webb
you can see that depending on the year and what events he was focusing on... his PR's for the 800-1500-mile-2mile-5k, and 10K all fall in the 80Vdot physiology fitness range. Pretty impressive. So can he go out and run a 2:07 marathon today? Of course not. But I bet if he wanted to and trained for it specifically for a good 20 months he could.
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2 comments:
Oh, great - I showed this post and a VDOT calculator page to my son, Aaron, and now I can't get him to go to bed!!
Hey Sarah, that is pretty funny! It is fun to see what kind of performances are equal in a physiological sense. I guess the biggest thing I have gained frm them, is how specific training for a specific event is very important. I really am looking forward to seeing how my half and full marathon times change this fall with a different training focus.
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