Repetition (Speed) Workouts

A few weeks back, I posted here about the definition and importance of repetition (R) workouts.  Here are a few sample workouts you can do.  Best place to do these is at a track, so its flat and you know exactly how far the distances are.  If you take it out on the road, just be sure to find as flat a road as you can.  Any incline or decline will mess with your times you should be hitting.

Make sure you have a good aerobic running base before trying these workouts.  Be sure to start each workout with a 10-15 minute warm-up (easy pace).  Follow it up with a 10-15 minute cool-down.  (Each * is a different workout). 

*4 x (2 x 200 R pace w/ 200 m E pace + 1 x 400m R pace with 400 E recover)

*6 strides

  6 x (400 m R with 400 E pace + 200 R with 200 E)

*2 x (200 R pace w/200 E pace)

  3 x (1,000 T pace w/ 1-min rest)

  2 x (200 R pace w/ 200 E pace)

*10 x (400 R pace w/ 3 min recover)

*5 x (1,000 I pace w/3 min E pace)

*2 x (10 x 200 R pace with 1-min E pace); 10 min E pace after each set

R pace is "Repetition pace"  E pace is "Easy pace" 

The easiest way to determine R pace is current mile race pace or three seconds slower per 400 than mile goal pace. E pace is easy, conversation pace, zone 1-2 of your HR zones.  

 

A Need for Speed

Whether you are a new runner looking to switch up your routine, or an experienced runner looking to have some serious breakthroughs, hitting the track for some speed work will help push your running to a new level.  However, remember before starting into more intense workouts, it is important to have a good aerobic base to start with.

Repetition (R) Training

There are lots of different names for this type of training: some call it speed work, hill workouts, track workouts, interval training, and rep training.  I will call it Repetition Training (R) because that's what Jack Daniels in his book "Daniels' Running Formula" calls it, and he is a genius.

Benefits of R training

R training is the major type of training whose purpose is not aerobic.  The benefits associated with R training are associated more with mechanics and anaerobic metabolism.  Basically when you do R training, you are teaching your body to run fast with proper mechanics.  You are teaching your body to become comfortable with race pace.  If you are like me, the first few R workouts of the season have me feeling like I'm the tin man out there attempting to run.  But with time and practice, your body begins to adapt and you become more relaxed and familiar at those faster paces.

The intensity of R running usually puts stress on the body to provide energy anaerobically (without oxygen).  This produces changes in the anaerobic pathways, where fuel is converted into energy without the presence of adequate oxygen. You are essentially teaching your body to convert fuel into energy at race pace or faster.  This is a HUGE bonus during a race!  When your body fails to convert fuel into energy, guess what, you are DONE.

In R training, you recruit the muscle fibers that you need for economical running.  These are the same muscle cells that allow you to run faster with minimal effort, minimal energy spent, and minimal wasted movement.  R training is done at race pace or faster, with proper technique and adequate recovery between each workbout.

Recovery is Key

The key to these workouts is to practice the specific task as much as possible while avoiding undue fatigue.  With adequate recovery time, a great deal of quality running can be achieved, without losing good mechanics.  If the recovery is not adequate, stress mounts, mechanics deteriorate, and the purpose of the training is destroyed.  Recovery between workbouts should be about 2-4 times longer than you work.  At least part of the recovery should be easy running.  You might need to follow a 1-minute one with as much as a 4-minute recovery.  The key to recovery is to feel like you can do the next rep as well as you did the previous ones.  You don't want to start your next one feeling tired.

Rep (R) pace

There are different ways to determine your R pace.  But the easiest is to say it is your current mile-race pace.  Or three seconds per 400 slower than mile goal pace.

In a nutshell...

R training is: running relatively short workbouts with enough recovery to allow each run to be just as efficient as the first one.  Stay tuned for some examples of R workouts....

 

Heart Rate: A Glimpse Inside the Body

I feel like there are 2 types of endurance athletes out there.  Those who wear, understand, and rely on their heart rate (HR) monitors, GPS devices, power meters, etc., and those who want nothing to do with HR monitors, power meters, or anything number oriented.  I'm not here to change anybody's mind about anything.  Just to present some information about how measuring HR can be used in your training.  I guess there is one more type of athlete, those who have a HR monitor and would like to use it more, but whenever they can find which gear box it is in, the batteries are dead and so the poor HR monitor sits on the counter until December when they tell their spouse they want a new battery for Christmas.  That would be my category.  But I have resolved to start using this training tool more consistently. To help inspire me, I'm doing a VO2 max test next week so I will have my most recent HR zones to refer to!

Measuring HR
Measuring HR can be a great tool, as long as you understand the many interrelated factors that go into HR training.  HR is affected by blood flow, fitness, and the amount of oxygen being transported by the circulating blood.  Other factors include: air temperature, the clothing you wear, your hydration status, altitude, and state of health.

Resting HR
It is a smart idea to know your resting HR.  You measure your resting HR in the morning, before you get out of bed.  Even before you sit up actually.  Measure your resting HR by placing a finger on a pulse point and watching a clock.  Do it for a full minute or 30 seconds and multiply by 2.  Do this for a week, so you get an idea of your average resting HR.  Once you have done this and know what your resting HR is, you can measure it each morning, and know if there are changes.  A consistent increase in your resting HR can indicate overtraining, dehydration, poor nutritional status, or sickness.

HR and Exercise
Measuring your HR during exercise can help keep you "honest" in your workout.  For example, on a tempo day, your HR should be in Zone 3.  Once you have established your HR zones,(Joe Friel has a quick guide to help you) you will be able to know how hard to go during your tempo run/ride.  Or if you are just starting out and you don't think you can keep a certain pace for a 20 minute tempo run/ride, no worries.  Just make sure you stay in Zone 3 and you will reap the rewards even if your pace is a bit slower.  Sometimes our perceived exertion can be off for any number of reasons.  Monitoring your HR can help push you to be where you need to be for that specific workout.

It also can help keep you to stay easy on an easy/recovery day.  So there you are, headed out on an easy ride/run, fully intending to stay in zones 1-2.  But then, here come a few riders or runners behind you.  You start thinking "Oh great, they are going to think I'm super slow."  They get closer and make the pass.  Grrrr, "I know I can hang with them, or maybe really throw the hammer down and cruise out of sight."  So tempting to throw your easy day out the window and turn this into a tempo or interval day.  You start to increase your speed.  BEEP BEEP BEEP!  You trusty friend and HR monitor freaks out as you leave Zone 2.  And here you have a choice, listen to your head, your coach, or your training schedule.  Or listen to your prideful, competitive, kill it on every workout, idiot self.  You ease up, let the others go, get back into Zone 2 and COMPLETELY REDEEM YOURSELF.  Good call.  Now you can reap the numerous benefits of an easier Zone 2 workout. There is a time for killer, competitive, workouts.  But it is not on an easy day.  Good  on your HR monitor!


Limitations of HR monitors
While using HR to train can be a very useful tool, there are some limitations to relying solely on HR.  When terrain, temperature, clothing, altitude, etc., affect your HR, you may be doing more harm than good when you try to hit a certain HR.  In these circumstances, using power, pace, RPE (listening to your body), will be better indicators of how hard to go. 

*Here is a good reference for HR zones, after you have established yours.

Time for Tempo

Love it or hate it, tempo work is just that, "work".  But with hard work comes great rewards.  Tempo work is a great way to improve your running/cycling and mixes up your weekly workout schedule so you have something to look forward to! 

What is a tempo workout?
Tempo training is a generic term that is used to describe training at a "comfortably hard" pace.  The ultimate goal of tempo or threshold training is to stress and ultimately improve your body's lactate-clearance capacity.  You've heard people talk about "lactate threshold" (LT), well you can read more about that here to get more background.  Basically, as you increase your body's ability to clear lactate, you are able to perform at a steady state or your "race pace" longer.


How do I know my tempo pace? You can establish your tempo pace by doing a VO2 max test, power test (cycling), or some field tests that estimate your VO2, lactate threshold, or heart rate zones.  If you know your running VO2 max, tempo pace for is about 83-88% of VO2 max.  If you know your heart rate zones, tempo pace is in zone 3, closer to the top than the bottom. Check out this article for an easy-to-read page about HR zones.

If all of that sounds like hogwash, you can subjectively define your tempo pace by "comfortably hard" and it is NOT conversation pace.  You know the difference.  When you are out for a ride or run with friends and can chat it up, that is not tempo pace.  When you are truly at tempo pace, it should be hard or almost impossible to have a conversation, except maybe the occasional "Dude, this is comfortably hard."  It is the pace you could maintain for about one hour.   

Keep it tempo and not interval pace
Tempo pace is "comfortably hard" and interval pace is "hard."  Don't let your tempo run or ride turn into a full-blown race.  Know the purpose of your workouts, and know that you will not reap the benefits of a tempo workout if you go to fast.  The purpose of a tempo session is to stress the lactate-clearance capability, not overstress it.  

Use a HR monitor
Once you know your HR zones, use your HR monitor to keep you doing a true tempo workout.  The monitor makes it easy to stay in that zone 3.  For more on establishing HR zones, read this.


Gimme a workout already
Ok, ok, this is the real purpose of this post.  Be sure to include a warm-up and cool-down whether running or cycling.


Running:

• Warm-up 10-20 minutes easy pace.  
• 3 x 10 minute at tempo pace with 2-min rests in between.  Take the whole 2 minutes to recover and jog slowly.  Don't race, just stay in your zone 3, or comfortably hard pace.  Finish knowing you could do one more.
• Cool down 10-15 minutes. 

Cycling:

• Warm-up in Zone 1-2 for 20-30 minutes.  Include some fast pedals in your warm-up.  
• 3 x 3 minutes tempo pace with 1 minutes recovery (spin easy).  Keep in lower end of Zone 3.
• 3 x 1 minute tempo pace with 30 second recoveries (spin easy).  Your HR should be moving up in Zone 3 for this set.  
• 3 x 1 minute with 1 minute recovery (spin easy).  Your HR should be at the top of Zone 3 during the "comfortably hard" workbouts. 
• Cool-down 20-30 minutes

Power-based Cycling:

•  Warm-up 20-30 minutes, stay in Zones 1-2.  Include some fast pedals.
•  3 x 3 minutes Average Power Output in watts (APO) + 10 watts with 1 minute recovery (spin easy)
•  3 x 11 minutes APO + 20 watts with 30 second recoveries (spin easy)
•  3 x 1 minute APO + 30 watts with 1 minute recoveries (spin easy)

So next time you want to get faster or mix-up your boring training routine, consider implementing a tempo workout each week.  Get 'er done! 
 

The Story of the Misunderstood Lactic Acid

Once upon a time, there was a chemical compound named Lactic Acid.  For most of it's life, people seemed to dislike Lactic Acid and seemed to blame him for all of their exercise-related pain and soreness.  People, especially athletes spoke of Lactic Acid with disdain and wished he would leave them alone and never come around.

Then one day, some exercise physiologists made a great discovery!  It wasn't really Lactic Acid causing all the muscle soreness and pain after all!  It was all those excess hydrogen ions that were interfering with energy production, and muscular contractions, thus causing fatigue and soreness.  The thought that Lactic Acid was the culprit was a fallacy, and our friend Lactic Acid couldn't be happier to be off the hook!  These are the kind of bedtime stories I could get into telling my kids :)

What is lactate or lactic acid?
When carbohydrate (sugar-based fuel source) breaks down, lactic acid is produced in the muscles.  The lactic acid seeps out of the muscle cell and into the blood and other fluids.  Hydrogen ions are released and a salt, known as "lactate" is produced.

Exercise and lactate 
As the intensity of exercise increases, the amount of hydrogen ions and lactate increases as well.  In a normal state, the body is very efficient at clearing the hydrogen ions and lactate from the blood.  But as exercise intensity increases, the body has a harder time keeping up at the removal rate.  As lactate begins to accumulate in the blood, even more hydrogen ions are released.  It is this build-up of hydrogen ions that interferes with muscle contraction and energy production.

Lactate Threshold 
The point or threshold where the body can't keep up with the accumulation of hydrogen ions and lactate is called the "lactate threshold".  It is marked during exercise by a shift from aerobic (light breathing) to anaerobic (heavy breathing).  It can be measured in a lab setting by drawing blood during exercise.  However, it is like pinning down a moving target.  The lactate and hydrogen ion profile is in constant motion, so the lab measurement is a good estimate for that moment.

So what?
You can increase your lactate threshold through training, thus increasing the time before your muscle contraction and energy production go to pot.  This is what "tempo" or "threshold" training is all about.  By running, biking, or swimming at or near the LT, the body's ability to process lactate improves.  It also teaches the muscles to conserve glycogen and glucose fuel sources.  The muscles' contractile mechanisms also become more resistant to fatigue by doing this type of training.  So what are you waiting for??  Get out and do some TEMPO WORK!