THE PURPOSE OF SPEED TRAINING

Speed training develops race specific speed by enhancing the body's ability to utilize oxygen, improving race pace muscle strength and optimizing race pace muscle coordination. Improved oxygen utilization, muscle strength and coordination leads to more economical running and a higher level of performance. This training also provides the perfect opportunity to practice racing skills.

When people think of speed training, they usually think of sprinting. Sprinting speed is crucial to running success in dashes and most professional sports, but is of lesser value in middle and long distance racing. It makes no difference how fast a runner runs the first quarter mile, the last quarter mile or any quarter mile in the middle, the winner of the race is always the runner who averages the fastest pace for the entire distance. Many athletes dream of dramatic finishes where they sprint past another runner near the end of the race and go on to win. This experience can be very satisfying, but the best sprinter in the world can't win the race when he's running 200 meters behind. It is not sprinting speed that sets records in middle and long distance races, it is the speed a runner can average from start to the finish that counts.

SPEED TRAINING IS AT RACE PACE

The best way to develop your ability to run race pace is to train at race pace. Unfortunately, runners who train too often at race pace, spend most of their careers injured. Stress fractures, torn cartilage, stretched ligaments, ruptured tendons and compacted discs are common results of running too many race paced miles. If it weren't for this fact, the perfect pace for every training mile would be race pace. The best way to deal with this dilemma is to train for endurance by running most of your training at a pace that is substantially slower than race pace, and to train for speed by running a limited number of miles at race pace. Since you can only run a few miles at race pace, these miles are precious and should not be wasted.

RUNNING RACE PACE SKILLFULLY SAVES ENERGY

The essence of great running can be likened to a rain drop sliding down a pane of glass, the descending water droplet flows rapidly, smoothly, and effortlessly. Think of the raindrop when you are training for speed, don't run faster, run race pace smoothly, run race pace effortlessly. The ability to run race pace smoothly and effortlessly comes from learning to run skillfully. Running efficiency is not a question of having a textbook running style, it is a question of maintaining the desired pace at a minimum energy cost.

Conscious efforts to improve running performance through changing a runner's natural style have been largely unsuccessful. This is partly due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to determine, by simply watching runners run, which are the most economical. Studies have demonstrated that inefficient looking runners are often economical in their use of energy and picture perfect athletes are sometimes energy wasters.

Running is a natural human activity. The ability to reach a reasonable level of running efficiency comes naturally to human beings, because our ancestors who weren't proficient at running, didn't survive to have children. This long standing experience in running has developed self-optimizing mechanisms in us that make us nearly as efficient as we are capable of becoming without conscious effort. Our ability to run is part of our genetic heritage. The best way to improve running economy is to take full advantage of these self-optimizing mechanisms; make your body run race pace and it will naturally become as economical at running race pace as it is capable of becoming.

By training at race pace we practice the exact stride length and stride frequency of the race we are planning to run. In this way we develop specific muscle strength to support that stride length, specific endurance to support that leg turnover rate and precise coordination to keep us running quickly, smoothly, and effortlessly.

Speed training is exhausting, but exhausting yourself is not the goal of speed training. Exhausted muscles are weak and uncoordinated and cannot learn or practice skillfully. The time to practice speed is when your muscles are fresh and rested. You should discontinue speed training before your muscles are overly fatigued.

RUNNERS TRAINING TO RUN A MARATHON

For runners training to run a marathon, I recommend that they should run 2 to 3 miles per week at 5K race pace, that works out to about 100% VO2 Max for most runners. Running at that pace will maximize your body's ability to process oxygen while exercising. This type of running should be either interval or fartlek type running where you run 5K race pace for a half mile or a mile or some distance similar to that interspersed with restful running at a slow jogging pace. The amount of time you jog should be approximately equal to the time it took you to complete the fast running segment, before beginning the next fast running segment. Repeat these segments until the total distance run at 5K race pace equals something between 2 to 3 miles. Warmup with at least 2 miles of easy paced running and finish any remaining mileage for the day with easy paced running.

You should run another 4 to 8 miles per week at your ½ marathon race pace. This should be done after about 2 miles of easy running to warm-up and then followed by a 3 to 4 mile steady run at approximately your ½ marathon race pace. Half marathon race pace will probably be about 5% faster than you can run an entire marathon. The purpose of this training is to optimize you coordination, stride length and stride turnover rate for the marathon. By running just slightly faster than race pace we are preparing for future improvements while not over training.

If you run your 5K intervals on Tuesday, you may want to finish Thursday's and Saturday's runs with one of these ½ marathon paced efforts. I think these runs are best done at the end of an easy run rather that at the beginning, so you learn to control your early pace and to finish strong in races. The rest of your weekly running should be done at a very easy pace, a pace that would allow you to talk in long sentences without getting out of breath. This pace should be around one minute per mile slower than your marathon race pace.

Copyright © 2003 by John Loeschhorn - Mail to:mtnrnr@pacbell.net
June 8, 2003