Definiton of Aerobic and Anaerobic, lets get up to date here.

Paula Radcliffe was told that her VO2 was 80. She doesn't believe that figure, even though the man who tested her, is a Ph.D

I don't believe the figure either, if Paula had reall increased her VO2 max to 80, she would have run a Marathon faster than Haile's 2.03.59

Ignore the first reply, that wasn't me.

wellnow wrote:

Ignore the first reply, that wasn't me.

I hope nothing I write comes across as nasty. I do respect the thought and time you put into all of this. But some of the things you write force a person to choose between your beliefs and an idea that somes from some reasonably credible source.

Derek Clayton's was measured at 69. I see no reason to doubt Radcliffe's would be 80.

Of course those numbers don't matter. The only numbers that matters is 1st place, 2nd & 3rd... & 26:17 26:58...

wellnow what is it you proposing, your point is?

I'll copy & paste what I wrote before on page 17 that you had no comment:

______________________________________

What you are saying is sort of like being able to hold your hand in the flame longer. How close to the flame can I hold my hand before having to pull back?

I believe what you trying to say is, practicing closer to race pace; at longer period of time. Sort of like practicing a new skill.

________

Is this what you getting at?

HRE wrote:

I hope nothing I write comes across as nasty. I do respect the thought and time you put into all of this. But some of the things you write force a person to choose between your beliefs and an idea that somes from some reasonably credible source.

Well thanks for that HRE, I appreciate your honesty.

If you want an expert opinion on why VO2 max figures are often dubious, then Jack Daniels Ph.D is your man. He has explained how the figures can be swayed one way or another by inaccurate calibration, here are some threads on the subject:

Deena may well have a high VO2 max, and indeed the figure is increased by losing weight. Deena is on the lean side of skinny, but even so, 81 is very dubious.

MarathonMind wrote:

Derek Clayton's was measured at 69. I see no reason to doubt Radcliffe's would be 80.

Huh?

wellnow wrote:

Deena is on the lean side of skinny, but even so, 81 is very dubious.

I think you meant she is on the skinny side of lean. N'est pas?

at the limit wrote:

Of course those numbers don't matter. The only numbers that matters is 1st place, 2nd & 3rd... & 26:17 26:58...

wellnow what is it you proposing, your point is?

I'll copy & paste what I wrote before on page 17 that you had no comment:

______________________________________

What you are saying is sort of like being able to hold your hand in the flame longer. How close to the flame can I hold my hand before having to pull back?

I believe what you trying to say is, practicing closer to race pace; at longer period of time. Sort of like practicing a new skill.

________

Is this what you getting at?

Practice all paces. Getting this right is the art, being scientific about it has very limited value. Of course a stop watch and accurately measured distances are very important, but getting the balance between too hard and not hard enough, too far and not far enough, too many hard days and not enough easy days etc etc, that is the art of training.

The best training gives a huge boost in confidence, I'm sure we have all noticed that. And when that translates into better racing, the confidence goes up another notch.

Here is an analogy I gave to a young lad today. He is a keen and talented musician as well as a very good runner. I told him to consider steady running as being like pracising scales and arpeggios, you do these fluently and not too quickly starting slowly and if it is going well, speeding up and if it is still going well, you keep going. But if this practice is not going well, you stop, because making too many mistakes defeats the object of the exercise.

Hard interval training is like practising the hard pieces of music by breaking it down into segments and concentrating very hard on being as accurate as possible. If it is going well, you continue, if not you should stop and not get frustrated.

It's all about skill. I am trying to accurately report and interpret information which has been around for decades. It has been shown many times, that Oxygen uptake, which is directly related to cariac output, is not hugely different between untrained people and highly trained athletes. I suggest that maximum aerobic development is actually normal development of a healthy active person and that going from healthy and active regular exercise to full on athletic training will see very little or no increase in aerobic capacity. We can continue to improve for year however due to increase in running skill.

Consider my own performances as an example. I have consitently improved my times over various distances almost every year since I was 34 when I ran 33.12 for 10k to last year when I was 45. Has my aerobic capacity improved? No, it has most likely gone down gradually. What has improved is my skill at various distances.

N'est-ce pas?

Main non, she was not on the skinny side of lean in Beijing, twas much worse; the lean side of skinny. Inevitable disasted ensued.

Mais non,

aplologeez.

Sort of fun to see all this stuff, and hopefully it makes some sense to those with limited knowledge in the field. I prefer not to question anyone in particular, and I admit I agree with much that is said by numerous posters, including those who question some supposedly valid statements. One thing that is important to understand is that VO2max varies a great deal among runners, even elite runners. Some make up for a lower max with superior economy or a bit greater fractional utilization. When I see one of my test results that is unusual, I typically question my test on that day -- like the elite runner with a max heart rate of 148 (I got that same value on several occasions, so naturally questioned my technique). So we got him hooked up with EKG electrodes and got 148). Over the years I have heard of very high VO2max values (90 for guys and over 80 for women), but that means nothing without the submax data showing economy. What good is a 90 max if a guy with 70 beats you in a marathon, and I have seen that. A female with a 60 max ran the same 3k time as two others who had 69.9 and 73 maxes. If you want to discuss something that more people might want to take part in, let me know, I have a good question for you.

Hi wellnow:

Just a few more questions:

1) Say you have a guy who once was an excellent 5000 runner at 130 lbs. who has not run in 10 years and now weighs 230 lbs. Suppose he runs a 5000 with no training and is able to finish. Assume his obese 5000 is slower than his formerly excellent 5000.

Now, the guy starts training again and gets down to, say 140 lbs. and improves. How much of the improvement would you guess (percentage) is due to weight loss/fitter heart/fitter muscles and how much is due to neurological/learning/relearning skill of running factors?

2) Do you believe an hour training at altitude has any advantage over an hour training at sea level? Do you believe a night sleeping at altitude has any advantage over a night sleeping at sea level?

Thanks.

Jack what would that question be?

Hi Jack, I appreciate your rationale in explaining some of the anomalies. Did you read that recent report that suggested that running economy was influenced by heel length?

Presumably a low VO2 max + high running economy is explained by the fact that these athletes generate more power in foot and ankle flexion, and presumably the reverse applies to those with a high VO2 max.

I wonder how this affects cyclists and jumpers. Do those athletes with a high VO2 max make up for the relative lack of ankle/foot flexion with a greater muscle mass and different technique. It is interesting how Jacques Anquetil won the Tour de France five times with a radically different pedalling technique where he didn't use ankle flexion but kept his toes pointing down throughout the pedal stroke.

Can long jumpers, high jumpers and triple jumpers succeed without great ankle flexion and make up for it with greater muscle power?

What I would also like to discuss is changes in absolute oxygen uptake at various ages and levels of training. What sort of variations have you seen?

And what is your good question for me?

wellnow wrote:

Consider my own performances as an example. I have consitently improved my times over various distances almost every year since I was 34 when I ran 33.12 for 10k to last year when I was 45. Has my aerobic capacity improved? No, it has most likely gone down gradually. What has improved is my skill at various distances.

Wow, that's inspiring! Those are the kinds of stories I like to hear.

This is a great thread. I've always had a problem working on speed and endurance at the same time, but it makes sense now thinking that I only have worked on one at a time while ignoring the other. It was puzzling to me that my "endurance" looked strong looking at my 5k - marathon ratio, but then there is a huge gap of slowness from 400m to that 5k time. (:60 for 400, 18:40 for 5k and 2:59 for marathon) I always felt that I should have enough speed for a faster marathon and needed more endurance, but I actually never had any speed during marathon training since I ignored it for a while.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

Hi wellnow:

Just a few more questions:

1) Say you have a guy who once was an excellent 5000 runner at 130 lbs. who has not run in 10 years and now weighs 230 lbs. Suppose he runs a 5000 with no training and is able to finish. Assume his obese 5000 is slower than his formerly excellent 5000.

Now, the guy starts training again and gets down to, say 140 lbs. and improves. How much of the improvement would you guess (percentage) is due to weight loss/fitter heart/fitter muscles and how much is due to neurological/learning/relearning skill of running factors?

2) Do you believe an hour training at altitude has any advantage over an hour training at sea level? Do you believe a night sleeping at altitude has any advantage over a night sleeping at sea level?

Thanks.

Hi SlowFatMaster, I would assume that when he ran his best times 10 years previously, his cardiovascular developement was at his lifetime peak. 10 years later it is reasonable to expect that his oxygen uptake would not be quite as high as in his younger days. If he was able to run even faster 10 years later with 10 pounds more body fat, then that obviously suggets a big improvement in skill, since body fat does slow us down.

However when we gain a few pounds, sometimes we don't slow down quite as much as a mathematical formula might suggest, presumably we are able to retain much of our previous stride length. This also explains why losing weight initially leads to big improvements up to a point where further (healthy) weight loss doesn't lead to further improvements.

To get those further mechanical improvements we have to improve our skill to develop a longer stride with the same stride rate. How do we get this longer stride? Train sometimes on fast surfaces, pracitice downhill running on a gentle grade, pracitice running with the wind behind you, practice faster paces and do longer sessions at the same pace. All of this requires very intelligent planning and observing the sensory feedback (listening to your body)to do more when you feel good and less when you feel bad. It sounds obvious, but it is easy to become too obsessed with trying to continue what has worked before when sometimes we need to rest and then do something different when we have recovered.

Regarding altitude training, I can only guess what works. It is interesting that at altitude, the thinner air allows faster paces over short distances, so this would presumably convey a longer stride despite a much greater oxygen cost.

If you drive from sea level up a mountain, you don't need to acclimatize as long as you do your run withing a few hours of arriving. A night sleeping at altitude will give you some extra new red blood cells but probably mess up your blood chemistry for a while. I don't think that overall you will have more red blood cells, I think there is a certain amount of mythology about this aspect of altitude acclimatization.

Regular short visits to altitude, just a few hours may be beneficial, but I am sure that some of the gains are likely to be in neuro-muscular co-ordination because of the potential to run faster for a lap or two with 20% less oxygen, thus your skill is surely going to improve. The much touted aerobic benefits are questionable. Jack Daniels is also an excellent source of information here since he has much knowledge and experience in these matters.

FIRST the question, as others were interested. I have two, but here is the easier one -- Physiologically, what order of events in an ironman triathlon would produce the fastest total time, and why?

Certainly mkaes sense that a longer lever arm at the ankle would be benficial. Good questions about the non-runner events. Don Morgan and I looked at various artivcles that reported both VO2max and economy (submax) and found s positive correlation between Max and submax data, which meant that the higher max(good trait) was positively correlated with higher submax (bad). Sounds like some kind of fiber-type situation, but don't know. We did a couple longitudinal studies on young runners (ages 12-18, who were tested every 6 months). Over those 6 years body mass just about doubled and absolute VO2max also doubled, with the result that relative VO2max did not change. One of the 12 year olds actually had a 6-week period of 100 mile weeks. Their runing economy improved dramatically and 2mile times improved about 2 minutes as I remember (it's been awhile). Krahenbuhl did a similar study with youngsters who did not train and also found improvements in economy, but not as much as ours so we concluded that both growth and training improved economy.

Youngsters were tested every 6 months for 6 years; I didn't make that too clear