Fractionalized VO2

[pedro]

Hi Joe,

I gather that Fractionalized VO2 has to do with strength and holding to a high percentage of vVO2max during a race. If that’s roughly the case, I imagine one would do a lot of 90% vVO2max (or slower, longer?) type work to develop it.

Anyway, if you have time, can you explain Fractionalized VO2 and how to develop it? Thanks, pedro

[Joe Rubio]

Pedro,

A few years ago I was speaking to Dr Vigil. We were discussing vVO2 max and he wanted to know my definition of vVO2max. I said what I knew to be the correct answer which at the time was the pace an athlete could maintain for roughly 2 miles or 10 minutes, which is what I still read every now and then. He, being an instructor by trade, asked me the following; "what is Daniel Komen's pace for 2 miles?" at the time it was 60 seconds or so. He then asked me "What is Daniel Komen's 5k race pace?" I answered 61 seconds or so which it was at the time. He then asked me how is it that Daniel Komen is able to run essentially his 2 mile race pace for almost 13 minutes and a full 5,000 meters when my definition said is was the distance an athlete could cover for 2 miles or 10 minutes.

I didn't know.

He said the ability to maintain a higher % of an athlete's VO2max for a greater period of time was the result of one thing, lactate threshold work and lots of it over many, many seasons. These runs are the glue that hold everthing else together. All the speed work and weekly mileage and VO2max works will not mean as much as they will with the addition of regular, consistent tempo work. If you ead about the Kenyans training, it revolves primarily around tempo work.

Now what exactly is "tempo" work? Well like anything else, developing a form of fitness (in this case lactate threshold) comes as the result of various paces both faster and slower than the target, not just a single pace over and over. Most popular is the 4 mile or 20 minute run at roughly half marathon pace or 90% vVO2max. But a 30 minute run at 85% also develops this system and does a 40 minute run at 80% as does a 60 minute run at 75%.

So what we do is a day or two devoted to each of the various paces that fall into developing this aspect of fitness. Here's an examle of the basic outline we follow each week for the bulk of the season before the peak racing season. These are just the days where we are focusing on developing an athlete's fractional utilization:

Sun: Long run of 90-120, last 60 min at 75%
Tues: 50-60 min at 75%
Thurs: 70-90 min w/ last 40-50 min at 80%
Sat: 6 miles at 85% or 4 miles at 90%

Other runs that help are progressive tempos where each mile or segments of miles are faster than the previous (ie 8 mile run, 3 at 75%, 3 at 80%, 1 at 85%, 1 at 90%) or variable pace tempos (ie 5 mile run 3 at 90%, 1 at 85%, last mile strong).

Not suprising that once an athlete adapts to these runs and gains the fitness and confidence to handle them, they generally have monumental inprovements in performance if they have done all the other forms of training (speed, VO2max work) and have lacked this part of the puzzle.

On a side note, Dr Vigil told me many months ago he had just tested Ryan Hall and said his treadmill test showed he had the highest VO2max of any athlete Vigil had ever seen. Now knowing Dr Vigil you know that's a lot of athletes. Anyways I asked what the crew in Mamouth would be focusing on in the coming months and he said "tempo work, lots and lots of tempo work."

Hope that helps. Any other questions, please let me know.

Joe

[pedro]

Joe;

Thanks for the good info. It helps a lot. I hope the following isn't too garbled...

I would not have guessed the variance of paces contributed, eg, longer runs at 75-80%.

During the peak season, do you keep a run or two in the 80-90% range (for 5-10K racing) or maybe do the 5 mile run (3 at 90% + 1 at 85% + last mile strong--sounds kinda tough with a long warm up)? Or, would doing something like mile to 2000 repeats at 10K pace maintain the development achieved with the slower tempo work in earlier training periods?

I read somewhere that going 10 days or more without running longer tempos (80-85% range for around ~45 mins) deteriorates the previous progress made. Is this true?

[Joe Rubio]

Pedro,

The peak season tempo work depends largely on the event focus. For instance a 800 runner will do much less of it than say a marathoner because for the 800 runners it's a form of conditioning, for the marathoner it's the primary energy source for their event.

In GENERAL, for most track distance runners (ie 1500-5k) we try to some form of specific tempo work every 2 weeks during the peak racing season, but we'll wrap tempo work within a variable pace workout so we address some evnt specific stuff and use the tempo part as a secondary focus and an added stress. Example:

1. 2 x 800 at 5k, 3-4 miles at 90%, 2 x 800 at 5k all w/ 400 jog.

So we have VO2max development as the focus and the tempo run in the middle adds stress while maintaining that system.

The other thing we do is to switch what used to be a normal easy recovery jog earlier in the year to a tempo type recovery in the peak racing season. Examples include the famous 30/40 drill from Oregon or the 50m sprint/50m float for 5k that Viren used to do. Another is in/out miles, so a 5 mile run alternating between 10k pace and 80% or in/out 400's where the athlete runs 400 at 3-5k effort and the recovery at 80% straight for 3-4 miles. Another is a 4 mile run on the track at tempo pace with a 100m sprint every lap. So the tempo work is not the primary focus but it ceratinly adds an elevated stress and is only appropriate if the athlete has a solid background of threshold work in the months leading up to it.

The other thing we'll have athletes do is bag the easy weekend long run and instead switch to the format of the mid week long run with the last stages at 80% and instead do that as the weekend long run. So a higher intensity longer run, but not nearly as long as the normal weekend long run.

Another trick is to do a progressive warmup for some track workouts. So a 20 min run like this: 5 min easy, 5 at 80%, 5 min at 85%, 5 min at 90%. This is good before very fast track work where the volume is pretty low for the day such as 2-3 x 400 at best effort w/ 8-10 min bettwen each.

As far as deterioration after 10 days, I think you need to look at your specific event and decide what's most important at that time of the year. For a 1500 runner, yes the 45 min at 80-85% take priority over fast speed early in the season, but at the end of the season, I'd go with 2 x 400 at best effort as the priority.

Still, if you do it right, you can easily maintain the threshold of the athlete within the workouts outlined above.

Not sure if that helps or confuses things. Let me know.

Joe

[pedro]

Joe,
Thanks. I owe you one for the long, clear responses and your time.
pedro