Mile High Club - Training at altitude
It was perfect weather up at Lake Tahoe this weekend. I went up for a friend's birthday party, but it was the perfect place to kill 2 birds with one stone. Saturday morning was bright and clear and a temperature that felt neither warm nor cool. Liz was running her first 10 miler, and I was hoping to accomplish the 18 that was in the training schedule.
Most of the other people in the cabin were heavily sleeping off the late night party from Fri. while we picked our way through the sleeping bags and air matresses trying to wake up fully. The anaerobic training seems to have helped, the high altitude didn't seem to affect my sleep at all, but the real test would be once we hit the road.
We stayed in a little South Lake Tahoe neighborhood about 3 miles from the Nevada state border. I didn't have a plan, just my gps and a primary goal of 10 miles. We wended our way through tree line streets going at a temperate pace. The shade was very pleasant, the sunlight was very strong, even though the air wasn't warm, and we made our way into the mall-like area near the border. We hit Nevada at about mile 4 and the sign said 6250 feet of altitude. A bit higher than I thought, and the pace was not stressing out my cardiovascular system, so I was pretty happy at this point.
We turned around and made our way back to the house, took a quick break for more water and then ran the neighborhood to make up the last 2 miles in 2:14. That was a loooong 10 miles and my legs and feet were starting to feel the build-up of the steady punishment. I filled up my bottles and set off again on my own. At this point I was thinking I'd be fine if I could just put in another 4 miles/40 minutes and I headed back to the Nevada border. I ran along the lake front for a short while, but the path wasn't long and kept getting broken up by private beaches so I went back to Hwy 50. At mile 2 (12) I committed myself to try for 6 total. My breathing was pretty fast for a 10 min/mile pace, so I was finally experiencing the altitude. Mile 3 (13) was right at the border and I turned around to head home, mercifully the way was slightly downhill, so my pace picked up to around 9:15. My feet were really starting to hurt and the bursitis in my left leg was starting to bug me, I was ready to be done for sure.
So there it was, I finished the 6 mile loop in bright sunshine in just under an hour. The views of the lake were magnificent, and running among trees is nice, even if you are still pounding pavement. I got to spend the afternoon swimming in the lake which felt great on my legs. I even tried a few laps of free style, but if I'm going to do a triathlon, I'm going to need a _lot_ of practice!
6 x 800m of Fun!
We ran our 800m intervals this morning. With people on the DL, on vacation or just plain busy, we're re-syncing. Dayle's done them several times, so has Stefan. Today's experience was a little different from last week for me. First, I didn't have a hamburger the night before; +1 bonus point for me.
2nd and more to the point, I kept thinking about what Sissie had been saying about running faster by pushing off harder, and Stefan easily beating my by a 100 meters and not being out of breath, but he said his legs hurt. Hmmm, my legs don't really hurt. How can I get my legs to hurt? Push off harder maybe?
So that's what I did, concentrating on using my quadraceps to really push forward, and making sure I didn't overstride and that my feet landed underneath me, leg slightly bent, weight landing more on the middle front of my foot.
Net result: 3:48 for 800m on my last lap, vs 3:44 last week. The difference? My steps per minute were lower somewhat since I was going farther with each step, my breathing was a smidgen easier through most of the 800m, and my legs were a lot more tired. Even though I wasn't gasping as much for air this time, I do feel like I worked harder.
2 laps in lane 7 at 3:48 = 6:52 pace.
Now the question is can I hold sub-7:00 for a whole mile. And how about my potential 5k time?
For the record
Sissie's great track calculator comes to the ego rescue. According to its great mathmatic wisdom, a 3:40 800m interval in lane 6 (roughly where we were running) calculates to a 6:49 pace...!!! And Stefan who finished ahead of me while in lane 7 was probably doing something like 6:25.
I told Stefan this morning about the lane calculator, which I hadn't used before now, but I remembered Sissie saying it was over a 1% difference per lane going out, which could be as much as 10% on the outside. He thought it was pretty detailed (translate "hardcore") to know this kind of thing. He's probably right.
According to the calculator, it takes as much as 9 seconds more per lap to be running in lane 6 at our target 800m interval pace. That's almost 20 seconds I could have added to my target time, hot dog!
But just like I told Stefan, I'm not ready to change my targets just because of the lane change. I'll use it to salve my ego after a depressing (and yet still exhilirating) track session, but I like the fact that I can push myself a little harder mentally just by moving out a few yards, and have it all pay off come marathon time.
Well, next week is 1600m intervals, maybe I will cut myself a little slack...
Visit the site again
http://www.philsport.com/narf/atrack.htm
The difference of a couple seconds?
It wasn't like I hadn't done 800m intervals before. It wasn't even that the pace was unusual, we had trained at 7:08 over the winter. But with a couple months on the bench and a target time of 3:35/interval I met my own personal vO2max.
ID's co-worker Stefan joined me at Stanford track this morning for my scheduled 6x800m, training week 3 on the FIRST program. Stefan being much more dedicated was actually on week 5 or 6, but decided he could come back and revisit week 3.
The first lap was just as I expected, hard but I was fresh and it takes me a couple laps to warm up so my 3:40 finish time wasn't unexpected. I was breathing much harder than I thought I should be and I had a hard time keeping up with Stefan still we ran the 2nd interval with only a single lap break (not enough) and posted the same time. Okay, okay enough's enough, I need that 5 seconds and I'm going to get it.
3rd lap I go try pacing Stefan and things start falling apart quickly. I can't remember exactly what the first half lap time was, but maybe 44 45 sec, the second 200m was an exercise in agony, there is no way I can keep this pace. I enter the 2nd and final lap and I'm backing off trying to catch my breath, wondering if I will even try to finish the next 3 intervals. (CO2 narcosis makes me think very strange things.) The last lap feels like I'm barely moving, I'm recovering my breathing enough to finish but I'm positive I'm coming in at least 15-20sec slower than lap 2, Stefan is 50 meters ahead of me at the end. Finish time 3:41 Huh?
Welcome to the vO2max zone. The next 3 laps were as hard as ever but I pay closer attention to my breathing, keeping it just below hyperventilation until the last 50 meters and post 3:42 - 3:44. The experience was educational. A couple seconds per mile faster and I couldn't get enough oxygen to my body.
A good article on vO2 max and conditioning factors that contribute to itInterestingly, the article finds that in conditioned athletes, its the ability to get the oygenated blood to the muscle tissue that is the main limiting factor in vO2 max. So its really your heart you need to work on. Increase the blood flow and pressure in the system and you can infuse more muscle tissue and activate more muscle fiber. Seems simple enough ;)
