To win in triathlon and even ironman, you
need speed. A 10k speed of 31
minutes is necessary to win Hawaii; 29 or below to win an ITU triathlon
championship for males. I am talking about having reached
a plateau cycling and swimming, and having the above speed running. Reaching a plateau means 6:45 min/5k cycling on a flat surface and swimming in 16:30 or below the 1,500 meters. If you do not have those numbers, your
chances are practically non-existent to win Hawaii or/and ITU championship. SO, YOU NEED TO PRACTICE SPEED if
your goals are to achieve your maximum potential. How to do it?
Bernard Lagat (35
años) mentioned interesting things in his interview for Runners World: “It is an August afternoon
last summer, a week before the first round of the 1500 meters in the track and
field World Championships in Berlin. The day before, Lagat had gone to a nearby
track where he ran a pitch-perfect workout. He clocked one minute and 20
seconds for 600 meters, followed by three 41-second 300s. The times were
identical to the training runs he had completed before the last World
Championships, in 2007, when he went on to win both the 1500 and 5000 meters.
So, based on yesterday's workout, he is heartened. He hasn't lost a step.”
Let´s continue with what Lagat noticed.
Adding somebody else that needs special attention: Peter Snell.
“When Lagat makes this point, it dawns on a visitor what a startling
contrast there is between his youthful potency and his well-disguised age—a
contrast few athletes of his stature ever get to achieve. Peter Snell of New
Zealand, after winning the Olympic 800 meters in 1960, and the 800 and 1500 in
1964, became a research scientist so as to study his own kind—the great. He
found that champion middle-distance men have only been able to endure racing
and training at their peak for an average of five years. That was all Snell
himself could stand.”
But we come back to his ample cultural experience which makes a
difference in what he learns and applies it to life:
“Boys are prepared with weeks of seclusion and instruction in the ways
of the tribe. "Circumcision parallels what the military does to a
draftee," says 1972 Olympic 800-meter bronze medalist Mike Boit. "The
elders shave his head, give him a new name, and subject him to rigorous
discipline, all to remove his individuality and replace it with a new identity
of toughness and obedience." The result is men who do not shrink from the
discomfort of running, or much else… No matter how painful something is, you have
to take it. I saw that in both my parents. I only had to observe them to learn
toughness. But the essential thing in Nandi society is not simply enduring. It
is also always finding a solution." One does not simply suffer in silence.
"You seek help from the elders. A society with elders is healthy. It's not
always that way in the West."
Lagat continues to learn about running after Olympic medals and records
after the age of 35, as pointed out in the interview:
"Those races came down to the workouts that I do," he says.
"I was able to follow Bekele in the 5000, in the 3000, always being close
and thinking, 'I'm really only training for the 1500, but I can do this.' Now
Bekele, he's training for his specialty, 5-K and 10-K, and I'm getting close.
Think about what can happen if I add more to what I am doing for the 1500 or
put on more 5000 training. I need those hard repetitions at 1000, at 800, a lot
of 400s that are more intense than what I've done…Lagat has trained in Tubingen
since 1998 because Templeton bases his stable of runners here during European
summer seasons. Within the
Schonbuch woods Lagat has retooled his techniques, again and again, continuing
an education and an evolution that allows him to endure beyond his age."
Education and technique make us tolerate the training regimen and to
continue improving. Let´s take a look at
Peter Snell: As Snell pointed out in a telephone interview with Running Research News, "Perhaps the best way to train is to spend the
maximum-possible amount of time running at a pace which is closely related to
the demands (or pace) of the race you're shooting for, without getting
overtrained."
Snell as a researcher and many years later thinks differently at what he
did. He was a Crocodile Dundee before
moving to the USA.
Snell does not see it the same way with his great experience on his shoulders,
a unique experience: “Peter Snell was a protégé of the late
Arthur Lydiard and trained based on what is fondly known as the “Lydiardism”.
When you look at the background of training for middle distance events, back in
those days in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the mainstream training method
was intervals.
Arthur Lydiard defied
all this and prescribed Snell, as an 800m runner, to run 100 miles a week with weekly
22-miler over a gruelingly hilly course. Snell ran this famous 22-mile circuit
called “Waiatarua” with a distance man, Murray Halberg, and a marathon runner,
Barry Magee.”
Snell lost against
Jim Ryun, the High School phenomenon that has his peak at the age of 18 and
kept competing for the next five years as Snell mentioned. Ryun peaked as young as the Brownlees. Please, take a look at his records:
World records
|
Distance
|
Time
|
Date
|
City
|
|
880 yards
|
1:44.9
|
October 6, 1966
|
Terre Haute, IN
|
|
1,500 meters
|
3:33.1
|
July 8, 1967
|
Los Angeles, CA
|
|
One Mile
|
3:51.3
|
July 17, 1966
|
Berkeley, CA
|
|
One Mile
|
3:51.1
|
June 23, 1967
|
Bakersfield, CA
|
|
One Mile (indoor)
|
3:56.4
|
February 19, 1971
|
San Diego, CA
|
The way of training to improve speed was mentioned in more details in
one of our posts:
When stressing the
body the muscles suffer change according to the amount of Growth Hormone
(GH) released by the body, which also depends on the amount of cortisol
released by the body. At a certain limit cortisol inhibits the release of
growth hormone but cortisol is necessary to release GH. Too much cortisol
knocks out the growth hormone production and as a consequence the changes we
are looking for do not take place. That is why the stress should be
according to our objectives and level of training. If one wants to run 30
minutes-10k; one needs to increase the time on the stress zone progressively
until being able to run five minutes at the same speed, in the scale of 1-10,
7-8 effort makes the trick. Keeping technique and cadence is very
important (please, read previous 1, 2 and 3 parts); as I said, training is very
specific and the improvements made would be according to the training cadence
and technique. At the same time neurological training should take
place. Neurons do not use fat or proteins as fuels. They depend on
glucose. In order to keep firing as a “plug” for the muscles, neurons need
training which can be gotten at the regular muscular training, but one needs
specific training to increase the firing rate if one pursues a different
performance level. How can the neurons keep firing if one does no train
neurons to fire at high speed for a long period of time? If one´s pulse
is high or low depends on the neurological training, and this is the main
player in our speed, not so much the muscles. When one trains and the
pulse remains low even when we try to increase it by increasing speed; it means
that the neurons are tired, and the muscles could be o.k.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire