Forums >General Running>The Muscle Factor Model
Dave
Run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard. There is nothing more to it people. Nothing.
Run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard.
There is nothing more to it people. Nothing.
There is a certain elegance to this but since there is nothing more to it, it makes a lousy magazine article.
But at least you could come onto message boards every so often to announce your wisdom.
Sort of like, "Hey, 1000's of runners followed my run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard approach. They got fitter, ran faster, and mostly avoided injury. Look how friggin smart I am. I told you so, you bunch of morons."
I ran a mile and I liked it, liked it, liked it. dgb2n@yahoo.com
Self anointed title
I can't remember who came up with the "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" thing. Probably MikeyMike?
Anyway.... what I should do is claim it is my own, like Rich does.
Are you sure you don't mean Pete?
Pete is awfully supportive of Rich. Almost like they're the same person.
Prince of Fatness
Are you sure you don't mean Pete? Pete is awfully supportive of Rich. Almost like they're the same person.
Pete ≠ Richard.
Not at it at all.
For sure.
I am hoping that SoCalPete does actually = Pete Magill.
He certainly is on LR.
I can't remember who came up with the "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" thing. Probably MikeyMike? Anyway.... what I should do is claim it is my own, like Rich does.
I'm going to go out on a limb here but ... I bet the Bushmen in Africa some 15,000+ years ago were debating who came up with "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" while feasting on an antelope they spent all day running down.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
While "run lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard" may, in fact, encapsulate the best training wisdom, the fact remains that almost no one I know - or run with (or against) - executes it very well.
In fact, if I was to name the three mistakes runners make most (in my experience), they would be:
1. Running their long runs too hard.
2. Running tempo like it was a race.
3. Running intervals based upon goal race pace rather than targeting the muscle fiber recruited at faster paces.
Sure, we don't want to make running more complicated than it is. And double sure, I'd never be able to write another article unless I seized upon aspects of training like muscle fiber recruitment, hormonal balance (the one I just turned in), and how to pick the best tune-up races for a particular race distance (the one in the next issue).
But it's equally true that unless you're a running zen master, you're probably running the wrong pace for your distance, failing to fully develop your strength/speed, and getting beat at races by people of equal ability who are training smarter.
Just a couple things, and then I must dash off to work (really don't want to be late again today!).
Did you know that you get 100% benefit for slow twitch fiber by training those fibers to near glycogen depletion at about 65-70% VO2 max? And that if you're running your distance faster than that, you're going to start recruiting excessive intermediate fiber, which burns more fuel, increases your impact (leading to more injury), and requires a longer post-run recovery ? - and also cuts short your workout, since running faster cuts down on how long it takes to finish a run, and your body only knows time, not distance, when it comes to training volume. Or that growth hormone starts being produced at 10 minutes into the run and trails off at 75 minutes? Or that new capillaries aren't really formed until after 90 minutes?
What good is all that info? Well, it means that recovery runs of 20 minutes won't provide you much in the way of GH, so why not make then 30-40 minutes? And it means that 60-75 minutes is a good length for a medium distance run, since it maximizes GH production and glycogen depletion of slow twitch. And it means that we must run longer than 90 minutes every week to build those capillaries, but since most of the good stuff happens earlier in the run than that, we should be careful how much longer than 90 minutes we go. And it means that we shouldn't do any of this as fast as most of us think! Because pace (over 65% VO2 max) has nothing to do with it!
Seriously, I can't run with most distance runners I know, because their distance pace is too fast for me. Since I know there's no benefit to the faster pace, I won't do it. But come race day, I'm running a minute or two faster for a 5K, more than that for a 10K or beyond.
Knowing about things like muscle fiber recruitment is the key to setting pace and establishing workouts (e.g.--what's the optimum distance and pace for long hill repeats to improve our 1500 meter/mile speed? ... read the article, it's all there ... and fyi, it's that speed that determines a runner's ultimate success at races 5K and longer!).
Oh, and I'm not Rich.
Or rich.
Best regards to all of you!
Pete Magill
Options,Account, Forums
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
We're almost all getting beat in races by the people in front of us who are training better than us?
how do you know this? It could be they just have a lot more talent, are poorly trained, but still can run faster. i'm pretty sure I get beat by lots of people that would fit that description. I knew in college my VO2max was pretty low for a distance runner (and I was trained when tested). Guys on my team that ran the minimum possibly beat me all the time. That's okay though. There's always going to be someone better.
For the record, I'm pretty sure that Rich violently disagrees with everything in Pete's last post -- except that Rich will say he doesn't, but does, or some such double-talk.
Billy ≠ Paul
Ah.
But Walrus == Paul
Most of my problem with Rich has been he espouses this theory (BTW not original) with no ideas of how to apply that knowledge to make us better runners, the direct opposite of what Pete just laid out here.
All he wants to say is his theory is somehow better than Lydiard's (or anybody who preaches run more), which irritates me all the more because as you all know Lydiard and most reputable coaches have tested their theories sometimes on themselves and found out what works and what does not. Rich here makes no such attempts and claims he is just a physiologist and not a coach.
how do you know this? It could be they just have a lot more talent, are poorly trained, but still can run faster.
That's life. And similar stuff comes up in other aspects of life too (slacker with way more money than me, business leaders who are idiots, people who are just "a natural" in whatever they do). But I can't control that, I can only control me.
Anyway. Those people at the very front of the pack had to do both awesome training AND have some amount of natural talent. In the middle of the pack, stuff's different. Slackers do better than me, hard workers do better than me, chick pushing the stroller does better than me, lots of dogs do better than me. And I do better than others with my mystery brew of training and (lack of) talent. All I can do is focus on me.
Oh, and the whole idea that I have to fit in what I can, trainingwise, with Real Life. It's just running.
The training v talent comet can go on for pages and pages. Kudos for the left turn in a rich thread.
And a Pete sighting. That's very cool too.
As for rich, he claims to be the slowest fast person or the fastest slow person or whatever. That slogan tells you all you need to know. Shell game.
#artbydmcbride
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