VO ₂ max training

Purpose:

Improves the heart’s ability to pump a high volume of blood, and the muscles ability to extract more oxygen from the blood.

Improves speed over 5 and 10k distances, and helps marathoners who are slower over short distances and/or who may be plateauing at their marathon pace. (Marathon runners who are fast 5 and 10k runners would be better off with lactate threshold training).

Intensity level:

Lower than anaerobic capacity interval training, higher than lactate threshold, i.e. between harder and very hard (RPE 6-7).

Long fast sections with relatively short recovery periods that are somewhere between equal or half the duration of the fast sections.

If you’re training for a marathon, you should do a VO2 max session every two weeks in the ‘support phase’ and end them when entering the final, ‘race-specific phase’. Though some authors suggest the benefits can be so great that they should be carried out more regularly throughout the training programme. What it comes down to is that if you continue to improve, then keep doing these sessions and once the improvement stops, simply maintain your fitness by doing a session every few weeks.

Anaerobic capacity training

Purpose:

The high level of effort involved improves speed over shorter distances, so benefits 5 and 10k runners the most. For half- and full-marathoners, flat out hill reps may be more beneficial.

Intensity level:

This type of interval training should be performed at such an intensity to produce very high levels of lactate in the muscles. Therefore, short, fast sections are interspersed with recovery periods that are 2-4 times longer than the fast sections, thus giving your body a chance to clear the lactate before going again.

Fast sections should be performed at RPE8-9 (extremely hard), such that your heart rate reaches close to maximum. Allow your heart rate to fall to around 100 before going again, so you can repeat the fast sections at the same speed and intensity.

Do 10-30 second reps once a week during the ‘base building phase’, but, as with VO2 max training, end it when starting the ‘race-specific phase’.

Recoveries

Purpose:

To allow you to complete your workout at the intended pace. If your recovery jogs are too short, subsequent efforts will be slower than the optimum pace or you may end up cutting the workout short. If your recovery is too long, your heart rate and oxygen consumption will decrease so much that it will take longer to reach the optimum pace in the next interval.

Intensity level:

Between intervals resist the temptation to stand bent over with your hands on your knees. Active recoveries are better than passive ones, so keep on the move – walk if necessary, but try to break into a jog as soon as possible.

The benefits of keeping moving during recovery are:

• Increased clearance of lactate from your muscles and blood
• Helping your muscles to stay warm and loose
• Keeping your heart rate and oxygen consumption somewhat elevated so less time is required to reach the optimum level during the next interval.

Examples of Interval Training

Speed intervals – generally relatively short intervals run at faster than 5k pace. You may like to progress from short, fast intervals to longer and slower ones.

Ladder intervals – a series of intervals of increasing distance and slower pace, or conversely, decreasing distance and increasing pace.

Example:

 6 minute, 5 minute, 4 minute, 3 minute, 2 minute, 1 minute, with 1 minute of active recovery between each, with a progressively faster pace such as 10k pace to 1500m pace.

Or

1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute, 2 minute, 1 minute at 1500m to 5k pace with active recoveries of equal duration following each interval – i.e. shortest intervals fastest, longer ones slowest.

Lactate Threshold/Cruise intervals – breaking up a tempo run into several intervals. These intervals are run between LT pace and 10 seconds faster than LT pace. (For more information see the article on Lactate Threshold Training).

Examples:

Lamptervals – is one of our own training sessions – here you run fast between sets of lampposts with recovery jogs between them. If you can find a long stretch of evenly spaced lampposts then (a) you won’t need to look at your watch or (b) measure out a specific distance. Any long estate road (such as Badgers Way) should be good for this. For an even more demanding workout, do this along Page Hill Avenue – using lampposts up a hill!

Use an athletics track – the benefits are obvious in that distances are easily measured and the surface is nice and flat, enabling you to focus solely on speed. Apart from the ideas mentioned above, you can run hard out for, say, 20 seconds, take a rest, then run hard back with the goal of reaching your starting point within the 20 second period. Then go again for 30, 40, 50, 60 seconds.