Half marathon PR with Zero tempo or speed

Over the last few years I have become somewhat jaded about writing race reports, who wants to actually read these things? This report is more for the athletes I coach and the athletes in my community. I will keep it short and to the point. First off one must acknowledge the information that exists which identifies just how “aerobic” our sport is. Unless you are running a 200 -1500 meter race (see chart below) then the contributions are going to be coming predominantly from the aerobic metabolism. So why are athletes spending huge amounts of time training their anaerobic system when their event has 90% of the energy contributions coming from the aerobic system? Good question. Whether you are a Nordic skier, runner, triathlete, cyclist chances are you can benefit from further specific aerobic training. Most people are training at too high of an intensity and consequently have an underdeveloped aerobic system and over developed anaerobic system—you’d think these athletes were training for a 5 minute race. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen marathoners doing pure speed work 12-20 weeks out from their goal race. In my experience these athletes are the ones who bonk easily in long races, are not efficient and simply get out performed as the distances get longer.

To illustrate my point consider my training over the last 12 weeks. I have done ZERO tempo or speed work over the last 12 weeks. I have no running over my zone 1 heart rate top (aerobic threshold). Essentially I have spent all my run training time around 20 beats below the heart rate that corresponds to lactate threshold. Training under this number does draw on both aerobic and anaerobic systems but the great majority of the system targeted is the aerobic system. If I was to train consistently above that number I would be using glycogen as my primary fuel source (see chart below) and would not be teaching my body to efficiently utilize fat as a fuel source and spare glycogen.

Yesterday I set another PR at the Hyannis half marathon 1:18:08, good for 9th overall! My Garmin has the distance at 13.20 so actually my average pace was 5:55. My zone 1 pace at the top of the zone coming into this race was 6:45 per mile.

Keep in mind I am not advocating for no tempo or speed but rather have it timed well. Typically around 80% of the annual training year is specifically targeting the aerobic system and 20% of the season is addressing the anaerobic system.

I could not be happier with the progress I’ve made as well as the progress I’ve seen in my athletes using the training protocols that QT2 Systems and Jesse Kropelnicki have developed.

Yesterday our QT2 team put 5 guys in the top 11 in a field of 2700 runners!



http://www.coolrunning.com/results/10/ma/Feb28_Hyanni_set6.shtml

(charts below)





Source
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/scni1a4.htm