Musculature vs. Aerobic Fitness
Yesterday I ran a local 5k and in going back and thinking about my race i thought i would post some thoughts on what i observed. First of all the race went very well. I PRed with a time of 19:17 and finished 3rd overall and first in my age group. The field was definitely not stacked, but hey, you can only race who shows up. Anyway, for the first half of the race i was running in 5th place. The 2 people most closely in front of me were pretty fast and seemed to be typical middle age runners, in that they were both tall and lanky and had solid running mechanics. They were pushing the pace, but i was able to stay with 15-20 meters of them. At about the half way point right before the turnaround, there was an uphill. I noticed as I went into the uphill that i was able to pull much closer and overtake one of the runners before the turnaround. I felt like i was able to maintain my pace on the uphill or at the very least slow down less than the other person. For the 2nd guy, right before the end of the race there was another uphill and i kept within striking distance wanting to see if the same thing would hold true. Sure enough, i caught the other runner again on the uphill, putting me into 3rd place.
This got me to thinking about how i was able to overtake them on the uphills and i think it might have something to do with aerobic fitness vs. muscular fitness. These guys were obviously fit and were obviously runners, meaning they trained aerobically. I think where I, or where we within EN, have an edge is that we train not only aerobic fitness, but muscular fitness especially during the out season. All those hard bike sessions are not only building aerobic fitness, but we are learning to push and dig hard and that pays dividends not just on the bike, but also on the run. Maybe this is obvious to others but it really struck a chord with me not just in terms of overall race performance, but how and where i was able to overtake obviously strong runners. The take away for me is that putting the whole package together is not just about aerobic fitness. You also need the muscular fitness to be a stronger Swim/Bike/Runner and that's a differentiator between EN and other methodologies that are trying to solve a purely aerobic problem. I could be way off, but i thought i would post because of how clearly i saw this unfold yesterday.
And, by the way, the 2 people who came in ahead of me were ages 17 and 13 respectively, proving there is absolutely no substitute for youth
Comments
Mark, Joe Friel did a series on aging. In one of the articles he talked about aging marathoners. Although those who conitued to run stil had great leg muscles, that's all they did. Much of their muscle mass from youth had diminished. We are triathletes and gain the benefits of training our entire body. All that muscle is a big aid. I agree with you completely that the pain we put ourselves in during the OS, Run Focus, Get Faster puts us in a better position with someone who only trains one area.
This a sign of overall workout fatigue? Or am I not digging hard enough in the Z4/Z5 workouts? Seems to be a common theme for me on the trainer as well, my legs give out before my HR does.
Pretty confident in my 183ish LT HR value after much testing (both lab and real world tests).
Thoughts anyone?
Thanks.
@ Chris - by no means am i an expert, but i'll weigh in. My first thought, as you mentioned, is to consider fatigue. I'd look at your physical condition leading into both your HM and your 10K. Were you coming off a particular hard workout before your HM or did you not get enough sleep? If there is not a discernible difference then possibly the difference could be attributed to a heart rate drift, meaning your heart rate at the same effort will continue to rise over time because of the training load your accumulating. This condition could account for your high average HR. Maybe go back and look at your data to see if your HR was steady around 183 or if rose steadily throughout your race. Lots of folks on the team with deep knowledge of the physiology behind the numbers. Hopefully someone will weigh in.
By the way, congrats on the PR!