Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Week 04 - First "race" test on endurance training


Last weekend, a first test was planned. At the indoor meeting of ETSU, I ran the invite mile as an unattached runner. Beforehand, I knew that I would crash. The only question was: “How far can I make it before the lactic acid kicks in” It was my first race since we left Belgium mid-August.


My trainers of the High Performance Running Team wanted to know how far the base training would bring me. As I did not do that much anaerobic capacity until now, there were no high expectations in place. Anaerobic capacity is the total amount of energy obtainable from all the anaerobic energy systems. This means we`re looking at a combined amount of output for the ATP, phospho-creatine and lactic acid systems within a certain period of time.

On the ATP side, I did 2 alactic trainings so far. Just to get that system stimulated after a long time. On a lactic acid system side, there were no typical middle distance intervals done before last Wednesday. Even that 4x400 workout does not even come close to the interval sessions that we do in the Spring/Summer. As already mentioned, the specificity of the trainings will only increase. As such, the anaerobic capacity trainings become more and more part of the weekly load. This is needed to drive my anaerobic threshold upwards in order to perform at a higher level for a longer period of time. The goal would be to break my PB on 1500m this summer (3`45.73).

Right now, it was clear that this was lacking. After a decent start, the pace was dropped as I was moving in 3rd place. First lap was clocked at 64. The guys in the back noticed this and took over. However, a 2`06 at 600 was still quite off the target pace that I had in mind (60/61). Then I pushed on the next 400: 3`05, but 100m further in the race, the lactic acid cruelly kicked in. The last 250m were just embarrassing as I was not longer running resulting in a 4`17.52 mile. I was hoping for a time between 4`05 and 4`10 but the end result satisfied the coaches. The pictures will be posted later on this blog.

The coming weeks we will drive the volume and the specificity upwards. Watch out, I`ll be ready in the summer!

Sportive regards,
Wout

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