Our Philosophy Of Running Put Into Practice
Low-Intensity Running, Longer Runs And Less Injuries. Shape Your Biomotor And Run Efficiently
Prioritize Improving Your Endurance
Following an in-depth knowledge of how your body produces energy (The Physiology of Running), we can take a closer look at how we design a training plan, that utilizes this knowledge and ensures that the desired physiological optimizations occurs. As mentioned we keep a focus on endurance, without leaving aerobic capacity aside, we just don’t give the to the same attention during our training plans. This equates in a low intensity workout philosophy, with added high intensity short intervals.
Periodization
As mentioned, it takes a very long time to build up endurance, as opposed to maximal aerobic capacity. A rule of thumb says that it takes 10,000 hours (approximately 10 years) of endurance training before you get close to your maximal potential. With high intensity training, you will in a relative short time reach your max potential of aerobic capacity.
Our endurance focus is clearly visible in our training plans, where you will find a lot of low intensity workouts. Especially in the foundational training plan, where you will be running a lot of slow miles, which might seem counter intuitive. That is why we use all this time, explaining the physiology behind our method, so that it actually does make sense to run slower and eat miles for breakfast.
To elaborate on this, lets take a look at the overall structure of the training plans. Like many other coaches, we work with periodization, which means, that we split the training plans up in specific periods. Overall we work with 3 main periods:
- Restitution: This normally lasts for 3-5 weeks, and functions as a bridge between programs, as restitution after a hard race or to get you started and condition your body for foundational training.
- Foundational: These typically lasts 12-24 weeks, and develops your endurance and conditions your body for the harder specialized training plans as you prepare for race day.
- Specialized: This period last for 12-15 weeks and is key to make you faster on the specific distance you’re a planning for i.e., 5K, 10K, ½-Marathon or Marathon.
We would like to stress that you neither can nor should train hard all year round. Those who do, have a tendency to overtrain, not restituting and getting into supercompensation, and worst of all, they are prone to injuries. This is why it is important to periodize your training rhythm, and vary your workouts. Most important is getting a well planned foundational training plan build into your yearly plans, and best of all, get them in early in the season. The greater your build up of endurance in the first part of your season, the faster you can recover later in the season. This means that you should limit your high intensity training to the specialized period, when you are preparing for a specific event. This way you will peak on race day, and get there with less risk of injury or overtrain.
A further argument for periodization is the fact that research have shown that it is not optimal to try to improve your aerobe and anaerobe capacity at the same time. This makes sense, as we have explained that these systems are fundamentally different. So what works and builds one system, will most likely not have any (or negative) effect on the other.
Types Of Workouts
Aerobe Workout: When you do workouts in the aerobe zones, a series of physiological adaptions take place. Your capillary network expands, thereby improving the oxygen absorption of the muscle cells form the blood and the delivery of carbon dioxide to the blood. The capillaries are the tiny blood vessels transporting blood along side the cells in our body. Also you create more mitochondria in your muscle cells, making the energy production in each cell.\u003cbr\u003eAerobe workouts makes your muscles produce les lactic acid, and waste products are removed faster. The overall use of nutrients in the body is much more efficient, that during anaerobe workouts.
Anaerobe Workout: When you do anaerobe workouts, you are stressing the body hard and breaking down the capillaries. Which form the get go, makes it apparent that you should not try to mix anaerobe and aerobe workouts at the same time. Your body would simply not respond to the aerobe workout, before the capillaries had been rebuild, which is a timely process. At the same time, the high intensive workout makes the blood acidic, which results in the need for longer restitution, at times also affecting sleep and resulting in general fatigue. Anaerobe workouts has a lot of positive effects, first and foremost: it is the most efficient way to increase you maximal aerobic capacity, which is crucial as a higher level of fat burning, during long distance running also results in a higher consumption of oxygen.
As we see, aerobe and anaerobe workouts is not exactly the opposite of each other. They complement each other, as an underdeveloped maximal aerobic capacity will limit your endurance. This is why it is important that you training plans are design to target both your endurance and your maximal aerobic capacity. The key insight though, is that we need to time the anaerobe workouts, in such a way that they do not diminish the effect of your aerobe workouts.
In general, it is important to understand that peak performance every day in every session is not a reasonable goal. If you wish to improve, you will have to stay at a relatively low overall intensity, and at the same time vary your training sessions. Not only is it a better and more efficient way of running, but it is also fun and motivating. Variety is the spice of life, and the varied training plans that we have designed, makes it easier and more fun to get out on the roads and eat some miles.
Getting In The Zones – All 9 Of Them…
Although it might seem overwhelming, to have to keep track of 9 different running zones, this is exactly what will make your workouts more fun and varied, than any other training plans on the market.
We have developed a system of 4 anaerobe running zones and 4 aerobe running zones.
- Rest: You at rest – not a running zone
- Jog: Restitution runs
- Ae1: Low aerobe intensity
- Ae2: Moderate aerobe intensity
- Ae3: High aerobe intensity
- AT: Threshold pace (the pace you can keep at for a maximum of one hour)
- An1: Long intervals, approximately your 10K pace
- An2: Midrange intervals, approximately your 5K pace
- An3: Short intervals, approximately your 3K pace
- An3: Short intervals, approximately your 3K pace
- An4: Sprints and max intensity, approximately your 1K pace
These correlate roughly with race pace from a 1K run to Marathon, depending on the level of the runner. Knowing your running zones therefore makes it easy to estimate your race pace pretty accurately:
| Pace | Zone | |
|---|---|---|
| 1K pace | corresponds roughly to | An4 |
| 3K pace | corresponds roughly to | An3 |
| 5K pace | corresponds roughly to | An2 |
| 10K pace | corresponds roughly to | AT-An1 |
| 1/2-Marathon pace | corresponds roughly to | Ae3-AT |
| Marathon pace | corresponds roughly to | Ae2-Ae3 |
In your training plans the zones are by default given as a percentage of your threshold pace, but you can work with them as a percentage of threshold heart rate or percentage of functional threshold power. We emphasize that we recommend that you train with reference to pace, and maybe use HR as a way of spotting fatigue or tendencies to overtrain.
If you decide to use the training plans with HR zones, which are available, we recommend running the first training session in each zone by pace and then note down the average HR for that zone. This number should function as a baseline the next time you are running in that HR zone.
Running Test And Zone Calculation
If you want to cut down on the complexity, as you get into the rhythm of running, you can reduce the 9 zones to 4 functional running zones. The advantage of this, is that most HR smart watches and devises only allow 5 zones, which is then enough in their own system. The four zones are:
- Jog (Jog): Restitution zone in which the workout is at very low intensity with a high fat burning ratio. This is typically below 70% of your Threshold Pace. The purpose is restitution.
- Light Aerobe (Ae1 and Ae2): Endurance zone, in which the fat burning ratio is still high, but the purpose in the zone is improvement of aerobe energy conversion. Typically run at 70 – 80% of Threshold Pace.
- Hard Aerobe (Ae3): Hard aerobe workout stimulating the submaximal aerobic capacity (close to threshold pace). Typically at 80 – 90% of threshold pace.
- Anaerobe (AT, An1, An2, An3 and An4): Anaerobe zone working on improving pace and maximal aerobic capacity. Typically run at 100 – 125% of threshold pace.
If you need less complexity, it is okay to just focus on these 4 zones in the starter and foundation training plans, but you will need to expand these to the full 9 zones, when you move to the specialized programs, as these to a much higher extend work with the differentiations in the anaerobe zones. Also use the full 9 running zones the effect of the training session will be greatly improves, especially in the specialized training plans.
When you are ready to start the training programs, be sure to get a running test, and calculate you running zones.