Relentless Forward Progress_ A Guide to Running Ultramarathons - Bryon Powell [15]
Geoff Roes is an elite ultramarathoner who shattered the Western States 100 course record in 2010 with a time of 15:07:04. He’s twice won Ultrarunning magazine’s Men’s Ultrarunner of the Year award (’09 and ’10) and has won each of his first seven 100-mile races. This essay is adapted from an article Geoff first published on his blog found at AKRunning.blogspot.com.
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Racing Far Is No Excuse for Training Slow
Ian Torrence
If you never run fast, you’ll never run fast.
—Bernie Boettcher, four-time Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent masters winner
By definition, ultrarunners are proficient at running long and relatively slow. However, this necessary practice of time-consuming long-distance training has, for many, become an accepted reason to avoid another important facet of competitive ultrarunning: speed training. Why should runners who participate in 24-plus-hour long races with seemingly pedestrian-like course records equivalent to a 9, 10-, or 11-minute-per-mile average pace incorporate speed work into their training?
Nikki Kimball, winner of the 2004 Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run and three-time winner of the USA Track and Field 50 Mile Trail Championships, credits her rise to elite status to the introduction of speed work into her training regimen. “Starting my ultra career in New England, where the trails are actually technical, speed training seemed, at first, a little silly. However, even the most techy trail races have long sections of eminently runnable sections on which one needs leg speed in order to place well.”
Though uncomfortable, the goal of speed work is to spend time at your maximum aerobic capacity (or VO2 max). Training at this effort level improves the body’s ability to work harder for a longer period of time. Typically, this is achieved by running 400-to-2000-meter intervals or repeats at 2-to-5mile race pace with a recovery jog of either half the distance or approximately half the time of the fast interval. The recovery jogs help you maintain the prescribed speed for the entire training run.
Greg McMillan, an exercise physiologist and coach for McMillan Elite and Team USA Arizona, explains the physiological benefits of speed work on his coaching website McMillanRunning.com. “While endurance (slow, easy running) and stamina (8-to-30-kilometer race pace running) training stimulate adaptations that improve the efficiency of several systems of the body, speed training works to actually increase the capacity of several of your body’s systems. Research shows that speed training increases the enzymes that help liberate energy from our fuel sources, improves the lactic acid buffering capacity, provides a greater stimulation and training of the fast-twitch muscle fibers, and results in a greater ability to extract oxygen from the blood as it perfuses the muscles.”
In the January–February 2010 edition of Running Times, Jim Gerweck makes the case that repetitive stress, or doing the same thing every day, like running long, slow distance, can lead to overuse injuries. Gerweck quotes Terrence Mahon, coach of the Mammoth Track Club: “The body gets really good at doing what you ask it to, and becomes more efficient at it. So if you hit it with the same stressors season after season, you begin to get less and less training response. You can’t do the same thing you did the year before and expect to improve if you’ve been running for a while. You’ve got to add different elements of stress.”
Runners of all levels must challenge themselves during