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Is Your Training Pace Fast Enough?
Beginner and intermediate runners often plagued by the performance plateau. Once a certain level of fitness is reached, improving race times becomes a challenge—especially if you aren't training the right way. Without a variety of workouts, improvement is almost impossible to attain.
Running faster during workouts is essential to achieving a new personal best. In short: To get fast you have to run fast.
The problem for those who do run "fast" is that they're typically not running fast enough.
Running at a pace that's only slightly faster than normal won't help you improve your performance. Even if you're training for a short race like a 5K or 10K, all of your workouts end up being in the aerobic heart rate zone.
Aerobic simply means "with oxygen." The primary energy system is your aerobic metabolism. You use oxygen to fuel your working muscles. When the intensity is relatively low, you can continue at this effort for an extended period of time. These workouts make up the bulk of a good endurance training program.
Anaerobic is the opposite—it means "without oxygen." When anaerobic intensity levels are high, more lactate (more commonly known as lactic acid) is created. Lactate is what produces that burning sensation you might be familiar with late in a race.
To get faster, you'll need a mixture of both. Here's why.
Which Workouts Are Better?
Neither are "better" because they each have different purposes. If you're training for a shorter race like a 10K, your workouts should be evenly divided between aerobic (tempo runs) and anaerobic (5K-paced intervals) workouts.
Runners who are training for a long race like the marathon need less anaerobic work in their training program. A marathon is over 99 percent aerobic. The pace is much slower than a 5K, so you don't have to focus as much on anaerobic training. Classic aerobic workouts for marathon training are:
Tempo workouts
Progression runs
Steady-state or marathon-pace efforts
The shorter your race, the more anaerobic it will be since you'll be running faster. So naturally, your workouts must be faster to meet the specific demands of your goal pace.
If your focus is on a shorter distance like a 5K, these workouts should be included in your training plan:
4 x 1-mile repeats on the track at 10K pace with a 400-meter recovery jog in between reps.
10 x 200-meter repeats on the track at 2-mile race pace with a 200-meter recovery jog in between reps.
3 x 1-mile repeats on the track at 5K race pace with a 400-meter recovery jog in between reps.
You'll notice that not only are you running at your 5K-goal pace, but you're also running faster (2-mile) and slower (10K). These "support" paces help to develop the speed you need to achieve your 5K goals.
For the marathon, it's still a good idea to work occasionally on your speed, but your primary focus should be on building aerobic fitness because of the longer distance. Your pace will be slower, but you still need to focus on what your race-pace goals are. If you're training slower than you plan to race, you won't meet your goals. Adjust your training to include some race-pace workouts, regardless of the distance.
The Difference Between the Two
A key difference between aerobic and anaerobic workouts is that there are more intervals and longer periods of rest during anaerobic workouts. The rest period allows your body to recover so you can continue to run at an anaerobic pace. Without a recovery, there'd be far too much lactate in your blood to allow you to continue running at the pace you need to build speed. In the marathon, aerobic training can be done more frequently because it doesn't take as long to recover.
It's also important to schedule anaerobic workouts in advance to make sure you have enough rest days in between interval sessions. A good running coach can be a big help too, and will teach you how to plan a proper progression of runs. Going too hard or scheduling interval training too frequently can lead to injury.
Every runner needs a good combination of aerobic and anaerobic workouts to reach their potential. Each has value—and in combination, can help you lose weight while running—and will help you to become a faster runner.
(05/13/2022) Views: 1,030 ⚡AMPby Jason Fitzgerald
