Two minutes on, one minute off, two minutes on, one minute off, two minutes on.... The bike stands still, hooked to a windtrainer and the pace being elicited can be maintained, theoretically, for 13-17minutes in an all out race pace effort. Cycling during my third day off in a row from running, I am still getting familiar with this effort and its pace. I never really cycled before and it is interesting to apply a trusty Daniels workout to this new leg exercise, a legercise if you will.
People readily throw around the term VO2max, but there are some pretty clear ways we like to describe it. First off, we are referring to it in relation to running. However, it really is a reference to oxygen consumption by a muscle or group of muscles. If you do manual labor you can find this intensity in all sorts of things. Jen and I see your ability to transport oxygen, consume it by working muscles and deal with the by products at a maximum even paced effort for 13-17 minutes as VO2max, but in reality it is the maximum effort at which an increase in effort does not give an increase in oxygen consumption by the working muscles. Secondly, in order to truly benefit as a faster runner then you must stress oxygen delivery and processing in the legs to the extreme, not some other activity because, while training you chest or arms might be good for the heart, those muscles have very little, in comparison to the legs, to do with running.
It is totally possible to move faster than VO2max. This is implicit to most people, but it should be stated for the rest. VO2Max is the intensity that you can maintain for 13-17minutes, so if you race for only five minutes then you are moving at a faster than VO2 pace. Also 95% of velocity of VO2max is pretty much the same as 100% in training effect. This 95%-100% velocity of VO2max is what we define as our Interval or I training window, for example mine is 72-76seconds/400meter pace. However, 105% Interval pace is detrimental to the concept as defined by Daniels, but as talked about in a bit there are workouts that stress you thoroughly aerobically while you move at a much faster pace, roughly 120% Interval pace. For now, in Daniels terms, once you start moving at faster than 100% you cannot aerobically work any harder. This means that you tap into anaerobic reserves for energy. This is not desirable because those could have been properly utilized a few days later in a race or other workout.
Also, when moving at I pace it takes two minutes to be fully at VO2max. By limiting the rest in between reps to less than what was run allows you to attain VO2max with less and less time as the workout goes on. Another interesting tidbit is that 5minutes is the upper limit on I reps, with me occasionally breaking that to run a 5:04 or 5:02 mile in a 5minute I 3minute easy by three to five reps workout. Interval training stresses the body en masse, and adequate rest should be given in the subsequent days. There are other rules and regulations according to total I volume in a workout as a percentage of total mileage in a week. Here we are rebels, due to how long we have been training and the many different mileage plans we have been on before. From 17-25now, to consistent 55-75miles per week and many times occasional high weeks with a couple in college right around 100. Now we do what we feel like at the track, but that comes from having such old training ages. Training age is the age you are given when you add up the seasons (four to a year duh!) that you have been running.
From our brief stint under Kevin Curtin, we were subjected to training that we swap around with on Daniels type I workouts. With Kevin we would often do a workout in sets of 3 x 200 with 30 sec rest for me and 35 for Jen in between the 200’s and 3-4 min rest in between the sets. We might do two sets and then finish with a 500 basically all out or three sets total or have middle set of 2 x 300 with a similar scheme of rest in between each 300. We were training for the 1500 and the pace that we were running the 200’s in correlated roughly to our 800 meter pace. This is working on our buffering capacity, our ability to run with an increasing acidity and muscles becoming rapidly full of Hydrogen ions, and due to the controlled nature of the rest it also thoroughly stressed us aerobically. We will sometimes use this workout in exchange for Daniels interval workouts, however far more often we actually hybrid the workouts. So now the workout might be three minutes interval one minute easy by 4 then one or two sets of 3 x 200, with three minutes rest before each set of 3 x 200.
Heaving heavy breaths whistling down flared nostrils with sweat swimming down my arms, an icicle of passionate resolve melting onto the grass carpeting the yard as I bust out my tenth two minute interval. Finally done the workout, I step off the bike and stand up on legs pulsating with strength and weakness locked into blissful rest and I liking knowing I did something good.
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