AUGUST 2011

PREDICTING MARATHON TIMES

According to research done by Tim Noakes MD, the renowned South Africa Dr who wrote the 1000 page ‘LORE OF RUNNING’, VO_{2 max} is a factor but not the best guide to predicting marathon times, but rather your best 10k or ½ marathon time, the latter being the most accurate.

Predicted time in minutes = 5.48 x 10km time (min) -28(min) or

" " " = 2.11 x 21km time (min)

In fact, VO_{2 max} changes very little with the amount of training you do, but rather the greater your training distance the better becomes the economy of your running, allowing you to use less energy per mile, and this saving can be used to run slightly faster. Alternatively the more economical running style will improve performance if you link it with lighter shoes or an increased stride length whilst lowering stride cadence. Even an adjustment to shoe laces will reduce the drag factor Another benefit from running more economically is generating less body heat and reducing the onset of fatigue, and throw away that black TEE shirt in the summer, it simply absorbs heat from the sun and absorbs body heat more quickly.

A rough guide to what would be equivalent of your VO_{2 max}is to run for about 8 minutes at a steady pace before increasing your running speed every minute until you reach exhaustion in about 15 minutes.. Record the distance and use this for comparison at a future date.

To increase performance in road or track races.

Research by Tim Noakes found that a four week period of running intervals twice per week had a significant improvement in performance. The intervals were ran at 60%-75% of the speed they ran at the peak of their VO2_max test before running a 3000m test run to determine any improvement. So they must have ran a 3000m close to the beginning of the interval training programme in order to give a comparison.

Well, there you have it. Give it a try and prove Tim Noakes right.

Other factors that will affect your performance are age related, and the amount of body fat (which tends to increase with age anyway), measured as a body mass index (BMI)

BMI = weight (kg)

Height² (m)

An ideal figure for male distance runners is between 15 and 20 with 28+ being classed as obese

For women this figure is between 22 and 23.4

An invitation received recently from Ash Hodgetts

Ok to fill you in I am based in Connor Downs until the end of September working as a beach lifeguard. Then I have to return to Plymouth to complete the third year of my degree. I gained my qualifications in 2008 but found that I wanted to help increase sports performance more than to just help people achieve fitness goals which is why I chose to study my degree.

I have worked with a wide range of athletes and clubs across a range of sports. I firstly was a surf coach and coached elite youth surfers in South Africa for a team called Son Surf. After seeing the conditioning side of their training provided it sparked my interest in training to maximise performance through conditioning, following this I returned to England to gain my qualifications and worked with recreational triathletes, a netball team and a mountain bike racer who won a national championship. At the same time I have been working with individuals with more health/ fitness focused goals rather than to increase sports performance. Currently I am working with a road cyclist and a ski paddler who just won a big european race in Spain providing nutrition consultation and conditioning programmes for both of them.

I tend not to work with whole clubs running group sessions, but more individuals within a club as the results achieved are much more effective. I also embrace a more guided discovery approach and get the athletes involved in planning their sessions and setting goals so they understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Particularly in the nutrition side which is very often daunting and confusing for people, I aim to teach clients how to prepare better food so they understand why it is better and can apply their knowledge in order to become self sufficient.

That is the basics really are there any other questions you would like to ask?
If there are please don't hesitate to email me again or call me on 07919550855, I am also available to meet in person if it would be easier?

Distance runners beware

You could say that the above drills are for sprinter, so what are they doing in Runners World?

The answer is that they all increase mobility and speed, and unless you coach joggers then increasing speed should be high on your agenda, and show me a marathon runner that can bend right down to take his shoes off.

Three methods of applying the same exercise

Bounds done as deep squats are excellent for mobility and basic physical development and elasticity, where the muscles are continuously being stretched and shortened.

However, this type of multiple response exercise (MR) have a long ground contact time which is not exactly what a sprinter needs, therefore other methods of plyometrics development also need to be used.

In this MR exercise the knee bend is down to a ‘soft knee’ and the ground contact time is greatly reduced. It is done at speed therefore there are higher muscle response contractions. It gives the muscles a greater, rapid shock which is more event specific and increases the load on the tendons.

In the single response (SR) exercise the ground contact time should be 2-3 seconds, giving time for the dissipation of any elastic energy accumulated in the muscles, which means every bound starts afresh and develops power from strength because of its explosive generation of force that has a positive effect on developing tendon response to power.

All of these methods are beneficial and can be applied to most of the exercises, building into a majority of the longer ground contact time MR type at the beginning and during the conditioning season, gradually changing to the lower ground contact MR and SR method of application towards the end, with top up sessions throughout the track season.