V02 Max Challenge

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Slevin
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Slevin »

Scott 2 wrote:
Wed Jun 07, 2023 4:43 pm
I'm slowing way down when I pass. The last thing I need is to take out Grandma on her morning stroll.
Well that’s just the correct thing to be doing if you are going at a potentially pedestrian injuring speed in pedestrian areas?

Maybe someone should invent some sort of segmented areas for faster moving vehicles to go fast without fear of running into pedestrians ;)

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

Hah, it's not like I'm racing Strava segments on the sidewalks of New York. These are mixed use forest preserve trails. I'm usually passed by someone tucked into a gravel bike. I bet they are 20mph+ on the flats.

I've been walking the same trails for about 15 years. IMO, etiquette is to walk right. When you hear the rumble of a bike, go single file. Even more important now, with the popularity of e-bikes. Some people though, it's like a moth to a flame. They see danger and head towards it.


I avoid biking on the street. Trust those same people tanked in their SUV? No thanks. I don't even like being near them in a car. My bike mechanic said traffic's gotten bad enough, that he stopped road biking. We've fortunately got a decent trail system. I can be picky and have options.

jacob
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by jacob »

Many bikes on the walking trails around here are blasting loud music out of their phone(*) This seems to work in terms of warning pedestrians that something is coming up behind them. Otherwise, since you have all the time in the world, I'd suggest going at times when few pedestrians are around. The hour between 5a and 6a is wonderful in that regard.

(*) The most memorable being someone blasting a motivational tape: "..... you feel wonderful and powerful! You're in ecstasyyyyy" complete with Doppler effect as he passed.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

I've made it out there as early as 6. I agree - the earlier the better. I do have that copy of the ERE audio book...

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mountainFrugal
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by mountainFrugal »

@scott_2 - Missed opportunity to blast the ERE audio book out of your phone to educate the masses AND let them know you are coming up on them...

"There are several ways of measuring expertise and mastery. One common method is using tenure, for which there is a whole classification scheme that reflects relative competence fairly accurately..."

:lol:

macg
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by macg »

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Jun 08, 2023 7:14 am
IMO, etiquette is to walk right. When you hear the rumble of a bike, go single file. Even more important now, with the popularity of e-bikes. Some people though, it's like a moth to a flame. They see danger and head towards it.
Or they are utterly clueless about anything around them at all.

henrik
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by henrik »

jacob wrote:
Tue May 23, 2023 9:23 am
VO2max (estimate) = 15*(maxHR/restHR), where maxHR ~ 220-age (unless you know it from a tracker), and resting HR can be counted out during rest.
It doesn't seem right. I get an estimate of 19 from the formula, while my recent lab measured number is 51 and current Garmin estimate is 53.
Edit: never mind, my stupid mistake. It's close enough:)

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

Great weather this morning. 5k PR time of 27:29. The heart rate curve shows I had a little more in me.

Two weeks ago, I set my prior PR of 28:21. With a worse looking heart rate curve.

Interestingly, the Garmin still estimates my v02 max at 46. And the race predictor widget thinks I ought to achieve a 24:40 5k.

Going by that, I have a substantial skill deficit to resolve. My fastest logged mile was on this morning's 5k. I have little practice moving "fast".

I'm starting to rethink the goal for a September 5k. 27 minutes may not involve any v02 max improvements.

jacob
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by jacob »

Scott 2 wrote:
Mon Jun 12, 2023 8:31 am
I have little practice moving "fast".
Get some then 8-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek

Faster speeds = higher knees, longer strides, engaging the hip flexors more, using the arms more (swinging in the direction of motion, never across), essentially throwing front leg further forward, but also using the back leg to push off the ball of the feet. It's different than slow running when the legs are just pendulums underneath you preventing the "long slow fall forward". Caveat: All non-coached experience so may be completely off. I have done sub 20m 5ks though.

theanimal
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by theanimal »

I like the Swiss 10-20-30 concept that is very similar to Fartlek. Warm up as you see fit. Then for 5 minutes, jog for 30 seconds, run for 20 seconds and sprint for 10 seconds. Repeat until the 5 minutes is up then jog for 2 minutes. Repeat the 5 minute cycle 2-3 times. It's a killer workout and can be done from start to finish in 20-25 minutes. It is also a good blend of zone 2 and zone 5 with most of the training happening in zone 2 and bursts of activity in zone 5.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

So run faster? Why didn't I think of that :D

Fear of injury has kept me from intervals. The worst I hurt myself, was attempting them last year.

The occasional hard 5k is my present compromise. When zone 2 is 4.5-5mph, 7mph feels speedy. Today I went a little faster each half mile, peaking around 8mph.

That might be the fastest I've run in 15 years? The absolute values are not impressive, but through a relative lense, this is bonkers.

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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by jacob »

Faster is a different skill from longer which is where this thread has been going for the past many pages. More specifically, improving long-distance practice will not improve the "short-distance" times by much. It's a non-trivial observation since these goals are different in kind.

theanimal
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by theanimal »

Well kind of. I guess it depends on what we mean by short distance here. Long and slow, a la zone 2 training, is directly linked to improving VO2 max (short and fast). I suppose there is a threshold where it doesn't make as much sense to train zone 2, like if you were interested in doing 100 m sprints. But for anything longer than a mile, like say a 5k, consistent zone 2 training will result in a significantly faster time.

I do think that zone 2 balanced with some zone 5 activity like sprints or HIIT is best if you are interested in exploring and improving both modalities. Especially the case for @scott since he is not used to the higher speeds.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

I'm not unhappy with the Zone 2 results so far, mind you. 13 months ago, I was alternating walk jog intervals. The soreness hobbled me for days.

I think it's interesting to see such a clear fork here, between v02 max training and chasing a near term 5k PR. Specificity in action.

I am curious about the fastest mile I could run. That's the shortest distance that interests me. Again though, fear of injury has stopped me from a 100% effort.

Not that I'm going to disrupt a program while it's working this well. 10% improvement in 2 weeks! What a gift.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

I've been reading Born to Run 2. They discuss Lady Southpaw, a musician with an entire album of 180bpm songs, the ideal running cadence.

She wrote the book a promotional song, I Was Born to Run Too:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5KxoeytYA

Amazing.


More practically, the book has me reconsidering form drills. The disconnect between my v02 max and running speed points to an opportunity. These could be a good way to respect my fear of injury, while raising my skill level.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by black_son_of_gray »

Scott 2 wrote:
Mon Jun 12, 2023 5:36 pm
I am curious about the fastest mile I could run. That's the shortest distance that interests me. Again though, fear of injury has stopped me from a 100% effort.
One of the not-obvious-at-the-time benefits to having run on the cross country team in high school is that I have been to 100%. I know exactly what that feels like (answer:like a kind of death, but only kinda-sorta awful). But it was at a time when I didn't fear injury and could bounce off of walls safely developmentally. I don't really want to go there again as an adult. Maaaaaybe 98%, but 95% is good enough for me!

But because of having been to 100%, I can say for sure that a good fraction of people have absolutely no clue where their 100% is. Like, they aren't even close. (Not saying that's you, Scott 2, it's just something I occasionally see)

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

Hah, got me there. If we're talking absolute terms, 90% might belong in the quoted sentence.

The fastest mile I've logged was an 8:07 - at the end of last week's 5k. My heart rate curve obviously isn't maxed out:

Image

I've seen low 170's on the rower. And sustained high 160's. Even that's not a true 100%. Most calculators say may max HR should be around 180.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

Important lesson this morning. After a year of running slow, I cannot run fast. I tried an all out mile time - 7:51. Hardly better than the 8:07 during my quickest 5k.

At the very end of the workout, I sprinted as fast as my stubby little legs could go. I reached a blistering 9mph.

So much for my assumption that sprinting will blow the wheels off. I'll need to confirm tomorrow, but the only thing hurting is my ego.

At some point maybe I'll get better at listening to you guys, who have already followed the path. But even if someone said "you can't run fast enough to hurt yourself, don't worry about it" - I wouldn't have believed them.

The drills were my clue. 100 ups left my feet sore. I tried to do running logs - essentially 6" hurdles 3 feet apart. I'm not even close to covering that distance with my stride length. Even today - to go faster, I largely increased my cadence - around 200 during the mile.


Born to Run 2 is very clear that running fast is part of how we learn to run with good form. So I've got changes to make, even if fast isn't the goal.

ebast
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by ebast »

VO2 Max WoG-BQ Challenge

I've appreciated Scott 2 starting this thread and the chance to see up close the grind, the setbacks, lessons learned & leaps forward of training in his and others' stories shared here. This week I started putting together my own training schedule for the summer and I figured I'd start posting here, not for encouragement which I prefer to self-generate, but for accountability and to test in public a hypothesis: Can I get top octile amateur-bracket running results with a woefully light dedicated training schedule, thanks to a little ERE web-of-goals kicker? Specifically I would like to see if I can qualify for a Boston marathon within a couple of years running only 3-4 days a week, averaging out (year-round) to a commitment of something in the neighborhood of a (quite skewed) 4 hours/wk.

This is bordering on the ridiculously low side for serious hobby runners. I have caregiving responsibilities that mean I can duck out to run in circles for hours only a few times a week. But my ERE 'hack' here is to harvest a substantial and regular contribution of sufficiently long zone 1/zone 2 exercise via a steady cadence of cycling for various errands and commutes on the other days which will roughly double overall training time in the training period. I'll give further details as I get my training going. [Also, for the inverse, I will track how I am able to harness my dedicated training time to other goals: transportation-related ones clearly, but also social benefits, local knowledge, and single-pointed mindfulness & breath awareness training. We'll see.]

Running history: Don't particularly mind running. Not a whole lot of practice. Some team sports/training background, lots of hiking, fortunate to have little excess weight (e.g. muscle) to drag along, but have always felt bad for joggers having neither teammates nor a ball to chase, then ran first marathon in my 40s not too long after re-retiring (so having no excuse) when I was invited to train for one with an acquaintance [never managed to meet up together; he quit 3 weeks in]. Barely, barely broke 4 hours. Time passed until last year, when questioning my general fitness with nothing specific or measurable to anchor a rebuttal, decided I'd try to start a running habit and run another marathon wherein I managed to improve by twenty minutes with my primary training improvement being tracking my pace and my chief race-time innovation was not walking.

I picked up a GPS watch which is 12 years old and does not have inboard pulse or VO2 max estimation; I do check pulse, using a finger. I know this is a VO2 Max thread so just so I don't get asked to leave, I'll put in my current VDOT (another contribution to approximating a pseudo-VO2Max in the vein of a Cooper test, only time-indexed for standard running distances instead of the 12 minute elapsed run. You can check out VDOT tables and there are a number of online calculators that haven't been nastygrammed offline yet. I come in somewhere around 43. Using (the creator of VDOT) Jeff Daniels' age-adjusted tables (in his book), that puts me on the lowish side of Intermediate for my age.

As has been noted, these levels are age-constrained, so my VDOT will inevitably go down. Whether I am more uncomfortable with the difficulty in accurately age-adjusting the concave down and disturbingly steep curves upthread or the demotivating aspect of guaranteed decline... well.. I will say I do feel lucky to have started running late in life where I don't realize how slow the numbers I'm putting up actually are. Joy of running as it may be, it probably takes a little something to not mind running twice as slow a pace as you once did.

At any rate, so as not to be the tale of the decline and fall of my diminishing VO2 max, I am going to borrow the nicely age-adjusted metric and notation of Boston qualifying times which for my cohort puts me currently at BQ+18 min thus motivating my goal to hit BQ+0. Yes I can improve simply by aging. I may not get faster, but I know I can get older.

Scott 2
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Re: V02 Max Challenge

Post by Scott 2 »

I'm interested to see how your program goes. This is the first time I've seen VDOT - it puts me at 36, based on this morning's mile. Quite different than the watch or rower estimates.

I've got to say, the modern running watches are pretty incredible. I don't know if it leads to better results, but the data is a lot of fun. Great for the social aspect.

I was telling my dad about a recent bike ride. I was able to generate a link, that showed him the exact course I took. So cool. We're going to try one of his later this week.

Only in the endurance sports, is 4h per week a "light" schedule. Tell anyone else you ran for an hour plus, or rode a bike for 2h, and they think it's too much.

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