Questions (and my answers) from my internet triathlon home, the Endurance Nation forum:
Q: (From the Coach, house bound after cracking his pelvis and breaking his clavicle on a rainy downhill ride during the Tour of California) What’s your Secret Fear?
A: This is a tough one. I think … triathlon is a place I can go where I don’t have to worry about real life fears. The difficulties of raising a family, running a business that 1000’s of other people depend on for their livelihood, practicing a profession which carries a daily burden of risky decisions for others … these are the parts of my life which housed real fears.
In tri, I can create my fears, rather than have them thrust on me from the environment. WIthin the sport, my biggest fear is not living up to my own expectations, and, increasingly, those of others. I’ve always called myself a frustrated under-achiever. I wish I could be satisfied with just participating, but a little demon inside demands improvement over past performance. I guess I fear the day that demon is finally silenced.
Q: (Actually, a comment posted by the Coach in the “Boomers and Beyond: Crushing it Over 50” section of the forum)
From some google searching:
“Thus, despite having significantly lower VO2max values, the older athletes were able to perform as well as the younger runners because they were able to work closer to their VO2max for the duration of the race. ” http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/conte…/58/4/1281
I think that continued application of intensity is important over the lifespan of an athlete, and that it can “stave off” the affects of aging for some time. The hardest part for us to consider here is that our key event (an IM or half IM) is such an aerobic / endurance undertaking that we are truly not operating at full capacity (as oft studied in the literature out there), and that there are a myriad of ways to get faster on race day outside of how many weeks of IP [interval pace; the speed of a 20 minute race – ed.] training you do. Maybe you get better at cycling, or more aero (more speed for less work on the bike), or maybe you learn to fuel better. Perhaps you now pace the marathon better with more experience, etc.
But if we are to look exclusively at training and the intensity at which we train, I think that focused periods of IP can continue to add value to the boomers, although in smaller doses (not bundled with bike intensity) and perhaps (but this is conjecture) closer to the goal event. IOW, IP done in the OS (sometimes 20wks away from eventual race) won’t have as much of a lasting effect.
All of that aside, you can continue to do TONS of Threshold work and still see plenty of progress (methinks).
Thoughts?
A: Thanks for the provocative post, Coach. Some thoughts:
On the study itself: The “younger runners” were about 25, so I would guess they had fewer than 5 years training for longer distances – fewer years of 2 hr+ long runs and 30-45 min tempo (long threshold intervals, or sustained runs at just slower than our TP) runs, or marathon/HM focused training. While the 56 y/os probably had 10+ years (or many more) doing a lot of threshold work. This would account for their higher percentage of threshold to VO2. The take away here, I think, is not the comparison between age groups, but the knowledge that older persons can still train themselves to be elite athletes, using the same methods that work for younger people. (Major caveat: a strong and healthy cardio-vascular system, and healthy joints from the spine down are prerequisites)
On my own experience and what lessons it might hold. While I don’t think I’m an elite runner, I think I do qualify as an elite older AG triathlete. It took me ten years of sustained training to reach that level, with no previous running experience (literally: zero miles ran in my life) prior to starting that training. That whole time, because I’ve been following one standard (i.e., not personalized) training plan or another, I have included all speeds of running in my program, generally following the principle of starting with faster paces and gradually going slower and longer. Say four weeks doing one IP speed session a week, then four weeks at TP [40 minute race pace], then 4 weeks at half marathon/marathon pace, then 2 months of more race specific work, usually for IM. While my stand alone 5k, 10K, and HM times stayed the same over those ten years (no small feat, I think), my IM marathon times have slowly but surely dropped. I’d bet that 60-70% of the drop is for the “non-run training” reasons Patrick notes in his post. But I’m sure that my ability to sustain a faster, steadier IM run now than 5 years ago (and have it feel EASIER as well) is due in part to keeping the speed elements of my physiology working to the best of their ability. I don’t know why that is, and I really don’t care. But I am afraid to drop the speed work entirely to see if I’m right.
The bottom line of my example is: working on and keeping running speed can be done as we age, and it probably helps improve racing speeds for us just as it does for those under 35.