Big Chunks
How to take big chunks of time off your finish results
Most people, when they start to engage regularly in endurance sports make fairly rapid gains. Because they are doing an activity they have not done consistently before, and it’s all new, they improve incrementally and consistently.
The normal, average human who starts a 3 times a week jogging routine after years of a sedimentary, (yes I used that word instead of sedentary because I like the mental image of sedimentary), after years of a sedimentary lifestyle, will see amazing changes. They will get stronger. They will get faster.
Maybe they get even more serious and begin to sign up for races. They do some extra training for the race and do well. They will experience a period of time where there is a linear relationship between the effort they put in and the results they get.
But, then they hit a plateau. The relationship is no longer linear. They put in more effort for the same results. Or worse, they put in more effort for worse results. They are stuck.
How do you get out of these stuck points? That’s a great question. But an even better question is how do you make a giant leap forward from one of these stasis points? The answer, it seems, is practically simple, but hard to wrap your head around if you are one of these athletes.
The two levers that you can pull to get big chunks of improvement are volume and intensity. Not just any, ad hoc, increase in volume and intensity. A focused program of volume and or intensity towards a goal.
These are the two ways to get a big chunk. Why? Because taking a big chunk off requires speed and fitness.
Speed is your ability to go faster. This requires strength, form and discomfort management. A focused program of speed will move your ability to race at a higher level by a big chunk. You will master the ability to execute race pace over a longer distance.
Fitness is your aerobic capacity to do the work, at a higher level of intensity, over a period of time. To build aerobic fitness requires volume and pacing.
What does this mean to you in practical terms?
First an example of using intensity to build speed. In my book “MarathonBQ, How to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 weeks (with a full time job and family)” I outline an example of using an overwhelming dose of speedwork over a relatively short training cycle to take a big chunk off,
There’s volume in that plan also, but it assumes you already have the fitness and are looking to get the speed. I wrote this down for people because I used this plan to take 30 – 40 minutes off my finishing time personally to qualify for Boston. Others have as well.
Moral of the story is that if you are stuck and you have not done focused, overwhelming speedwork before, a cycle of this type of training will give you a big chunk. It’s non-linear. If you do the work you get the chunk.
What about fitness? Fitness requires volume. Although you will gain fitness from any and all volume increases, a focused fitness building cycle focuses on a specific type of volume. This is Aerobic training.
Again, what this looks like in practical terms is a big pile of hours at an aerobic effort level. For me this means heart rate training in low zone 2.
A case study from my experience is the training I did for the 100-mile ultra-marathon this summer. I periodically do what’s known as a ‘threshold test’. I do this with Arnar founder of Tymewear that is a smart garment startup. This test he does with me mimics a threshold test that you would get if you went to the doctor where they hang the electrodes on your chest.
In both cases you are put on a treadmill and they increase the intensity and measure your heartrate and breathing. What they find is your aerobic threshold. This is the point where you go anerobic. (look up aerobic threshold for athletes for more information)
Why this is important is that you can race indefinitely at an effort level that is below your threshold. But, once you cross the threshold you’re on borrowed time. If you can move the pace at which you hit the threshold, you can run faster and longer.
The question then is how do you take big chunks off your aerobic threshold?
Arnar measured me right after the Boston Marathon this year with a threshold test. That was my baseline. I was in decent aerobic shape coming off a cycle of hard marathon training.
Over the summer I did an overwhelming cycle of volume at an aerobic pace. 90 mile weeks. 12 hour runs. Massive aerobic work.
Arnar did the threshold test again last month, after the ultra. He was astonished. I had moved my aerobic threshold by 12%. This means the pace I could hold without going anaerobic increased by 12% on an already fit baseline.
That’s how you get big chunks of fitness. You do a cycle of overwhelming volume.
This is how the pros do it. They do both volume and intensity.
Now the wheels should be turning in your head. What could you do if you improve your aerobic threshold by 12%? What could you accomplish if you could take 30 or 40 minutes off your marathon finishing time?
Now you should be starting to feel a bit uncomfortable because what I’m telling you is that it is possible. Which means that story line yin your head that says “I could never do that” is not true. Be honest with yourself. It’s possible. You have chosen not to do it.
That’s ok, it’s your choice and everyone draws their own line.
Of course there are ancillary things you have to do to get these big chunks. Somewhere in the process you are going to have to clean up your form to be efficient. You are going to need to get strong and flexible enough to support the volume and intensity. You may need to fix your diet to support your machine.
You are going to have to wrap your head around the emotional focus required to go to the dark place and do the work. More than likely you will need to find a coach to help you navigate the correct volume and speed for you.
Big chunks are possible. If you want to get overwhelmingly different results, you need to do overwhelmingly different training.
It’s not rocket science. The biggest barrier is understanding that it is possible.
And it is possible for you.