The Sub 3:15 Marathon Thread
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333 watchers
Nov 2023
3:14pm, 20 Nov 2023
43,287 posts
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SPR
Thanks that make sense. Yeah the VO2 Max is definitely high relative to performance especially as you aren't untrained. Certainly something that you'd expect to be able to tap into at MD to 5000 on track with training. The 1 min/ 2 mins on stuff they recommended should be good for tapping into aerobic power. I did a quick search for local providers of testing and £150 for both is the cheapest I found. |
Nov 2023
3:59pm, 20 Nov 2023
1,721 posts
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Daz Love
Uni of Herts not far from me do both for £126 (£90 for VO2 Max on its own) May give it a go myself in the future. herts.ac.uk |
Nov 2023
5:17pm, 20 Nov 2023
15,936 posts
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jda
All the modelling makes a number of assumptions SPR but at least the cycling was measuring my actual power around vo2max effort level rather than extrapolating from lower intensities. As far as running goes, it's clear to me that I just don't have as high a power (speed) at vo2max that most people with my marathon performance would achieve. As for why that is, it seems largely guesswork though it must be some combination of efficiency and/or ability to work at a high percentage of vo2max for a long period of time. It's a bit of a mystery though. I think I must just be a bit of an ultra-slow-twitch sort of person.
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Nov 2023
10:57am, 21 Nov 2023
20,879 posts
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Chrisull
So on the VO2 side, I recently did a Vitality/BlueCrest health check and they do a blood oxygen saturation and a 3 minute set of step ups and measure your HR before and after with a pulse oximeter. They gave me 61 (roughly inline with the doubtfully accurate lab test I had - administered by a PHD student too). Is this an at all accurate test? Again I'm dubious, I'm normally 53 on Garmin.
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Nov 2023
12:40pm, 21 Nov 2023
3,553 posts
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tipsku
I looked at the chart you posted, SPR and the link to a YouTube video in its description. In that video, Dr Seiler also proposes 6 zones akin to those that larkim got in his recommendations. So it seems that they base their recommendations on updated science. Regarding the 1-2 minutes on stuff they recommended, I have something similar on my plan. Garmin had 1 minute speed intervals yesterday, first at approx. my VO2 max speed, then about 25-45 seconds faster than that. I found that I could keep that faster pace for a minute only once. On the subsequent intervals, I lost form and speed around 40 seconds so I hit the lap button early for the remaining intervals. I had no problem running the full minute at VO2 max speed and could have run a little longer at that pace, too. Also, equal recoveries (1 min at pace with 1 min jog recovery) were fine for the VO2 max intervals but not enough for the faster stuff. IIRC, the 40 seconds mark coincides with the switch from the alactic energy supply to the anaerobic lactic supply. I think I read somewhere that you have about 40-45 seconds of that, so for proper sprint sessions. So I would keep those really fast bouts shorter than 45 seconds? It also helped with execution to walk the minute and then run only about 40 seconds fast. Would you agree that going faster than VO2 max should be shorter than the actual VO2 max work? For those sessions, HR didn't really work, I went with pace and power as HR lags behind the effort. I often hit max HR during the first 10 seconds of recovery |
Nov 2023
3:20pm, 21 Nov 2023
6,108 posts
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Windsor Wool
So on the VO2 side, I recently did a Vitality/BlueCrest health check and they do a blood oxygen saturation and a 3 minute set of step ups and measure your HR before and after with a pulse oximeter. They gave me 61 (roughly inline with the doubtfully accurate lab test I had - administered by a PHD student too). Is this an at all accurate test? Again I'm dubious, I'm normally 53 on Garmin. I just remembered that I had also have results from one of these Bluecrest tests that I did a couple of months ago. VO2max assessment came out as 69.33. LOL!! I remember now that the nurse was quite impressed that I chatted to her right through the 3 mins step-up test - she mentioned that many people have to stop halfway. Double LOL!! Their experts also called me the day morning after the tests with a suggestion that I go straight to A&E given that I have Marked Sinus Bradycardia as indicated by my resting HR of 39. You perhaps would have thought that they could have looked at my BMI and my assessed VO2max and panicked a little less. Triple LOL!! |
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Nov 2023
3:45pm, 21 Nov 2023
20,885 posts
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Chrisull
Yeah I got a yellow mark against my resting HR. Just as well I hadn't run 3 weeks before that test, so my resting HR was above 5 or 6 above it's normal 47-48 mark, as they might not quite have had me in A&E but certainly on some sort of naughty step. But yeah you seem to confirm what I thought that the VO2 max should be taken with a pinch of salt, (unless you think it is genuinely is 69). |
Nov 2023
3:59pm, 21 Nov 2023
22,665 posts
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larkim
If mine is 68, WW's would be that or higher, I'd guess. Though the guy that I saw at the weekend did say that lighter frames tend to have lower VO2Max for the same performance, so maybe my few extra kg of blubber (I'd say timber, but that would give the wrong impression about my torso) make my numbers look higher.
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Nov 2023
4:12pm, 21 Nov 2023
6,110 posts
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Windsor Wool
at times in full running training my Garmin would tell me that I was at 62-63. I always rejected that as garbage - I could accept something in the high 50s but anything above that would be massively fanciful for me.
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Nov 2023
4:33pm, 21 Nov 2023
22,666 posts
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larkim
I wonder what the data set out there really is for VO2Max vs pace comparisons. Found this article with a nice ending quote scienceofrunning.com The bottom line question that needs to be asked is why is so much of training focused on a variable that does not change in well trained athletes, barely changes in moderately trained, levels off after a short period of time, and does not even correlate well with performance? Does this sound like a variable that we should be basing all of our training off of? TBH I did go into the testing session more interested in LT testing than VO2Max, and whilst the LT testing pretty much matched up with where I felt I was, the VO2Max didn't which is why it interests me! |
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