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Return to run-down after 4.5 years!
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Angelo Z
World Class
World Class


Joined: 11 Aug 2007
Posts: 1159
Location: LA, California

PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:49 pm    Post subject: Return to run-down after 4.5 years! Reply with quote

Some of you may remember me on here. Basically, I was a fast middle distance runner specializing in the mile with a PR of 4:08. I've had aspirations of going to London 2012. Placed 2nd in North Carolina in high school track. I then moved to LA, California so I lost motivation in becoming a world class runner. I just do natural bodybuilding now and study at UCLA. I got tired of being skinny and found football to be a great alternative. I still love running and enjoy the flashbacks though Wink

As some of you may know, I've spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the secret to performance running through tons of various training schedules, methods, etc. I didn't get a chance to fully implement my strategy to eventually break four and eventually 3:50/maybe 3:40. My greatest obsession of all time was simply finding out what exactly gets runners through the 4:00 range and down in the 3:40s.

The secret:

SPEED.

Aerobic base building is a bunch of nonsense implemented by the majority of runners across the country and advocated by numerous running coaches. No matter how many miles you're running, no matter how much you think that base is creating those capillaries, you can never be a fast distance runner without solid base speed. The average high school runner's 400m speed is around 66 seconds. Therefore, most high school runners are able to get below 5:10 or 5:30 with ease just from steady 30 min. runs or a lot of slow mileage. But the true secret to getting through that dreaded 4:00 range and break 4 is base speed. All sub four milers have a 400m time of sub 50 seconds or very close to it. Anyone that says there is a fast mile runner with a slow 400m PR placed that PR way before he got that mile time. In order to run a 48 second 400, you must be able to run an 11 second 100m and a 23 second 200m. Once you have that base speed built, all you have to do is extend the endurance by doing intervals of 2.5x the distance you are training for.

Example. If you are training for the 400m, do 6x200m AT 400m race pace w/ 30 sec. recovery. If you are training for the mile, do 10x400m AT mile race pace w/ 60 sec. recovery. THAT, will automatically improve VO2max, but keep in mind VO2max is dependent on base speed. If you're training for the half marathon/marathon, it will be slightly different but the concept will remain the same. Once you're mile PR hits maximum 400m PR potential, it's time to improve in the 400 to lower mile time even farther. What I mean by that is that a runner with a 400m speed of 60ish seconds should be able to run the mile in around 5:00 which is 75 seconds per lap assuming his mile running potential is fully developed through training. Anything faster than that will not be possible due to 400m speed restrictions. In the end, it all comes down to pure running strength-sprint. An 11 second 100m requires a lot of explosive leg power and developed fast twitch muscles. Proper weight training/acceleration+top speed intervals are required to achieve that.

Whether you point to all those pro runners like Coe, Prefontaine, El Guerrouj, Gebrselassie, Bekele, etc. They ALL had great 400m speed. You cannot run a 48 second 400 from running at anything slower than 400m race pace unless your fitness level is way out of tune..dropping 100 pounds will drop 400m time drastically. When you look at the high mileage pro runners, their runs are proportional with those that are in high school. It's not about how much distance is covered, it's about duration. A pro runner busting out 10 miles in 50 minutes (5:00 mile pace) is proportional to an average runner running only 6.25 miles in 50 minutes (8:00 mile pace) at same effort level.

What do you think Patrick Makau's top 400m speed is at a current marathon (26.2 miles) PR (WR) of 2:03:38 at 4:42.92 mile pace which is 60.31 sec./400m? It's not going to be 42 seconds or anything, but it will still be very fast, about as much as a state-level high school sprinter's time. The other part of the equation is the endurance carry-over he has. The better that 400m speed is transferred to 800m, then mile, 2 mile, 5K, 10K, then half marathon, the more efficient he'll run the marathon resulting in a faster time. If the carry-over isn't fully developed early on, it will have a greater impact on longer distances. This means that if his 800m or mile training didn't make the most of the 400m speed that he already has and instead developed his 5K+ times to the max, his marathon time would be slower because in theory, his 5K could be faster if he would have been more diligent when training at 800m-mile race pace.
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
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Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR

PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome back. As always, I disagree with too much of what you wrote to know where to begin. Smile For starters, check your math on the 400m pace of the marathon WR... And I'm still waiting for you to point to some verifiable results.

For what it's worth, you've only been gone for a little over a year ... no where near 4.5 years.

Dan
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Angelo Z
World Class
World Class


Joined: 11 Aug 2007
Posts: 1159
Location: LA, California

PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan wrote:
Welcome back. As always, I disagree with too much of what you wrote to know where to begin. Smile For starters, check your math on the 400m pace of the marathon WR... And I'm still waiting for you to point to some verifiable results.

For what it's worth, you've only been gone for a little over a year ... no where near 4.5 years.

Dan


Haha I see, when I was thinking about it my peak activity was around freshman year of high school. Ah yes, and miscalculation. 400m pace was 70.3 seconds for the marathon WR. I must admit that in the past, I've had countless explanations regarding mile time. But ever since I came out with that whole speed thing, I've never doubted it or noticed anything new. Now that I bodybuild, running is a lot like lifting weights.

For example. To mostly gain muscle mass, you need to be lifting between 8-12 reps at a high volume. The amount of muscle mass you can potentially gain is dependent on your strength alone. Think about that as training for the mile. Once you plateau, you go back to increasing just pure strength alone and you do that by very low volume and very high weight (very low volume, very fast running). The problem with most runners in this country is that they plateau around 5:00 for the mile with the rest falling at +/- 20 sec. When I ran track (in the distance category of course), the fastest (legitimate) pace we ran at was 800m pace. Even if we hit sprinting speed every now and then, it was inconsistent. You can't say it's legitimate sprint training. You know how my all-time favorite El Guerrouj makes all those races look effortless? It all just comes down to leg speed. A bodybuilder with a lot of muscle is also very strong. A runner with a high VO2max is also very fast but the same does not have to be true vice versa.

High school (and college) track coaches should put a lot of emphasis on pure speed. It's not right splitting up the distance runners from the sprinters. Everyone needs to have their 100m, 200m, and 400m built up. Then when you do split up their training, what you end up with is a lot of runners going down through that 5:00+4:00 range like it's nothing as opposed to having the majority of the distance team plateau at around a 4:50 mile with just a few second drops every year throughout their high school track experience. Instead coaches keep pounding the distance runners with more and more 800m+mile race pace training, tempos, long runs, etc. What eventually happens is having runners go beyond their training pace and instead of working out, they're actually racing on every interval of 800 or 400. They are already maxed out in 800m+mile development. When you take a look at all those suffering 5:00 milers, their 400s all fall within the low 60s or 58 seconds being the fastest. It may not sound like getting their 400m time from 60 seconds down to 48 seconds will make a big deal since it's only 12 seconds, but that is a tremendous difference. Running a 48 second 400m is very hard to do, I can't even hit that time anymore since I stopped running. As a matter of fact, I've biked around one lap on my mountain bike about 7 weeks ago on gear 3 and 7 and got 48-49 seconds, even that was tough to achieve on a bike.

As for results, they're around 15-25 seconds off my PRs. My best times were when I used to train by myself. There were some guys that were just as fast as me and eventually got faster (down to my old PR) but unfortunately both quit running as well. One got inured, the other just runs for a hobby. If I went on to nationals I would've had some publicity online.
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Joined: 08 Aug 2001
Posts: 1558
Location: Elizabeth, NJ, 07202

PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What does long distance running to do with football?
Football is about 25 to 50 efforts a game that last between 5 and 30 seconds; running over 40 yards to 300 m.
Long distance starts at about 1 K.
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Dan
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Joined: 22 Mar 1999
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Location: Salem, OR

PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

By the way, Angelo, your linked photo appears to be claimed by others around the internet... (Several matches by image recognition search.) Not that that comes as any surprise, given that nothing about your story has ever appeared legit. Wink

Dan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Angelo, since we are your friends, our neural networks are used to you, please, be honest, and we will do our best to help you!
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