Running Secrets: Run Faster and Improve Your Vo2 Max

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter and race faster. You are joined, as always, by your hosts, Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. In today's episode, we are talking everything. Running, how to be a better runner if you're doing a triathlon, how to run better in the triathlon league.

How.

How does someone go about improving their running speed? What are the best running sessions? How many times per week should a triathlete run? Best way to get a sub 90 half marathon. And how to lower your marathon pace, how to race so that you always run well. And how do you improve your VO2 max? Some very tough questions before we get into it, if you want to download our Expert Secrets cheat sheet, that is a cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice to professional athletes. And experts on our podcast have said to help you train smarter and race faster, just go to getfastpodcast.com Again, we have had pro athletes, former pros, Olympians, elite cyclists and triathletes and successful age groupers all come on the podcast and give their very best tips to help you train smarter and race faster. So if you want to see what they all said, go to getfastpodcast.com all right, dad, let's get into this episode. You are a big fan of running. You've always loved running your whole life. Would you say you love running more than cycling and swimming?

Yes. In your introduction. There's some doozies of questions there, Jord. And the other questions that all runners. Runners are a different breed to cyclists. And as much as I love riding my bike, running is my passion. It's something that I grew up doing and I love doing it. And look, it's one of those things, as you get older, your body can either keep running or it can pack up on you, which is where I'm situated. So my next passion, riding, is what I'm doing. So on that note, it's really important that some of these questions get answered. And as a runner, you really are striving all the time. You're doing the same in any sport, but you just want to improve every time you run. And that's the key thing to running is, does running more make me better at the end of the day? Yes, but it depends on what you're doing.

That's right. So we're going to dive right into some of those questions. Just to start off with you were once a pretty elite runner. What was your very best marathon time?

Oh yeah, that's a good question, George. I had a few goes at it. So I did a lot in a triathlon that weren't very good. I did a lot actually not a lot, but a couple without a bike right in front of it. So that was an enjoyable experience compared to doing it in an Ironman. So yeah, to answer the question, look, I was hovering around the 2:58, three hour in a, in an Ironman. I always wondered what was I capable of doing fresh. And I had a few goes at it and I let my ability and my ambition get confused a bit and stuffed up a couple which it's really good for the listeners to hear that because it really taught me some unbelievably valuable lessons in running planning. And you know, the pace is your pace and you know there are only slight variations up and down around that number. So I made some mistakes but boy, when I nailed it, I was pretty happy with the result. And you know, the low 230s is an achievement that I was really happy with. And if I could get, you know, 30 minutes difference between doing it in an Ironman to fresh, I was pretty happy with my Ironman. It made me think that the Ironman pace I was running was okay.

I'm sorry to put you on the spot there. I know you don't like talking about yourself but. So you're saying that the Fastest was low 200/30s. That was your best? Yeah. And then what was your best in the Ironman? 258.

Yep.

Which is pretty, pretty good. I mean the guys are still running.

Unfortunately they're running in the 240s now. Yeah, but yeah, look, a lot of things come into play there. Riding a steel frame bike that was not a time trial bike is definitely tiring on the body when you come to run when you're on a beautiful time trial machine. Now that I'm riding, I'm sure I could run a little bit more efficiently not having to push such a heavy road bike as compared to riding a time trial bike. So yeah, I'm sure. But the guys who are running low 240s now is pretty incredible. Yep.

No, but yeah, I'm sorry to put you on the spot. I know you don't like talking about your time, but it's good people to hear that you have gone through the exact same experience in doing multiple marathons, stuffing a lot up and learning from those experiences. So we'll get into it if we're talking about. Let's talk about running in a triathlon. To start off with. If you're doing a triathlon you're running a minimum of 5km if it's a sprint. But most of the time it's going to be a 10 kilometer half marathon or marathon effort if you're doing the run leg of an ironman. So why do triathletes need to be able to run fast if they're just doing endurance running?

Yeah, that's a great question. Look, the longer the event goes, the necessity to run in training faster becomes less evident. The key things for training for endurance Ironman running and we'll separate marathon individual as to marathon Ironman is to. To make sure that you get to the line uninjured. And that's one of the problems with running fast in training is the fact that you could possibly run, you know yourself into an injury. The second reason we don't want to run a lot of sessions too fast is because you are actually going to create massive fatigue when you've got to swim and ride. So the more hard sessions you do is a real balance there, isn't there? Because I want to run faster and the only way to run faster is to actually put myself in that position where I'm actually training faster. But the risk associated with that sometimes is not worth it. And you can get your intensity from the bike and the run. So.

So you would see two types of people training for a triathlon. You would see people trying to do too much fast running and risk injuring themselves cause they're focused too much on the run and then people doing too much of the same style of running. Just going for a steady state run constantly and not. And not changing it up.

Yep. And look, we'll say we'll right from the outset in order to be a better runner, you need a variety in your program. And let's just get that straight. If you don't have variety and you repeat the same sessions, guess what? You'll stay the same runner. That's no different to any sport. You must have some intensity, you must have some endurance, you must have some recovery. So without those three key components, you're going to stay the same.

So where is that line then between you need to be able to run fast, need to be doing some sessions with intensity but not overdoing. Especially for the age grouper who wants to perform well but isn't a pro athlete. So probably can't risk injury and overloading too much.

Yeah. So it depends again that word we use all the time it does depend. Look, it depends on the. If you're a specialist sprint or Olympic distance, then you would have a little bit more intensity in your program compared to a 70.3 or full Ironman athlete. So that's the first dependent. And the second thing is, are you trying to do an age group victory or are you just a completion athlete trying to improve your time slightly? So those two will depend on. Third thing is, are you prone to injury? So that does make a big decision in whether we plan to have some specific intensity in your program. If you break down every time that gets included, then unfortunately we have to exclude it. We've got to get you to the line. That's the key thing is making sure that you're not injured.

So how does someone go about then improving their speed? Let's say that they aren't too prone to injury and obviously everyone will be prone to injury if they overload too much. But let's just say that they are aiming to improve themselves. Whether that means they're going to be in the podium or not, they want to improve their performance. How do they go about improving their running speed while not overloading so much that they're impacting their cycling and bike training as well as not risking injury?

Okay, so the key thing that we push in our athletes is one session per week specifically devoted to progressively moving you through a block of training that's geared towards an A race where you progressively increase the intensity of that one session. So to answer your question, one session per week is going to be specific target speed.

So what are the other sessions?

Right, so the other sessions is making sure that you can run comfortably off the bike. And we do a couple of sessions of that as you know, midweek. And they're very easy, relaxed sessions and they're very short. It's just getting the body adapted to the feeling of running off the bike. We have midweek, we have one specific intensity session where we are not running off the bike. We're just running nice and fresh so that we actually get a chance for our body to develop speed when it's not tired so you can actually run faster. The other sessions obviously to improve your speed are going to be how well have you adapted to the training program, which is the fitness based session, which obviously is the endurance session. So we try and incorporate endurance with some strength. You can do both, but that's the main thing we're trying to do is endurance after a short ride and then endurance ride with a short run. So they're the other Two sessions which are really key to improving your base fitness. And the base fitness allows you to run faster. So if you wanted to start a program and didn't include those other aspects, but you just want to run faster, you have the opportunity to do all those things we said at the start, break down, get injured, get ill, get sick, get tired, fatigue, all these things are going to build up and you're going to actually go worse. So you just can't start a program. And it's funny, we talked about this with your brother Liam. Enthusiasm and motivation to run fast. Right away, I'm keen to run. I want to improve, right first session, some intervals, see how fast I can run or see how long you have off after that first session of intervals just from muscle fatigue. And it's like the feeling when you go into the gym for the first time and you've done 100 push ups and 100 sit ups and you might do that in your PE class and then for three days you're sore and it's just not the way to go about it. You need to build that base first and progressively run faster towards the end of the event. But again, if you're just looking at an endurance event, there is a reason to run fast and that's to improve your aerobic capacity at the end of a race. So you want to train in an endurance sport. You want to have some speed work in that endurance training session. Because at the back end of an ironman in a triathlon, the stronger runner who has trained with some more speed will be able to last longer.

So there's a multitude of things I want to break down in that because that is really good advice. But there's so much in that. So you're talking about how to run well and sustain your speed over the course of the event, whether that's 10k, half marathon, marathon. You spoke then about endurance training with strength. What does that mean?

Okay, so endurance, what does that mean? It means running for longer periods than the event might be. So if we pick a half ironman, it's a 21.1 K. And an endurance training program based around a half ironman program would have to have runs depending on your pace. And you know, we've got runners who can run 121 hour 20 and we've got runners who run 2 hours 20. So you've got to be very careful when you talk about time. So a 1 hour 20 runner would need to run over the distance. So he would need to be running endurance wise, you know, 25k to 30k for a half a half marathon in a 70.3 event. Whereas a person who can only run 2 hours 20 for a half marathon, obviously 25 to 30k is going to be up, you know, up around the three and a half hours. Well, that's not required. So it's more about time than distance. So a good Measure is a 1 hour 30 runner or a 1 hour 20 runner should be running 2 hour runs. And a 2 hour 20 runner should be adding another 20 or 30 minutes. So 2 and a half hours. So he's got to run over the time that they're going to run in the race. That's the key component for endurance. So where do we get the strength from in the endurance? The obvious thing is to go and run some hills or go into the gym, but it's so much easier just to run some hills in your endurance run. Rather than running on a flat surface, creating that eccentric concentric contraction of the leg muscles. Downhill, uphill just builds such great strength and stamina. Especially we keep talking about the back end of ironman running or marathon running or half marathon running. It's okay to start off when you're fresh and healthy at a pace that you think you can sustain. But the person who's got the better general strength and endurance, speed, fitness, all those components will finish off the run at the same pace. Sure, the perceived exertion is a lot higher at the end than it would be at the start. But with that strength and endurance and the other basic concepts we just talked about, then you will be able to finish off all the races the way you want to. But you have to do that strength training in the hills. You have to do that endurance running over the distance. You have to do that one speed session, you have to do those sessions off the bike. They're the key things. It's just not one thing in any program that's going to make the difference. So people who ask, how do I get faster? Do the endurance session, do the hill session, do the run off the bike, do the speed session. That's how you're going to build your fitness, which is going to give you a better aerobic capacity. And what are we trying to do? We're trying to improve our aerobic capacity to run faster. So being fitter is going to make that pathway easier.

So it's almost a bit of a best kept secret amongst the running community to do the endurance run up in the hills. Here in Victoria we have the Dandenongs, which is the hub of on Sunday mornings, all the runners go there. But it's pretty foreign for a lot of other people to do that. So what's the difference between getting strength from the hills and endurance run and hill repeats? You know, because what's the intensity of the endurance and strength run?

Yes, well, the endurance and strength run, there is no intensity in it. We do have the fast finish running in our program, which is different to the endurance run. So we don't do the fast finish run every single week repeatedly in a program. We need to do that, you know, intermittently with just a normal endurance run with strength. So the fast finish run, you would not do as many hills in that run. You would try and make it similar to your race so that you're practicing what's going to happen in a race where you want to actually finish off nice and strong. And they're two different endurance sessions. One is an easy aerobic strength building long distance endurance run, which is the hill run, which is the hill run. And the other one is a fast finishing endurance run based around the similar time that you're going to race on. But you're trying to run progressively faster through that endurance run to be at race pace and then faster than it towards the end of the run. And that is a real key difference between those two runs.

So how does, how does. Sorry, the guy just dropped something at the front door. He was pointing at me through the window. How does someone, how does it actually work? They improve their speed by not just doing fast sessions you've just spoken about. I just want to make this crystal clear to anyone listening you've just spoken about. You don't need to do more than one high intensity session. The other sessions are a brick session, endurance session. How specifically does that actually improve someone's speed over the distance?

And look, we're just, again, we're trying to cater for the general population here and there will be runners who will develop so much better with another speed session in there. It's just not one. But we're trying to be giving an overall program here. So if you're capable of doing that and not potentially going to break down, then by all means you can add another one. But in my experience, it just doesn't work. I have 1% of the athletes I coach who can handle two speed sessions and I don't know the ratio, but getting them to the line is a problem. The motivation they have to try and do so many sessions too fast is my job is to hold them back because getting to the start line is more important. Than being able to run a fast time injured because you're not going to get to use it because you're injured.

And your theory is very strong that the fitter you are, like you just said, the bigger your aerobic base, the faster you're going to be able to run.

Yep. So I've just got that many examples of athletes that have massive goals like 100k trail racing. I can name so many of my athletes that we've coached who have done four hour, six hour, eight hour runs and people listening will go, is that possible to do a training run? But that's progressively building up over a year in that journey, that process of their training. Every year They've beaten their 10k half marathon Marathon times with no minimal speed work. It's all endurance based running, strength training, muscular development, the time on your feet. And when you go to run a really fast run, all of that strength and stamina that you've built up from all of that endurance training transfers beautifully because the fitness aerobic base that you've built up over that long period, you just start ticking off PBS on all those shorter events. It just feels like a piece of cake to the body.

Absolutely. So if we do get specific and someone is going to do to look at that, one, maybe two sessions a week, but most likely one session a week to get faster. What are some of your favorite sessions?

I suppose the hill repeats is one of those ones. And the reason I use hill repeats and you know this well, because you do these sessions, is to prevent the potential to run fast and break down. And I'm continually mentioning running injuries and look, the reason I do that is because the majority of people I coach have some little nickel somewhere. You know, the calf, the hemi.

I read a stat that something crazy like 85% of runners and runners being people who run consistently or run for events or triathletes are running with a nigel or injury.

Yep. And I've just seen so many disappointed people who've got this great fitness space going and they've just done one too many speed sessions where they've just pushed it too far from being over motivated and trying to achieve like the session says, try to run in the range that we're setting them, but it's just too much for their body with the other sessions. So we have to be really sparingly selecting what sessions. So doing intervals on the flat is a really great feeling because you're running fast, but you can get the same cardiac response, cardio response by running up a hill where you're not actually stressing the hamstrings and.

The knees and the.

Joints and all the calf muscles and stuff that you get when you run fast. Cadence on the flat. So we're trying to pick sessions that are similar outcome, but the speed might not be there because you're running uphill. So hill repeats is one of my favorites. Fartlek is another one where you can actually run faster than you're gonna run in a race. And let's face it, what speed sessions are we trying to do? We're trying to run faster in our training that we're going to run in our race. And without doing those sessions, as we'll talk about later, you won't improve. You need those faster sessions than you're going to actually run in, because that's what improvement's about. You won't improve by doing just endurance training alone. And we talked about the example of our athletes just before. Sure, they did a lot of endurance stuff, but they did a lot of shorter hard intervals with, with some strength work and some tempo and some steady state running a combination of all those fart leg hill repeats. It wasn't just one session. The endurance really set themselves up because you were asking me a question specifically about endurance and that is one contributing factor. And if you ask me a question, which you're going to about VO2, do we do all VO2 sessions to improve our VO2? We don't. Do we do all endurance sessions to improve our endurance? No, we don't. Do we do all speed sessions to be better at endurance? Yes, we do one speed session and we do one endurance session. So it needs to be an all round program. And I just keep reminding everybody the same message all the time. One session alone repeated six times is going to make you the same and worse. Possibly.

I know it's one of your pet peeves is seeing people just do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

Yep. And you know, that's of course the definition of insanity. But people do expect a different result by doing the same things. And if you don't change it up, have progressive overload, have recovery, have endurance, then your program is too narrow. It's too much of the same. And you and I just talked about this earlier today. You know, you were doing a Fartlek session and how close is that pace to your next run, which is a steady state? And I'm quite questioning your pace that you ran today compared to what you're going to run your steady state or tempo run in and if they're too close, we have to change it. If your pace that you're training at is too close, we don't want to do two sessions the same. We want to make sure one's at your threshold and one's below it or one's above it. So it's really important that you can identify in your program what specific pace you're running at so that we don't repeat the sessions. We've only got five or six sessions to run as a runner, or three, three to five sessions to run as a triathlete. So we have to be very selective in the sessions that are going to get the best outcome for us.

Okay, so I don't mind if you repeat yourself here, but I really want to be crystal clear on if a triathlete's looking at their running program. Break it down for me. What goes through your head in the programming? How many runs are they doing per week and what are the runs they need to tick off so that in their head they go, okay, here's a list. Am I doing these?

Okay, in a perfect world, five sessions. Let's make that crystal clear. If I was had an athlete come to me and said, I'll do anything you tell me. I have no time restraints, no family commitments, no work. This is, you know, possibly not ever going to happen to anybody. But if that was the option, they would do five sessions a week. They would do two easy runs off the bike. They would do one endurance run with, with definitely some hills in it. And they're not hill repeats in the endurance runs. Low intensity, they're low intensity, just building strength and stamina. We would do one speed session like we talked about, and then the other session would be similar to your race pace. So we've got five sessions of which two are similar. They're just practicing running off the bike, one which is building our speed, one is building strength and endurance, and the other one is practicing running at your race pace. So we've got pretty much a really good overall program that's going to hit every target that we need for what's the goal. Do your best run in your race.

And how many of your athletes are able to do those five sessions given work and family commitments?

Yeah, so look, I think if they're going to miss one, it's one of the double up sessions, which is the run off the bike. So that's, that makes it four, as long as they can. You know, if someone asked me, what were the key sessions? Well, the run off the bike and we do run off the bike. Too easy. One after a short ride and one after a long ride. So we do four runs off the bike with one speed session. Fresh. So, you know, they're, they're the basics. 4. And if you wanted to do another one, it'd be an easy run off the bike.

Again, perfect. And you would say that someone doing any more than that is doing too much and any less than that is not getting enough variety.

Well, if you're doing more than that, there's something lacking in the other side of your program because that is a really exhausting program to do. And as we've talked about many times, you can increase the volume rather than increase another session. So increase the warm up and cool down. Make sure the main set's the same, but just add extra time if you've got it to that session rather than adding another session. Because we really need to not spend because we're doing three events. You've still got to look after your swim, you've still got to look after your ride. So it's okay to get carried away. I want to be a better runner because that's my weakness. But you don't want it to be the detriment of your other events.

Perfect. That summarizes it very clearly. All right, let's go. Let's move on to running in its own right. Whether you're running a half marathon or marathon at the end of a triathlon compared to running, running a half marathon or marathon. Fresh. I do wanna know the overall principles. I know they will differ. But the overall principles of people who are aiming to break their record, and there's a few people and a few athletes especially, we have that looking to break that 90 minute half marathon barrier. So whether you're a 1:35 or 1:40 half marathon or trying to get down or you're a two hour, what is your advice on someone trying to break that time barrier? And it's like the four minute mile, you know, there's certain times per event.

We've got some good examples of that. And look straight away, I have to say, if an athlete comes to me and his or her best half marathon is 2 hours 30 and they want to run 1 hour 30, I have to be realistic. This is not something that's easily achievable for you. But let's take some small steps. An example, and then we have talked about one of our athletes who's a marathon runner who came to me with a 325pb and asked to break three hours and my answer was the same. That's a long way from three hours. But if you're willing to do the work and spend the time, it's not going to be a quick fix. This is going to be. And in fact it took, it took him two or three years to get to that point to achieve that. So you have to be prepared to be patient and do the work. It is achievable. But one of the restricting things is basic genetic makeup. If you're not capable, no matter how much training we do and how do we do that? We measure your VO2 and your lactate threshold and that will determine what your capabilities are. There's lots of things that go into it as well. Can you afford to lose some weight, which will make you run faster, makes you ride faster, you know, so concentrating on your nutrition and the other 1% of things. But to answer the question, if someone's at a 140 and they're trying to get to 130, yes, it's so much more achievable. If they're at two hours and want to get to 130, then it's going to take longer. I'm not saying it's not achievable, but that's a call that I would make depending on looking at the athlete's history and are they a runner from a long time, are they brand new to running? So there is a lot of answers that have the word depends a lot.

Of variables in there. So if someone was a two hour athlete and you did have to have a look at them, I mean, what would you guess? How long would you say to them to give them realistic expectations?

Well, my first question to them is, what's the longest run you've ever done in endurance training? And they would say, generally they would say, well, my race is the longest run, two hours. And I would say, oh, so you didn't do any over distance in your preparation? No, no, no, I did, you know, 90 minute runs, 100 minute runs, and that, that to me is the first alarm bell. So. So if we put them through a period of building their endurance run from their, their long run, which is 130 to 140 to 145 to 150, two hours, 210, 220 over a period of six months, then I've got a much more realistic idea of how close I can get them to their goal. But we've really got to see how they cope with the endurance run. And we're just not talking about one run here. We're talking about all our other training as well. Can they uphold their fitness and not get injured by increasing the endurance time and still do the other sessions?

So let's say there's someone within realistic range. How do you get them to bring their times down?

It's so easy with a guy who's close because they only have to extend their endurance, do some more strength work, build their stamina, do the heels, change up their speed a little bit, do more recovery, do more easier stuff. Because the guy who's pushing to go faster is generally running all his runs the same. So if we give him the variety, it's instantaneous improvement. So changing slight things in their program is going to give them 10 minutes in as quick a time as possible. And it's happened many times. So they've tried so hard and they don't recover well. They run hard all the time. That would be the key thing. The person who's that close is already running a 140. I can guarantee if I take away a couple of their intense sessions, they actually run better.

It's very encouraging for someone in that position to finally break 1 hour 30 if that's a big goal.

Yeah, 3 hour goal is the same. And certainly the 3 hour runners are doing a lot of runs at race pace all the time, whereas they don't need to. It just needs to be one of those runs like we explained before.

So what's your answer for them for breaking that 130? Back off the intensity, Increase your endurance run.

Improve more recovery running. So implement that into your run. So take one of your intense runs out and make it a recovery run. Don't back off the intensity in the intense run. Keep that going and strive for better intensity. Improve your endurance. And I'd find out where their endurance is, but make sure I understand their fitness level because a lot of people think it's okay just to just to run fast and short in their whole program and that will make them a faster runner, but at the end of the day it won't. It'll make them the same runner.

You would have to meet resistance with that to tell someone to back it off and they go, no way, I'm so close.

Yeah, it's a great discussion, but you know, my answer to most people is you've come to me because you've been unable to improve to get to your goal. So if you're willing to trust me 100% and I still can't get you to achieve that goal, then sure, the system hasn't worked, but I haven't had that. The immediate impact is incredible. But to have to follow the program 100% and not do a version of it.

I love that. That's perfect. So let's talk about race planning. How you're very big on race planning across all events. How does someone set up their run so that they run well? And how do you come into the run leg or your running race and set it up so that you run well?

Yeah, there's, there's so many examples of, of people who've had a great race plan based on their race data, their training data and all the information we've collected through their period of their preparation. So it's no different to doing an exam. You have all the study, you do some final pre exam tests, go into the exam really confident you do all this training. You know what your best 10k is, what your best 5k is, what your best half marathon is. All of these times you've got your average heart rate, you've got your average pace come race day, you just have to execute those times. And if we've got a 10k PB and you're running a half marathon, you know, we can work that out in the race plan. What is your pace that you can achieve? And this is your range to run at. And if you want this time, run through these kilometer markers at this pace and come home strong. That will achieve. We know from history that all of the world record marathon times have been run as a negative split. They've never been run and won by running faster at the start. And Kipchoge proved that again. He's done it three times now where his world record that, his new world record that he set three times has come from negative split. It might be 20 seconds faster, but it's still holding the pace and then adding to it.

So you're not afraid of people overlooking at their watch to keep them on pace?

No, I don't want them to be every third or fourth step looking, looking. No, you don't need that. You need to be able to train with some feel about the pace. And that's why we do that one specific race pace session in our training. And we also would throw in some races pre their a race. So you need to get to feel what the pace is for. Let's just use an example. If you're a 5 minute K runner and you know we set off in a 10K training run and the pace we're trying to set is 5:30, then you know, get the feel of the first couple of kilometres and then try and practice running 5:30 and just checking. When you hear the buzzer, go for each K and it tells you 524. And of course the undulations of the course might change that. But if you're running on a flat, a flat course where you might be doing that session on, it's really easy to measure but feel the pace and get used to that. So we don't want people checking too much, but we want people to know that they're getting the information back that's.

Accurate and most importantly not do the first half too hard and then, yeah.

Look, that's what the watch is for. It's, it's principally there for the first two or three K's is to stop you. If your pace for the race is going to be 5 minute K pace and you run the first 3K at 4:30, 4, 40, 4, 50, you've pretty much done your race. You know, you've, you've written, you've run way too fast. So you know, after the first two or 200, 500 meters. And one of the little tips I do for our athletes is I tell them to go and find the 500 meter mark in their warm up, a lamppost, some sort of marker where they can quickly get a 500 meter check and they look down. If they, if their pace is 5 minute K pace and they're doing 405, it's like, whoa, let's just back right off here. And you've only wasted 500 meters, then you can check it at the 1k and it's gone back up to 450 and you still need to slow down because obviously you're fresh. So it feels easy as compared to running 5 minute K pace at the 20 minute, at the 20K marker will feel like the hardest car you've ever run. So, so you've got to respect the number. So running, running a race to pace is something that's so simple, yet people make it so difficult. It's obvious this is your pace, run to it. I can't make it more simpler than that. This is your pace, Jordan. Can you execute it? That's your job. I've given you the data from your training, now you go and execute it. But I felt so good early. Well, that's just not an answer I want to hear when you've totally stuffed your final race, you know you've run the first 5k at 4:30 pace. When you're using the 5k example here, 5 minute k pace, 5 minute k pace. So you run your first 5k at 4:30 and you've run your last in 10k, your last 5k at 5:30. That's just not an enjoyable experience and. But I felt so good. Well, I don't, I don't accept that answer. You're in charge of execution. That's all you had to do for the day one job. Execute your time. Check after 500 meters. If you're on target, check after a K and check every K after. That's not that difficult. You can slow down, but you can't speed up. As you know, it is very difficult.

Technically, if you run 4:30, then 5:30, you'd average 5 minute. But you probably wouldn't be able to average 5:30 if you blow yourself up that much.

But in a, in a race, our goal is to run 4:55, not run 5. We already know we can run 5. That's right. Our goal is to improve. So we want to be running at the end faster. And how good a feeling is it when everybody's doing the slow run at the end, the slow shuffle, we call it, and you're flying past, but you're actually not changing your pace, you're just slightly changing your pace.

You.

But because they're running so slow, you feel like you're a million dollars and you're running at a pace that's just, and, you know, flying compared to everybody else. And you're getting compliments going, oh, way to go. You know, good running while they're dying. So planning a race is really simple and we base it on the time trials that we set you. So we know those, those goals that we've set and they're the times we use.

Unfortunately, it's not like cycling where you can kind of get away with slipstreaming or drafting or you can get away with undulations to drop your power, that kind of thing. Like you just said before, here's your pace. You have to run it.

Yep.

You have to execute it.

And look, you can have the obvious thing that we're talking about, time trial improvement in running here. We're not talking about racing against age group victories or running to win the race. This is for an improvement in your pb. So if, if we're talking about running to win the race or running to win your age group and you know, your opposition, that's a whole new discussion. Because if they're running slightly faster, your opposition, who you want to beat, is running slightly faster than you. You've got to make a decision. Is that My race pace or should I stick with mine and you? They might not have a race plan at all. They might be just running to feel and slowly get worse. And you've experienced that in the park runs where you line up and you don't know the guy beside you, he bolts out of the start gun and after a K, looks a million dollars, and you chase him because you want to win the race. Yet at the 4k mark, he's now running 40 seconds slower. But you've blown up as well by running too fast. So that's a decision you need to make, and I'm happy to discuss those things with the person who wants to race as against the person who's just trying to do a pb.

Perfect. All right, let's finish off with. Excuse my coughing into the mic. Let's finish off with a pretty loaded question. Golden question. How do you improve your VO2 max?

Whoa. Well, it is a very difficult question to answer, but first of all, what is your VO2 Max? So it's the volume of oxygen that you can consume per liter, per minute, per kilogram of weight. Basically, the more volume of air into oxygen into the blood system you can sustain, the better performance you're going to have. So why should we improve our VO2 max? Because that is a limiting performance. So the minute you are low in your VO2 max, that's where your standard is going to be in. And many people ask the question, well, you know, where am I? How do I get my VO2 to go up? And. And there's four real main reasons why. One is genetics. What are we. What are we trying to achieve here? We're trying to find out what we can do to improve our VO2 max. So. So genetics is something we can't have control over. It's. It's what we're born with. And, you know, you know, some athletes have got two Olympians as parents, and you'd say the possibility of them having a really good VO2 max is incredibly high. So that's one thing that is out of our control.

What's very interesting about genetics is that we have Both done a VO2 max test, and I think we scored within one of each other.

We did. Which is fascinating. And that is a really good example of how genetics can be of benefit and can be a negative. And, you know, it's not what your. Your parents did during their life. That's, you know, whether they trained hard, were really diligent with their food, or they drank a lot of and smoked. That's Actually got nothing to do with your genetic composition. So. So what, you know, what's handed down to you is out of your control. But it's lucky for some people that they've got good heritage to be handed down. So genetics is the one thing that we actually have no control over. And there are three other things that we do have control over. One of them is altitude. And so, like we said at the start, what is your VO2? It's the maximum oxygen uptake. So training at altitude or living and training at altitude is going to give you the ability, when you come back to sea level, to have an abundance of blood cells carrying really full nutrient oxygen to enable the muscles to function like slicing through butter. It's just that much different. And I've experienced it myself many times. And look, we can talk a lot about altitude training, sleeping high and training high, sleeping high and training low, training high and sleeping low. And, you know, there are a few combinations there. All the elite athletes, bar none, if they're serious about improving themselves, will have spent time at altitude using a combination of those. You can do it at sea level by having an altitude tent. You can train at altitude at sea level by going into the facilities that are now available. My advice for that would be sleeping high. If you're at sea level, we're talking sleeping high and training low is far more beneficial than training high and sleeping low at sea level. The main reason is because you can't fulfill the training session at altitude and do the same power output that you're trying to achieve without an adaptation, which could take months. If you're prepared to do that over a period of 612 months, then it is going to be really beneficial to you. But it takes so long. The second reason is you're better off spending eight hours sleeping at altitude than training for one hour at altitude. You get eight times the time period spent at altitude. So that's an obvious reason why it's an advantage. So altitude is something that, you know, definitely contributes to improving your VO2. So don't discount altitude.

Yep.

The third thing is obviously your level of training fitness. So the question, and you've asked me this question many times, so if my VO2 max is 70, can I go to 75? Can I go to 80? Can I go to 90? Well, genetically speaking, gentlemen, it's not really possible, but you can improve your VO2 max slightly. There is evidence to suggest it can go up from what your predisposition is. But if you look at every average Joe training athlete, they're not trained at their VO2 max. If you're at 70, you might be at a fitness level right now that's equivalent to 62 or 58. So you've got all that scope to improve up to 70 to your potential.

So your ceiling might be 70.

That's right. So Kipchobee's ceiling might be 95. Or Lance Armstrong's was 93, Cadell's was in the 90s. 88, I think, something like that. So, you know, there's no wonder those guys are the elite athletes of, of their time. And some are using the fourth factor, which is doping.

Yeah.

To increase your blood cells. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But, you know, those guys have the advantage straight away that that's, you know, if you're competing against someone who's got a ceiling of 90 and you're at 70, then you know, naturally you're not going to be able to compete at the same level as them. You can train yourself to be as, as close to 70 as possible. And so therefore training is a really big factor in improving your VO2. And does that mean just training VO2 all the time or should you be doing a balanced program? And I'll give the example of someone who does four sessions of similar VO2 type intensity over a 10 week period and someone who does one VO2 plus endurance plus tempo, plus interval plus recovery over a 10 week period, the person who does one of those compared to the person who does all of those will be far more closer to their VO2 than the person who just rams in VO2 sessions. Why? Because VO2 sessions are around that 110 to 120% intensity of your threshold, whether it's power or heart rate, if we're talking about running, it's heart rate. So if you spend all that time four times, five times a week in your training sessions at that same time intensity, you're going to get there very quickly. You're going to get to what your capabilities are very quickly. And it might not be a rating of VO2 of 70. You might start at 62 and you might get it up to 63 by going straight to VO2 sessions. But you've got the graph where you're going straight to VO2 and then you're training VO2 the whole time. It might be slightly increasing. And then all of a sudden, because These efforts are three minutes to two minutes long, after a period of 15 or 20 of these sessions in a row, you are getting extremely tired because there's no recovery, you're not doing any endurance to give yourself a base and you're just getting tired and tired because they're the same hard, intense sessions. And we do this in our program, we do four by three minute efforts, five by three, six by three, over a period of three weeks in our block. And that's very specific. VO2 at 110 to 120%. It's unsustainable after three weeks of doing one of those sessions each week. So imagine doing four per week of those sessions. You are just going to run yourself into the ground. And of course we talked about that earlier, about having variety in your program. You need to have all the facets that are going to enable you to be an all rounder, better runner. The goal is to finish all races strong at the end. And if you haven't got that endurance, and we've talked about that at the end, you're not going to finish races off well. So the two examples we're giving, we want the person who's actually Recovering from the VO2 sessions and implementing other intensities, they're going to be the better athlete and they're going to get closer to their 70. And if they both started at 62, then the person who started at 62, you might go to 63, then fall on a heap and end up at not training or over over injured or tired, fatigue.

It's counterintuitive, isn't it, that to increase your VO2 max, the thing we have the most control over is training. The most specific VO2 max session is a VO2 max session of three minute efforts, like you're saying, at a specific intensity of 110, 120%. So logically you would say, well, the more I do of that, the better.

I'm going to go.

But like you're saying, if you take two athletes, one does just those sessions and one does a variety, what the variety person will smash them.

That's right. And the graph for the person who's got a well balanced, he might start here, like we said, the other person starts right at VO2 and he's going to gradually improve himself and pass the other graph at some point down the track at 10 weeks and be in a much better position to race properly. He's trained properly, he's got everything in line. The recovery, the fatigue, it's in control. So that he can actually, and don't Misinterpret what a VO2 session is a killer. It is one of the ones that no one trains at. Why it's that damn hard that you think, oh my God, four by three minute efforts. On paper it looks like I can do that. But 4 by 3 minute efforts, when you're running, say you're a 3 minute K runner, that might sound okay, but you're trying to run that at 230 pace, you know, 240 paces, 110, 120, near impossible to sustain that. And, you know, the rest ratio is, you know, one to one and that we want to make sure that you're doing the effort and get the recovery. And that's a key factor in the VO2 session. So it is a really key session, but it is so damn hard that most people, you know, they're almost want to sell their running shoes. Oh, VO two blocks coming up.

And if anyone's done any of those sessions, you know that no matter what rest period you have, whether it's the exact same or more, when you're running at that intensity of 110, 120%, the extra minute or the extra two minutes doesn't help. You just. You've got so much lactic in your legs.

That's right. And that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to build the lactate to a certain level and then repeat it from that level where it's dropped a slight. So if the lactate looks like this, after the first effort, it drops from recovery. It doesn't go back to here, it starts here and then that's the next effort and a little bit of recovery. And all the time you're running the last four or fifth or sixth effort where you are really struggling to finish the three minutes because the lactate is so high. And that's the key to that session. Yeah.

So three ways you can improve your VO2 max, your genetics, pretty much. How do you control altitude? In control, depending on your availability, training definitely in your control. And then cheating, which is illegal. And we would not recommend.

There's no point in discussing that.

Yeah, absolutely.

But look, there's other reasons, other ways that you can do the 1 percenters that we've always talked about, you know, they're not directly related to improving your VO2, but if you've got, you know, really good sleep patterns going, you've got really good stretching and core and flexibility, yoga, nutrition, you know, massage, if you've got all those things going, they all do contribute in the long run to improving your general fitness. And remember we said one of the key factors is improving your fitness level will improve your VO2. So it's just not specific to one training VO2 session. It's an all encompassing approach where the actual process of doing all those things will contribute.

So to be clear on your ceiling of potential versus your ability, someone who is untrained probably has a lot more potential to get to. They might be untrained and at 40 or 45 or 50 and they actually could get to 60 or 70 if they really trained properly, depending on the genetics, we don't know. Whereas a well trained person at 60 or 65 still might be able to go up, but we don't know how much and that might just be limited by the genetics.

Well, we do know to a certain point how much by testing. So what you're saying is absolutely correct. The person who is definitely untrained and comes in as a novice has so much more potential to improve. And we know that without Even talking about VO2, the general fitness improves, their weight drops, their well being improves. So all those things contribute. But at the same time, VO2 is going along for the journey, so they're getting a lot more reward for their effort. The person who's well trained but isn't at the ceiling yet, they're not quite got the fitness. And we get lots of athletes who come to us who are really good athletes and they're still not right at their ceiling. So it's a real challenge for us to get that extra bit out of them. And they can achieve it by doing the balance program that we're providing. As long as they're not so motivated that they're doing all of the sessions like we talked about, at the same level.

They're overdoing it.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you look at the pro athletes, they're probably the closest people to their performing in line with their capability. Kipchoge his VO2 max might be 90 and he's performing at 90 all the time. He's able to hold that.

Yeah. But how is his fitness contributing to the VO2 and to the race? There are two things there. So he's trained so well that he's at the top of his game. He's, you know, in history will tell, he's probably the best marathon runner, you know, for a hundred years, for forever. At the moment. Who knows what's going to happen in the future. The two hour mark could be broken like the four minute mile was broken and now there's, you know, thousands, thousands of people have achieved it and broken it by 10 seconds. So who knows what's going to happen? But it's hard to imagine that people could be, you know, knocking off the two minute, two hour marathon at a regular interval. But he certainly has got a good genetic disposition. But he has trained himself so well, so process driven, so motivated that he is at the top of his VO2 and he can sustain the back end of races. And anybody who watched witnessed his world record. And he's done it in races that are not contrived like it was for his world record attempt, but he's done it in his previous two world record attempts where he was just negative splitting the last half of the marathon. And as we've said many times, history tells us that the world records in marathon have all been done in the last 50 years with a negative split. Whether it's 10 seconds or 30 seconds, it's still running the second half faster than the first half. And that is the way to execute your run. And if you don't have your training and fitness level at its premium, and we're calling VO2 at the moment our premium ceiling, then you can't sustain that. So he must have himself at every ounce that he can get out of himself is at that point now.

So based on that, you would say that improving your VO2 is desirable, but it's not the be all and end all. It's. It's your ability to perform well and hold that performance over an endurance effort.

Yeah, and look, as I said, the VO2 will come along for the journey as you improve everything about your training and racing, your VO2 is coming along improving. You can turn it both ways if you want. VO2 is my goal or the race win is my goal. If You've got your VO2 numbers at as high as possible, you can get. The chances of you winning are pretty high. If you get to a race where your VO2 is still 67, it should be at 70 or you're giving yourself less opportunity to win that race. So, you know, if I go to the race I want to win and I'm not at my full fitness, I'm not going to win anyway. So they go together and it's probably less relevant.

Unless you are testing yourself frequently with proper lab tests. You know, our Garmins give us an indication, but they're not very accurate.

Yeah, but look, there's a couple of reasons why, you know, people are so intent on testing VO2 because it is a predictor of performance. So, you know, we talked about the, the Olympics in the 80s and 90s when the, the countries from the Iron Curtain. So to Speak. They were testing athletes to see what their genetic VO2 was. And anybody who was in the 40s, 50s, discounted immediately for swimming, riding, running, anything that had an aerobic capacity aspect to it. And the people who are in the 80s and 90s, they're the ones they were concentrating on improve and grabbing and training. So that's a really good reason for people to test VO2 is, it's a, it's a predictor of someone's ability, what their capabilities are. You're not going to take someone who's got a VO2 max of 50 and make them an Olympian. It's, it's, it's highly unlikely that that's going to be an outcome. Yep. And having said that, mine's around 70, yet I qualified for the Australian Triathlon team at the Commonwealth Games. So, you know, you can perform at the elite level. Can perform at the elite level.

Yeah. No, that's great. That's a great way to finish off. Is there any, any more advice you'd want to give out to runners thinking about their VO2 Max or just everything we spoken about in general?

I think, I think the VO2 Max definitely highlights the fact that if you are concentrating on one aspect of your training at the detriment of the others, then you will not succeed. You, you need to have a well balanced program and that, that is something we repeat time and time again. You will improve your endurance by having a well balanced program, not by running long, slow runs every day. By running one wrong long, slow run, you'll improve your threshold running by doing one threshold session and having the other sessions. You'll improve your VO2 max by having one. You'll be less fatigued by having more recovery. So that's the message I'm taking to everybody, to anybody I coach is don't come to me so motivated and so pumped up that I want to do all these hard sessions because it's going to be to the detriment of your outcome. You're going to not be what, where you should be. You're going to be the same athlete. You're going to be at a level that stays the same and eventually it will deteriorate.

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