Fast Running Blog

For those of you who missed it, there we had a discussion on my blog today that resulted in a new term:

Quality X

I thought it deserves a couple of paragraphs on the forum. Brief introduction to the train of thought. If you've ever been beat by a minute in a 5 K by somebody running 40 miles a week while you were consistently running 80+ for years, if somebody who just barely started running 60 miles a week after graduating out of high school training blew by you in a half and left you in the dust, you know exactly what I am talking about. There is an aspect to distance running performance that is not connected with endurance, and can be present in the same quantity in somebody who is undertrained in the endurance aspect.

Some people call it speed. This is misleading enough for me not to want to use the term. You cannot get it through speed work. Others call it "natural ability". I do not like it either. It implies that you cannot develop it, therefore it implies surrender. For lack of a better term I decided to call it Quality X.

A good measure of the Quality X for an individual of optimal weight is how fast he can run a 5 K off 6 months of training at 40 miles a week. A clearly slow-twitch runner of optimal weight can also measure his Quality X by running an all-out 100 meters.

More discussion to follow...

The promised follow-up, finally.

Quality X can be compared to the aerodynamic/tire/weight distribution/transmission/etc qualities of a car. If two cars of equal weight are given the same engine, and one is faster than the other, we will say that the faster one has more Quality X.

Why all this Quality X discussion? Overtime some things have become clear to me. For a true slow-twitch guy, top end speed very reliably predicts what is he going to do in all distances from the 5 K to the half marathon when properly conditioned. 9 times out of 10, if you find two equally conditioned runners whose best distance is the half-marathon, and one beats the other in the half marathon, he will proportionally beat him in the 100 meter sprint! In the marathon, the top end speed very reliably predicts what you will not be able to do. It does not very well predict what you actually will accomplish because marathon has a much higher chance of crash-and-burn, and individual resistance against crash-and-burn varies a lot. But, once you have become resistant to crash and burn, your marathon can be very well predicted from your 100 meter sprint if you are true slow-twitch. Interestingly enough, Ron Hill observed the same thing and talked about all out 100 meter sprint as a measure of running talent.

For somebody who feels tempted to challenge the above. Find somebody for whom the following is not true:

best marathon time in minutes >= 100 meter sprint time in seconds * 10
best half marathon time in minutes >= (100 meter sprint time in seconds * 5 - 2)

So the above says that 12.0 100 meter runner will not break 58:00 in the half, 13.0 will be stuck at 1:03, and 14.0 will be stuck at 1:08 unless he runs Hobblecreek. Note that it DOES NOT say that a 12.0 100 meter runner will necessarily reach 58:00 in the half with proper training or even get anywhere close. It says that if you want to run 58:00 and your 100 is only 12.5, it will not happen until your 100 somehow gets to 12.0, and even then, it does not necessarily mean that you will run 58:00 in the half. 12.0 100 is a necessary but not sufficient condition for running 58:00 in the half marathon.

What is the point of the above formula and discussion? Suppose your best 100 is 15.0, and you want to run a 2:20 marathon. You can try high mileage, and if you do it perfectly, you will run 2:30. But not 2:20! OK, right. I am going to hit the weight room, I am going to hire a sprint coach, I am going to do drills, starts, jumps, whatever else the sprinters do so I can run the required 14.0. You do that, and all that gives you is 14.7 because you do not have much fast-twitch fibers! And by the way, your marathon potential has not moved at all. OK, so the reason I cannot run 14.0 is because I am a slow-twitch guy! Wrong! Do you think Haile is not a slow-twitch guy? Yet he can run 14.3 15 times back to back in a 1500 meter race, he can close a 10,000 meter race with a 53.0 lap, this is 4x100 in 13.25 strung together!  We make a big mistake by explaining away our slow 100 meter times with the lack of the fast twitch fibers. You need a lot to run 10.0, you need some to run 11.0, you do not need more than most of us on this blog do to run 12.0 if you are a guy! You do need lots of Quality X to run 12.0 if you are a natural distance runner, though.

As I stated earlier in my blog comment, Paul, Nick Miller, Nick McCombs, Sean, and possibly Logan have enough Quality X to hit the new marathon OT standard of 2:19 on a record-eligible course. The rest of us have no chance unless we do something about our Quality X!

What can we do? That is the question I do not have the answer for. This is something that needs to be thoroughly researched and understood. I believe we can find a breakthrough and answer it. But the first step, and the purpose of this post, is to convince our runners that this is a critical issue that something needs to be done about, or no Olympic Trials for you.

Sasha- I am going to go run a 100 meter.  I'm darn sure that I will be able to do it faster than 15.2 seconds.  We shall see.

perhaps a dumb question, but an important one....does the 100m time test proposed above need to be done from a dead stop or a running start? There's a big difference in times. The example you used with Haile obviously includes 14 of 15 100m segments at a running start.

I was doing 10x200 meter sprints a year ago and had someone timing me. I was coming in at 28 seconds at the end, so I would assume I can bang out a 13-14 second 100 meter sprint.

That being said- I haven't broken 1:16 in the half marathon or 2:47 in the marathon. Of course, I've never put in more than 40 or 50 miles a week leading up to a marathon (which I will be changing this year). I think what I'm reading from this thread is that I have some potential here that I haven't reached due to my lack of training, lame diet, etc.

Anyway- what is interesting is that Bill (aka "Coach" Bill) was talking about hip movement and how that is something that you lose as you get older, and something that helps with sprints and faster running. So I'm thinking hip movement could be one of many Quality X factors.

I would say if you are really bad out of the blocks (common for a distance guy), you can use a jogging start. Or just run 200 and divide your time by 2.  The purpose of the exercise is to measure your true top-end speed as accurately as possible. We do not want weird sprinter type issues to get in the way, such as being a bad starter.

There are other factors that could affect your performance. The amount of warm-up, air temperature, track quality, wind, etc. I noticed that I run my best 100 after doing about 4 at 800 race pace, and 2 more all out. You want, of course, to do this under the best possible conditions. It is recommended that you do it racing somebody. I noticed I run about 0.7 faster when I am racing a properly matched partner.

What we are really after is to see how fast you can "sprint" without using an extraordinary amount of fast-twitch fibers. If you a sprinty type, you will get a significant improvement from sprint specific training. Otherwise, not much will happen, you may gain 0.3 or so. For a more accurate Quality X measurement,  you want to do this test just off distance training, nothing sprint specific other than occasional strides and intervals, and other things you would normally do solely for improving your distance performance.

If you have been running at least 40 miles a week for at least 6 months, all-out 800 is a good test for Quality X as well. A slow-twitch runner (marathon being the best distance with optimal training)  with world-class Quality X will do around 1:55.

Craig:

Yes, anybody who has not been over 90 miles a week for at least a couple of years would be very much slower than their true potential in the marathon and in the half. Based on what you said, your Quality X is equal to mine (if you have more fast twitch fibers than me), or a higher otherwise. Which would suggest that if you did a comparable type of training and recovery regimen, you would run at least 2:25 in St. George, and possibly even 2:20. This, of course, assumes that you are a slow-twitch guy, which I think you are. It would be very difficult for a natural sprinter with not a lot of slow-twitch fibers to run a 17 minute 5 K off any training.

Some more thoughts.

Maintaining Quality X.

From what I've observed, Quality X is often lost in two ways. One is through some serious injury, especially back injury. The other is by gaining weight. I am not talking losing running performance due to excess weight. I am talking about when you gain weight, keep it for a while, then drop it. A measure of Quality X is gone even though you are essentially back to your high school weight. Think about numerous runners on the blog that ran a low-10:00 or even sub-10:00 2 miles in high school off sporadic 40 miles a week that cannot break 18:00 5 K now off consistent 70 miles a week. They do not lack endurance - they hold their ground in the half and in the full marathon quite well.

It would be worthwhile to address a common misconception. Some would explain the above with the loss of muscle mass with age. If you have ever helped somebody move with about 10-20 participants of various age groups, you'll know this cannot be right. Guys that are as old as 60 seem to be lifting with their arms just as well as their younger counterparts. Their backs are not as good, but when it comes to pure arm power, they seem to do quite well. And  in this discussion we are not talking going from 20 years old to 60 after all. We are talking 20 to 35 where severe loss of Quality X takes place very often.

So at this point, two practical suggestion I have for maintaining your Quality X : a) eat the best possible diet b) maintain a high level of activity. Or in other words, do what it takes to maintain your healthy weight.

How do others feel about strength training? I believe that can improve the Quality X factor.  Also core workout on abs and doing push-up is a benefit too by getting toned but not big.

I've had no luck with it. The strength of the individual muscles improved greatly, but no matter what I tried there was absolutely no change in running speed on any distance, even 100 meters.
I do however believe, that strategic strengthening with a very well defined narrowly targeted purpose could improve Quality X if you are being held back by some imbalance that your body is refusing to compensate for or correct naturally just by running a lot of miles. But I have not yet seen any success with this myself.

New more concise definition of Quality X:

How fast you would run 100 meters if somehow you lost all of your fast twitch fibers.

In other words, how fast are your slow twitch fibers?

Pretty much. This of course would involve anatomy, join/bone resilience, nervous system, and possibly a few other things. So it is not just slow twitch fiber strength. We find a magic way to disable all of your fast twitch fibers with the slow twitch left completely intact and have you sprint all out.

Of course, you will not sprint any faster than you would with fast twitch fibers working, so your Quality X sprint cannot be faster than your actual sprint. And for a slow twitch guy the fast twitch fibers naturally do not contribute a lot. So if you measure his actual 100 meter sprint, that is a very good measurement of his Quality X.

The question arises what to do for the mid-grade fibers that are useful in a longer race. The answer is that you are allowed to use them to the extent that they'd be able to contribute in a longer race when properly trained.

My assertion is that Quality X changes little with endurance training. The ability to use it in a long race improves with training, but in and of itself it does not change much from anything we know how to do. But you can lose it fairly quickly through unhealthy life style as you get older or through a trauma.

Actually there are 3 types of muscle fibers:

1) Type I slow twitch: endurance-based, fat-fueled, aerobic muscle fiber. This is the fiber that keeps going for 26 miles.
2) Type IIa fast twitch: a hybrid of fast and slow. This is the 5K fiber.
3) Type IIb fast twitch: a real fast and anaerobic muscle fiber. This is the sprint fiber.

What you define as Quality X is the fiber composition of muscles. That is what percent of what type of fiber you have. If you run marathons, you probably have a lot of type I, some type IIa and almost none type IIb. On the other hand, if you are a sprinter, you have a very little type I, some type IIa and a lot of type IIb fibers.

The composition is genetic and is not possible to change, but characteristics of fibers can chance with physical training. For example, endurance training will change type IIa fiber characteristics to type I. Type IIa fibers will become slower and start using more fat and have more endurance. In reality, quality X is achievable through training.

Gokay:

I have never seen or heard of anybody significantly improving their 100 meter sprint by running high mileage which should in theory strengthen your slow twitch fibers, and if most of your fibers are slow twitch, then shouldn't the slow twitch fibers be at least a significant if not the primary player in your 100 meter performance?

Actually, I have never even heard of a reasonably active adult of proper weight getting more than 1 second faster in a 100 meter sprint from training of any kind. I've seen many cases when people got markedly slower in the area of top end speed from unhealthy life style which exacerbated the effects of aging, and then would not be able to get their speed back no matter what they did but never the other way around.

Speaking of myself, I have measured my top end speed on multiple occasions throughout the years and have found it to be the same regardless of what I did - 40 miles a week, 120 miles a week, drills and sprints several times a week, weight training, or just base mileage.

Is this to say that with a lot of distance (Slow twitch) training your body will naturally adapt to the longer distances making the characteristics of your fibers more type I ?

On a separate note, the elite runners, those with the Olympic qualifying times in the marathon, would you say they are significantly more of one type then the other, well balanced in all three areas, or is what they have the "quality X" we are talking about?  I think  I am just an optimist at heart and don't want to believe that I may be genetically unable to do something I want to do.  That being said, I know there is no way I would be able to slam dunk a basketball even if their were a check for a million bucks up there : )

Nice topic though

My understanding is that you cannot change the composition of Type I or Type II fibers.  With training, you may be able to recruit more of the fibers for your specific activity.  With regards to the Type IIa fibers, Gokay's description of them as a hybrid fiber is a good visual - think of a hybrid vehicle, like the Toyota Prius.  It has both an economic electric engine as well as a small gasoline-powered engine.  At slow speeds and at stops, you only use the electric engine to achieve maximum efficiency.  At higher speeds and during acceleration, you use both the gasoline and electric engines to achieve maximum performance.  Now what Gokay is saying is that, unlike a hybrid vehicle, in which you cannot change the size of either of the engines, you may, through proper training, be able to cause your Type IIa fibers to act more like Type I fibers and be more efficient and aerobic in nature.  I would suspect that a physiological change would have to take place here - if you look at type I and type II fibers, the comparison would be dark meat and white meat.  The dark meat is the Type I, aerobic fibers, which are well oxygenated and have a good blood supply.  Type II fibers would be the white meat, not as well oxygenated (they work aerobically!).  The blood supply would probably be similar, since the Type II fibers still need nutrients, and still need glucose to convert to ATP - so perhaps there would be a converstion within the cells to allow them to take up oxygen.  Dunno - it's been a while since I had my exercise physiology classes, but that's my take on it.  Whether this is the only factor of "Quality X" remains debatable.

Brice:

We know how one can bridge the gap between his 100 meter speed and marathon speed significantly through training. However, once you reach a certain limit of a percentage difference, which incidentally is the same for a 2:05 marathoner and a 3:05 marathoner, we do not know what to do to improve. The only thing that separates a properly trained 2:05 marathoner (incidentally no human has ever run 2:05 without proper training, nor a human not predisposed to distance) from a properly trained 3:05 marathoner (many humans include myself have run a 3:05 marathon off improper training, those do not count for this particular comparison) that is naturally predisposed to distance as much as the 2:05 marathoner (which disposition is not that rare), that difference is in 100 meter speed and you will find it in almost exact same proportion as their marathon time difference.

A lot of big deal is being made about fast-slow twitch ratio. That is a big deal if you want to be good in one particular distance, then you need to have the optimal ratio for that distance. But it is not a big deal if you just want to be a good runner. You just pick the distance that you have the ratio for. A much bigger deal is that most people do not naturally have what it takes to run any distance at a world class level regardless of their fast-slow twitch ratio. That something is what I call Quality X. So in our comparison the 2:05 marathoner and the 3:05 one would have the same fast-slow twitch ratio, they may even have the same weight and height. Their lung capacity would probably be the same, so would the rest of their cardiovascular system. But the 2:05 guy will leave the 3:05 guy in the dust proportionally by as much in 100 meters as he would in the marathon. Why!!!?

There is some magic Quality X that separates them, and unfortunately nobody really understands what it is or knows if and how it can be improved. And, frankly, not many care, except the ones that have maxed out what their Quality X would give them and still want to improve. There are not many of those. You need to run 100+ miles a week for a few years, get enough sleep, eat right, and  live a very disciplined life to start feeling the pain of not having enough Quality X to get faster.

At this point most people on the blog are not close to their Quality X limits (with the exception of a few ), but eventually everyone will get there and will need to solve that problem. Thus this discussion.

To me, Quality X is the "natural ability" which is also sometimes called "talent". I don't like the term "talent", because there are many talents needed for success in running. One of the talents, for example, is being able to withstand very high mileage for many years without breaking down. But that is not what is meant by Quality X. I have no problem with term "natural ability" or "inherent ability" - to me, it describes the matter accurately, and it does not mean surrender. It is no secret that genetic ability is the prerequisite to success at the international level in any sport. There are very good insights about it in Daniel's "Running Formula". He says that we each are given a certain amount of natural ability and the top end is set for us. It is true, however, that most athletes don't ever realize their potential (for various reasons, inadequate training being one of them), and improvement is almost always possible.

Recognizing my lack of Quality X does not mean surrender to me, it means being realistic about my top end and trying to improve my results through proven and solid training, as far as it will take me - with understanding that I may never make the OT qualifying time, or whatever other standard. Striving for excellence with what I have been given is reward in its own right.

That said, Quality X consists of more than just muscle fiber composition. There are other physiological limits - how much air you can breathe in and out of your lungs, how much blood can reach your muscles, how much of the oxygen that your muscles get can actually be used to convert fuel to energy. No doubt, all of these characteristics can be improved greatly with training, but all of them are capped.

Regarding Sasha's comment that he has never seen anyone improve in 100m sprint by more than 1 second, I can say that I improved by 2 full seconds. My first 100m race I ran 15.2 sec, and eventually, after about 3 years of serious sprinter's training, I reached 13.2 sec., at which point I stopped improving no matter how hard or smart I trained. I was 14-17 at the time, and I consider myself fully grown at 14. All the while training side by side with girls who were running 12.4 - 12.0 on exactly the same training, under the same coach. I see exactly the same thing in my daughter's swimming now. She is the hardest worker in her squad, and sadly, one of the slowest for her age. It is hard for her to accept, but she lacks Quality X, just like I do (only makes sense genetically). The hardest thing to witness is someone who misses practice, hardly trains and then performs better anyway, while you are making great sacrifices year after year. It seems unfair, and it isn't, especially in sprints when it is possible to reach realtively high level on Quality X alone.

I don't think there is a magic recipe for Quality X, except to pick different set of parents. It is not easy to accept, but in sports, hard work alone is not enough to become an international level athlete.

Maria:
What was the starting race of the girls who ran 12.0-12.4 and at what maturity level?
Also, even though you may stop growing vertically at 14 and may even be the same weight as you are at 17, there are probably still some changes going on internally that would affect your ability to sprint. At least intuitively I have a hard time imaging a 14 year old girl that would not get wrestled down by her equally athletic 17-year old sister even if the older sister appears to be the same size :-)

Sasha,

the starting race for those girls was slowest 14 sec., some 13.8 - 13.6 - on totally no training! That's when the coaches knew they had some potential there to work with, as opposed to me. I did gain some muscle weight between 14-17, and got stronger, and therefore, faster, but I believe this strength gain was from training, not natural. Although this is of course impossible to prove now. After 17, I continued to improve a little over 200m and 400m, but my 100m speed was consistently yielding 13.2-13.4 in races. In 200m I got to 27.0 indoors which I consider my best result in all sprints. By the way, you cannot multiple your 100m speed by 2 and get equivalent 200m time - you'll always slow down in 200m compared to 100. If you can run 200m in double the time of your 100m, something is wrong with your 100m (start technique, headwind, sickness, etc.).

Also, coaches and exercise physiologists rarely care about improving Quality X. Maria and I probably have experienced this in a more blunt manner than anybody else on the blog. We could right a long essay about the Russian word "бесперспективный", which literally means "without a future". That word was used by coaches to label kids that they thought lacked the natural ability to succeed in the sport they have chosen. Once in a while a бесперспективный kid would prove a coach wrong, usually in an endurance sport, but not often. He would usually give up, maybe try another sport or two, and then just plain quit.

In English we may not have a word like that, but we do have the concept. It is a lot easier to find a natural than to develop the same qualities in somebody who does not have them. This will skew the coaching practices and the science in a different direction. We just take the talent, water it a bit, if it does not grow, we throw it away, and try the same method of cultivation on a different form of talent. There is not much interest in understanding the nature of the talent, and how to nurture it properly. Which is something I hope to see changed.

I do believe, though, that Quality X is quite a bit more than genetic. Childhood development, and even what happens while the mother is pregnant, makes a big difference. All of our children that are old enough to where you can compare their top end speed have been somewhere in the top 5% among their peers. Sarah and I might make top 50% in that area, maybe.

"Always" is a strong word. "Sometimes" might be better.  Our best sprinter in college had a 100m PR of 10.77, and a 200m PR of 21.38. Another sprinter on our team has a 100 time of 10.89 and a 200m PR of 21.7. We also had a woman who ran 12.64 in the 100m and 24.72 in the 200m. Another nice example is Michael Johnson: 200m PR of 19.32. The guy was a "pure" 200m runner, and didn't hit top speed probably until 75m into the race. But his 100m PR was 10.09. Then there's myself. I don't think I could ever run a 13-second 100m, or even a 26-second 200m, but I managed to run a 52.4 400m once. For me, I was holding an all-out sprint for 400m, and received the benefit of a "running start" every 100m. Same with Michael Johnson and the other examples I mentioned in the 200m. He could hold his top speed for the entire distance, and thus negative split by not losing block time on the second 100m.

I think the distinction is that if you are a "pure" 200m runner, or a 400m specialist, or a distance runner with good anaerobic capability, you should be able to even or negative split a 200m sprint. A "pure" 100m specialist, or a very explosive runner, will likely slow down during a 200m.

Sasha- I'm curious what data you have on comparing 2:05 and 3:05 marathoners versus their 100 m sprint times.  Have there been studies done?  Or just a few data points you have observed?

Jon - I have observed a few data points. Granted, I have never observed a properly trained male 3:05 marathoner with a predisposition towards distance. I think he would have to be 70 years old or have severe neurological, muscular, or skeletal  defects. But I have observed a lot of somewhat properly trained 2:40 marathoners and estimated their predisposition towards distance and all out speed from their race performances and workouts.

It seems to me that the reason this "Quality X" seems so elusive is that it actually encompasses countless "qualities" of various kinds.  I'm not sure if others have mentioned it, but one factor that seems significant to me, in terms of predisposition for excellence at distance running, has to do with musculoskeletal structure.  Purely ectomorphic body types with very low body fat, rapid metabolism, very lean leg muscles, and a generally "light" body frame (it also helps in many cases to be under 5' 9") seem to be factors in addition to favorable muscle fiber composition that dispose a person to excel at distance running from a physiological perspective. 

Given all of these elusive factors, one has to make a choice at some point about whether to pursue events because they give us joy  or to pursue them because of the hope that we will excel and gain materially from our efforts.  Play to your strengths, in other words. 

Sasha, whether you know it or not, you have "Quality X" in abundance.  There are ultra-runners out there in the world that would  gladly sacrifice a pinky toe (or at least a few more toenails) to be able to run at the intensity you do, for as many miles as you do, and with the consistency you do, without suffering chronic injury.  It seems to me you would like to identify the lack of Quality X as the reason you can't find that extra gear to run sub 2:15.  But maybe the better question is how can you use the Quality X that you do have to maximum potential?  As strong a runner as Sean, Paul, Nick, or any of the other speedy bloggers are, I would pick you in a 50 mile race any day.

Michael Jordan, by the way, is a decent golfer. In fact,from what I hear, he loves golf--plays it all the time. If Michael Jordan had concentrated only on golf, he probably could have been fairly respectable golfer. But it's unlikely he would have become Tiger Woods.  Fortunately for him, he recognized that his Quality X is manifest on the basketball court.

Quality X roughly consists of the following in my opinion:

a) Slow twitch fiber volume - 50%
b) Ability of the brain to control the legs - 30%
c) Structural (light bones, long legs, etc) - 15%
d) Body Balance (symmetrical bones, muscle development) - 5%

Because of a) and b) sometimes a non-athletic looking runner could run a sub-29:00 10 K. But usually b) overtime helps c) and d), so a good runner often looks athletic.

I believe the reason I would have the upper hand in a 50 miler has nothing to do with my slow twitch fiber content. It has more to do with the fact that in my life time I've hit more limits and adjusted my lifestyle to overcome them. Dallen observed back in 1999 that I am naturally more inclined to the 10 K than the marathon, and I still agree with him. If others did what I have done for that long and with the same level of consistency, they would hold their 10 K speed in the marathon as well as I do or even better, and they would recover from marathons as fast as I do or even faster.  Unfortunately, I have only been able to discover how to preserve the amount of Quality X through lifestyle, but not how to add to it.

Ok ... so, doesn't the fact that, no matter what the underlying reasons are, you believe can beat those speedy guys in a 50 miler suggest that you are drowning in Quality X? Even if it's a different Quality X than what you're trying to pin down?

Chad - 50 miler is not a popular race. Ryan Hall would rock in a 50 miler, but he has bigger fish to catch in the marathon. That is why the guys with low marathon speed are able to succeed there. But somebody like Michael Wardian will destroy me in a 50 miler. He takes care of his health as well as I do or maybe even better, and he has more marathon/half-marathon/5 K speed. If winning a 50 miler was a big deal, sub-2:20 marathoners would be more motivated to do a better job on their diet, and anybody who is slower than them in shorter distances would not have a chance.

There is no such thing as a 50 miler Quality X or a Marathon Quality X. If runner A has more Quality X than runner B, runner A beats runner B in all distances when both are optimally trained for the distance they race.

Let me also repeat that good health is not a part of Quality X, although it helps you preserve it as you get older. Nor is your actual ability to hold speed in a long race, especially when it gets so long that those with poor health start to fade. If we fixed their health, they would not fade. Quality X is not as easy to fix, it sits much deeper.

Just commenting on running 100 meters. I know that even good 100 meter runners can't reach their top speed in a 100 because it is too short of a race. In the 200 they can hit faster or equal pace as their 100 time. Wouldn't it be better to run a 200 or a 300 because you can pick up more speed?

Actually, in a 100m race a sprinter (even an elite) reaches his top speed somewhere around 50-60m, maintains his top speed for about 10-20m, and then slows down from there.  The best way to measure one's top speed is with a 10m fly test.  The object of the test is to time yourself for a 10 meter all out sprint.  Because you need to be running at your top speed for that entire 10 meters, you get a 20m running start before you hit the 10m timing zone.  The only way to do the test accurately is to use infrared timing gates.  I have some, so if anyone in Salt Lake is interested I could arrange to test you (I live near Skyline HS.)

Hmm. That is interesting. I was always told differently. Well, I guess I can say that I learned something new today about sprinting.

Mark:

I'd like to take you up on this offer. In fact, I'd like to have every blogger anywhere close to SLC that has anyway of getting there get tested. What is your schedule like?

Generally I am available on Tuesday or Thursday evenings or Saturday mornings.

I too am curious about this Xfactor :).  I don't really have a predisposition towards distance running.  Though my brother does... though he fits into the classic runner's build a bit better.  I haven't really timed 100M runs very closely but I am pretty sure I am at about 11 secs. (my bro is 14s), but he owns me in distance running... we ran XC in high school together him in top 20 new england level and me... well I finished.

I am having adevil of a time getting faster in distance running.  So I find this discussion fascinating as I have real world experience with it. 

Quality X and adrenaline ... I'd like to hear some comments on speed capacity in relation to adrenaline levels and how this may or may not fit into this discussion. You often hear how people are capable of feats they simply could not normally accomplish when their brain shifts into the reptilian mode. Has any research been done regarding training one's mind into getting their body to respond in a similar fashion when the contributing factors are absent that would naturally shift their brain/body into this mode.

Allow me to throw some brain development stuff out there pertaining to adoption (trauma related to mother/child separation -- this aspect of adoption I supposed could be debated, but for our purposes, lets assume that trauma does result [as we really don't care here -- what we do care about is brain development in relation to very early trauma].

"traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, congnition and memory. Hypervigilance and hyperarousal are manifestations of separation trauma."

"a drop in serotonin level and elevations in adrenaline and cortisol levels have been noted in many trauma victims"

"... the reptilian brain is in charge of the responses to trauma. The reptilian brain acts nanoseconds before the neocortex, which could add reason to the mix. The reptilian brain is the survival brain, in charge of fight, flight, freeze, and reproduction."

"because there are elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol in the body, one loses the ability to utilize the bodily signals as a means of modulating one's physiological response to stress: in other words, the fight or flight signal is always on, so that one can't rely on it to tell if danger is actually present ... furthering difficulities for victims of trauma is their inability to regulate their arousal levels"

All this comes from Nancy Veriers book on Adoptees as Adults (Coming Home to Self). The above notes are from her first two chapters where she sites brain research in relation to trauma. I'd have to do some digging to find the quote, but the one thing that is missing from the above, that is present in her book, is the permanent effect on brain (chemical levels, neurological responses, etc) and its connection to physiological reponses (i.e. the fight/flight signal is always on) when the trauma event occurs earlier ... in fact, the earlier the event, the more impressed the brain development factors into physiological responses.

UGH! I hope I haven't taken a tangent here too much and that someone more qualified in this area will be able to bring my scattered notes back into a meaningful discsussion as it may or may not pertain to Quality X.

Jeff - I think you are right on the money. I believe 50% of Quality X sits in the brain itself. In fact, lately in my training I've been experiencing some really odd things. I start a 15 mile tempo in the middle of a 20 mile run, push the pace very hard from the start and start hurting in the first mile almost as a bad as I would in a 5 K, but then towards the end I do not crash. I am thinking for me the marathon is not so much about having enough fuel or being able to keep the lactic acid under control (that is very well taken care of with high mileage), but it is now about conditioning the brain to experience the 5 K misery for over 2 hours. I noticed this particularly when running uphill. My HR often drops on the uphill, yet I find myself in some serious pain. But that pain is not so much like the normal pain of running hard, it is more like you are carrying a heavy bed, your HR may not break 100, but yet you are panting, and you can only go so far before you need a break.
An interesting case is Derek Clayton. According to what I recall, he trained at around 170 miles a week, and when he ran his world record marathon (2:08) he was showing signs of discomfort as early as 3 miles into the race. He  went through the 10 K around 29:30 if I remember right (this would be on pace for a 2:05-2:06), and then did slow down some but not a whole lot. I theorize that the reason he did slow down was not so much fuel - he was only that strong in the way of being able to carry the heavy bed, so he was forced to back off. He never fuel-bonked like most marathoners do, he would have had plenty of fuel to run 2:03 or faster if his nervous system would permit him. But his aerobic conditioning and glycogen storage/fuel economy were so good that they were no longer the limit.
This would also explain how some elite marathoners are able to run the distance all out while never ingesting any fuel. Unlike most runners they do not have the neural drive to run for 2-2.5 hours at the intensity that would exhaust their fuel reserves.

So the question becomes ... how do we either trick or train our neurological systems to switch over to this reptilian 'flight' mode where we are capable of so much more.

I do not think you can switch it into a flight mode for over 2 hours. But you can train it to send stronger signals. I am trying to figure it out right now. I think a key element is first to build your aerobic base sufficiently high so that your neural drive does become a limit. Then at least you are free to push that limit any time you please. Once you can, the question is how often and for how long, which I do not yet have the answer for.

Well, as a child of adoption I've been giving many considerations lately to how such an experience has and has not effected me over time. I find that I can relate to the research supporting the idea that physiologically (particularly in my brain/neurological makeup) I am much easier shifted into a fight/flight mode. It is sort of a constant readiness to defend, so to speak. In conversation I have to constantly check myself, especially when being given critical analysis, to take a moment before responding so that I do not immediately switch into a defend/confront mode. I think that it probably also plays impact on my running. I can very easily switch to an attack mode ... for short distances. For longer distances I can do it as well, but it requires more of a warm up. I have noted that somewhere around 3 miles my body switches over to a different degree. I assume this is not anything associated with what you mean by Quality X, but given a 3 mile warm up I am ready to GO for any distance that I am trained to handle. Without being told what race I am about to run, given a 3 mile warm up in the 7:45/mile range I could then be told what the race will be and I'm good to go. But I suppose this dips into a different sort of discussion.

Getting back to Quality X though, and 100 meter sprints. Here is what makes me curious. Let us take a given runner and assume that he/she has a standard and repeatable 100 meter sprint time of 12 seconds. Then we take this runner and put him/her into a fight/flight mode where adrenaline kicks in (i.e. being chased by an attacker) and timed their 100 meter time. Would their time be faster and, if so, what does this tell us in regards to their potential race times at longer distances?

No clear answer here. There are a lot of factors. The fight-or-flight response could be of either explosive or sustained nature. It definitely helps in any distance if you are able to get worked up and push yourself, though. And, of course, there are factors that may prevent you from realizing your neurological potential in a long race - lack of slow-twitch fibers, inherent cardiovascular weakness that cannot be overcome with training, fuel system problems (bad liver), etc. But I would say having a strong nervous system is a great asset regardless.

Did a group of bloggers ever get together and run through the timing gates?  I think this would be interesting since it would have an element of control -- essentially the same conditions applying to all who participate on the same date.

And Sasha, if in high school I ran 100m in 11.xx seconds, and 200m in 22.xx seconds does this just show how far I have let myself deteriorate both physically and psychologically when it comes to running? 

We have not done the timing gate run yet. Will try to get it organized in early August.

11 second 100 /22 second 200 could be an indicator of fast twitch fibers. What could you do 400/800/mile in at that time? Also what can you run 100 in right now?

In high school I was a soccer player, and only ran track my Junior in high school ('85) year prior to an injury.  I knew I was fast from all the travel with my club soccer team and running against others who were supposed to be so fast, and having been the fastest player at the Olympic training center for the junior developmental soccer team. 

However, that year I was the fastest Utahn at the Simplot indoor meet in the 200m, despite running in Nike Pegasus and it being only the second track meet I had ever run in.  (Prior to that I had only run indoors at Alta.)  I don't have many times because track season conflicted with soccer games, so I missed all of the meets.  Because I missed the meets but needed to qualify for the state meet, I ran at an open meet at West Jordan High School (I think it was called the icebreaker) despite the fact that I had a nagging injury.  Despite not being able to even jog around the track to warm up (because I was in so much pain) I ran the 100 meter heat (qualifying for the finals the next day).  Although I could tell that something was not right with my body, in my youthful folly, I went ahead and still ran the 4x400 relay.  Around the final turn of the 400m, my right sartorius muscel pulled a chunk of bone away from where it attached to the ilium (hip.)  I rolled over after passing the baton, only to end up in the hospital and bed rest for weeks.  Although I resumed competitive soccer, I have never competitively run track again and never amassed a data collection of times from organized meets.

I don't know what I could run these days.

Ok, this has been quiet a long time. But I was thinking about my history of a runner and I thought I could provide some insight. When I started out in track, I was slow for a track runner (even though I was faster than the average kid). As a freshman in HS my PRs were 1:10,2:39,5:27. It definitely appeared that I was more suited to longer distances. My first really good year was my junior year where I ran 10:24 in the mile. I reached the mile in that race in 5:02, but had an all-out PR of only 4:53.

This all changed dramatically my senior. I had developed speed out of nowhere. I could run 63-64 second quarters like it was a jog and going all out I could beat the 400m conference champion in the 400 (it never occurred to me to actually run the 400 though). I ran a 54 second quarter in my only all-out timed 400. I even started a 2mile with a 65 second quarter! In one workout, we did hill repeats then cooled down back to school. Our coach had us run a 400 and I ran a 58 in a soaking wet
sweatshirt that I'd put back on for the workout.

But I just couldn't translate it into fast times! I had put in decent work in the off season, with 13-14 mile long runs and 40-50 mile weeks. I should have been able to bang out a 4:15, 9:15, 1:55 based upon my workouts, but it never materialized. I was certain that I was capable of it and I collapsed at the end of one race after running just over 6 mins through 2000 and finishing with a 10:17 for 3200. Pacing myself didn't seem to really work either. If I started slow then I ended slow. I drove my coach insane.

But here's the interesting part: 4 weeks before the start of practice, I was diagnosed with tendonitis. I cut my training down dramatically to just about 3 miles a
day until it got better. But those three miles were FAST! I was just working on running with absolutely perfect sprinting form and I basically would sprint for as long
as I could. My tendonitis was gone when the season started and I resumed normal training, but I was now a totally different runner. The change I think, now, was just mental. I had challenged my body to unlock its potential and it had responded. But my "engine" was still the engine of a 17:30 5k runner. My point is that
you can absolutely change your Factor X, it takes training that is unusual and devastingly tough, but it can be done over the course of months and I believe that
the change is largely mental. Of course I did this when I was 17, it may not work for someone in their mid 30s.

Cute, in an innocent sort of way, eh.

James - it takes some time to realize the raw speed in a long race. For you, I think you are still maturing, and it might not be over until you are as old as 27. So you just need to be patient, keep running the mileage, and do some speed maintenance.

How funny, this is just what I was thinking about when I commented on Jeff McC's race in GA last
weekend.  I think a lot more simply, tho, as in, "Woah Jeff, no WAY would I mention to the runners
of Twisted Ankle that you ran that speed in that weather, when so many of them have as much as
accused me of adding more Bluff to Becky's Bluff this year!"  Honestly.  It was a brutal year weather
wise, and by 5:30 when the last runners came in, I'd met many more Quality X-less people than I had
Quality X-ful.