Quality X

[Mark Olson]

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.)

[Steve Morrin]

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

[Sasha Pachev]

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?

[Mark Olson]

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.

[Koby]

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. 

[Jeff Linger]

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.

[Sasha Pachev]

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.

[Jeff Linger]

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.

[Sasha Pachev]

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.

[Jeff Linger]

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?

[Sasha Pachev]

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.

[Paul (RivertonPaul)]

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? 

[Sasha Pachev]

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?

[Paul (RivertonPaul)]

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.

[James Moore]

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.