9:30 a.m. 7 miles, including Power of Threes by two and Crazy Cubans by two. Lads, what a workout. I intended to do three sets of each but opted for two sets as it was my first go and form was the priority. That said, my form was embarrassing.
What a killer and yet great fun. This is as hard, in terms of effort, as a session of mile repeats but the variety makes it so much fun – the concentration levels have to remain high at all times. I’ll explain the session tomorrow (I want to look at ageing today) but the bottom line of the session was that it exposed many weakness. I was pants. But that’s why I’m excited. If I’m running 5:20-5:26 pace for 5k off one year’s training with only a handful of workouts and my strength and power and coordination are all appalling, then there’s massive room for improvement.
Sometime back, there was an article in Athletics Weekly – UK based running magazine and a very good one at that – entitled ‘Growing old gracefully’, by Roy Stevenson (he has a master’s degree in exercise physiology and coaching from Ohio University and he teaches exercise science at Seattle University). Here are the summary points of his article:
System Effects of Ageing on Running Performance
Cardiovascular system - Heart becomes less efficient and works against increased resistance. A decrease of 8-10% per decade in the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to the muscles occurs with ageing. There’s a decline in maximal heart rate, maximal cardiac output, and leg blood flow to exercising muscles of 10-15%. (You wouldn’t believe my MHR – most teenagers would die to have a MHR like mine.)
Aerobic capacity – Moderate decline in maximal heart rate and stroke volume. Oxidative enzyme activity decreases by 10-15% in older runners.
Lactate threshold - May actually increase with age when expressed as a percentage of VO2 max.
Respiratory system – Less efficient, primarily due to stiffening and loss of elasticity of lung tissue and chest wall. Decreased ability to clear air passages. Maximum breathing capacity decreases by about 60% between ages 30 and 80. Vital capacity and forced expiratory volume decreases linearly with age, starting between ages 20-30.
Muscular System – Progressive loss of muscle tissue starting at age 40. Rate of muscle protein synthesis is reduced. Changes in muscle fibre composition: decrease in number and size of type-ll muscle fibres of 10% after age 50 and reduction in size of type-I muscle fibres – therefore decreased strength and endurance.
Running economy – Stays approximately the same, but we have to run with faster leg turnover to maintain our racing pace because of shorter stride length.
Body composition – (pay attention Jake) Muscle tissue declines, fat percentage increases, 8-12% decrease in basal metabolic rate.
Flexibility – Decreases with age. Connective tissues between muscles and bones become more rigid with ageing – thus our stride length decreases.
Caveat – The above does not apply to Bam. Bam is great. Bam will prove that the above is pants. He’ll do it through some fancy-dancy monikersJ
To be continued… 6:00 p.m. 6 miles easy. Legs felt better than I thought they would. Tomorrow I've got 8 miles, including 10 Benjamin Buttons lined up for the morning and an easy 6 miles in the evening. Should be feeling a tad younger by tomorrow night... | 