Tag: running

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Distance running trains the heart, intervals train the muscles

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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“High-intensity interval training” (HIIT) has been receiving lots of research attention recently as a time-efficient way to get in shape. An interesting pre-print has just appeared in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (thanks to Amby Burfoot for noticing it) that adds a couple of interesting wrinkles.

First of all, the study used running rather than the usual stationary biking — so it provides some evidence that the same kinds of protocols that have been extensively studied in cycling also apply to running. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario had 20 (untrained) volunteers perform six weeks of training, three times a week. One group ran steadily at 65% VO2max, starting with 30-minute runs and building up to 60 minutes; the other group did 30-second sprints with four-minute recovery, starting with four repetitions and building up to six.

As expected, the sprinters improved almost exactly as much in a variety of outcomes as the subjects doing long, sustained runs. They both increased VO2max by about 12%; they both increased 2,000-metre time trial performance by about 5%; they both lost fat (the sprinters lost 1.7 kg while the long-runners lost 0.8 kg). So yes, the HIIT paradigm is applicable to running.

But the study offers one more twist. They measured maximal cardiac output (Qmax), which is the biggest volume of blood your heart can pump in a given amount of time. In this case, the long-runners increased Qmax by 9.5%, while the sprinters didn’t improve at all.

To understand what this means, consider that VO2max (the maximal amount of oxygen you can deliver to your muscles in a given amount of time) is the product of two quantities: Qmax (how much blood your heart can send to the muscles) and “maximal arterial-mixed venous oxygen difference” (how much of the oxygen sent to your muscles is actually extracted from the blood and used by the muscles before the blood heads back to your heart). This latter quantity (the researchers write) depends on “O2 delivery to active muscle fibres (blood flow distribution, capillary density, and arterial O2 content), local enzymatic adaptations, and mitochondrial density/volume.”

So what the study tells us is that short sprints and long, steady runs both increase endurance, but they do it in different ways. Sprints act peripherally (i.e. the muscles), while long runs act centrally (i.e. the heart).

Of course, nothing is quite so black-and-white in real life, and many types of training session will stimulate both types of adaptation. Still, it’s a good reminder that the best training programs will balance different types of stimulus — which is, of course, what every elite runner already does. But those looking to HIIT as a way of getting fit should ideally try to also make time for at least one more sustained session each week.

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Staying healthy after 153,300 miles

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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Runner’s World has an interesting interview by Amby Burfoot with marathoning legend Ron Hill, now most famous for the daily running streak he’s kept alive since 1964. A passage I liked:

I saw a woman who said, “Running’s not good for your knees.” I said: “Okay, but I’ve got 150,000 miles on these knees and they’re working quite well.” She said: “That’s only because you’re so slim.” I said: “Well, how do you think I got this slim, and stay this slim?”

He has a good point (as I discussed in a Jockology column a few years ago). On the other hand, I have to admit that the picture accompanying the interview does look like a guy who hasn’t taken a day off in the last 45 years.

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More on racing in workouts…

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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After that last post, I was thinking more about the racing-in-workouts thing, and it reminded me of a great article about Matt Centrowitz, the coach at American University in Washington, D.C., from the Washington City Paper back in 2006. It’s a very long article with a lot of great stuff in it — a portrait of (as you’ll see if you read it) a very colourful guy. The reason I thought of it is because of this passage:

The next group heads off with a target of 67-second laps. Led by Brian McCabe, a junior with an itchy trigger finger, they immediately string out.

“Look at that, they’re already not together,” Centrowitz mutters.

“Hey!” he shouts. “McCabe! Drop back!”

What cross-country coach in his right mind scolds a runner for going too fast? Each workout is designed for a specific purpose—race simulation, speed building, maintenance, or recovery, for example—and Centrowitz adjusts the lap times according to the purpose. They’re also designed to hone a runner’s internal speedometer; it’s imperative that runners be able to tell the difference between even one-second increments of pace. Exercising temperance during a workout teaches the runner not only when to step on the gas but also increases the number of gears available to him.

“Relax, guys,” Centrowitz yells. “I want you to win the race, not the time trial.”

Centrowitz, 51, has been holding back since his college days at the University of Oregon. He was the steadying upperclassman for future Hall of Famer Alberto Salazar and other freshmen ponies who would gallop to the front of the pack and set a pace faster than their coach, Bill Dellinger, had prescribed. Even on the hardest workouts, Salazar would push the pace faster and faster until a voice from the pack, Centrowitz’s, barked for them to slow down. Practice often became a tug of war between the brash, young Salazar’s desire to cut loose and Centrowitz’s compulsion to follow the guidelines. “We wouldn’t listen to too many guys, but when Matt scolded you, you listened,” says former teammate Steve McChesney. “I think Matt saw the reasoning, the big picture. The rest of us just saw an opportunity to run fast, which is a lot of fun. At times, I think my career would have been better if I’d been as disciplined as Matt.”

Centrowitz’s second group of runners comes through the first 400-meter lap in 63 seconds. Those four seconds might not seem like a big deal, but in track, four seconds per lap is a huge difference in both time and level of exertion. Over a mile, four seconds per 400 meters separates a very good high school runner (4:15) from a world-class one (3:59). Extrapolated over a 6.2-mile cross-country race, four seconds per 400 meters adds up to nearly a minute and a half, which is roughly the difference between finishing in 100th place and 5th at nationals.

They slow down marginally but still run the second lap in 66 seconds. Centrowitz again shouts for McCabe to slow down. McCabe doesn’t alter his pace, so Centrowitz folds in his bottom lip and emits a piercing whistle that gets his attention. “Stop!” he bellows.

McCabe grudgingly steps out of line, followed by the other runners.

“McCabe, what’s the matter with you?” Centrowitz demands. “I told you 67 or 68. What didn’t you understand about that?”

McCabe glowers.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know!” McCabe shouts back.

“Well, go figure it out. Maybe you should go to the trainer and get a Q-tip. Clean out your ears.”

Centrowitz sends a steaming McCabe off for a jog. When he returns, still staring daggers, Centrowitz calls him over and puts a meaty hand on his shoulder. “OK, I’m sorry, but this is called coaching, or else you’re the coach,” he says in a softer voice. “It’s called discipline. Get used to it.”

Great article, and very much worth a read. I trained with Centro for three years, and have many fond memories of, say, him forcing me to take my watch off halfway through an interval because I was checking it too frequently. Sometimes his workouts were easier than you thought they should be; other times they were harder that you believed you were capable of. Either way, he told you the pace, and you hit it, no questions asked.

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What Simon Whitfield learned from Alberto Salazar and Jerry Schumacher

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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I spent this morning down by the Sydney Opera House, watching the first leg of this year’s ITU World Championship Series. It was a lot of fun — the course was set up well for spectators, with a nice, short criterium course with lots of loops. The run felt like a Tour de France stage, with a three-man breakaway so far ahead of the main pack that you thought they’d never be caught. But just past the halfway mark, as the chase pack swarmed by, a Spanish coach beside me glanced at the contenders, nodded at the guy beside him, and said one word with absolute certainty: “Docherty.”

Sure enough, several kilometres and a few dramatic moves from French, Russian and American guys later, it was New Zealand’s Bevan Docherty who emerged at the front for the final run-in, with Simon Whitfield closing strongly to finish in fifth from a pack that was 11-strong with just a few kilometres to go. Great start to the season.

Which brings me to my point. I had the chance to chat with Whitfield last week for a forthcoming article — lots of fun to talk about training and hear about his new coach and his experiences running with Alberto Salazar and Jerry Schumacher’s Nike training groups in Portland, Oregon. More on this later, but one quick highlight: a key message that he came away with, particularly from Schumacher, was precision and control.

If they’re doing a tempo run where the pace is supposed to be 3:05 per kilometre, and you go out and run 3:03 per kilometre, that’s not a success. That’s a fail.

Obviously that’s easier said than done, especially when you’ve got a group of extremely competitive athletes training together. But no matter how many times you hear the rule “don’t race in training,” I think it’s still arguably the most common training mistake among endurance athletes — and I think coaches who give mixed messages share a big part of the blame. (If you tell your athletes to hit a certain pace and they go faster, do you give them positive or negative feedback?) So kudos to Schumacher for being clear about this.

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Training for a mountainous ultramarathon (!)

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

***

In the comments section of another post, a reader posed an interesting question about training for an upcoming ultra-marathon (not just any ultra-marathon, mind you: the fabled Canadian Death Race!).

I am training for my first ultra-marathon, the 125km Canadian Death Race. It takes place in early August. My weekly long runs are reaching marathon distance. I’m curious about a couple of things:
1. Understanding that it is unrealistic to train to 125km, what is a realistic distance to train to?
2. Considering I have another 4 months of training ahead, should I peak at marathon distance, taper, rest and then build up to train past that distance. Or should I aim for consistent long distances for the remaining months?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

These are some good questions — and ones that fall outside my area of expertise. So I figured I’d try to rope in a real expert to offer some advice. Derrick Spafford is a hardened ultra vet and experienced coach (readers of Canadian Running may remember Spafford whizzing past editor-in-chief Michal Kapral in his account of the Rock and Ice Ultra [10MB] last year.) Here’s what he had to say:

It does sound like you have built up to a very good level getting in up to the marathon distance for your long run. You haven’t indicated if these are mountain miles that you have done or flat miles…big difference obviously. Not knowing what the rest of your training has involved, it is tough to give you the best answer to your question, but here are a few guidelines that you may find helpful.

1. For your long run, I wouldn’t be too concerned with distance, but just getting in the time on your legs. The length should be a gradual progression that is slowly increased with your longest run being about 3-4 weeks before the race. Building up to between 6-8 hrs for your long run should be the goal for completion, and this can include regular walk breaks while hydrating, refueling or on difficult climbs. During your buildup it would be best to also incorporate back to back long runs too. These offer the benefit of getting in some long hours over the weekend, but are not as demanding and are easier to recover from. A back to back long run weekend could eventually look something like Saturday 4hrs/Sunday 3hrs. Alternating between a single long run on one weekend and back to back long runs the next weekend works well. Then be sure to add a recovery week every 3-4 weeks.

2. Since you are already up to the marathon distance in training, I would encourage you to sign up for a Trail 50km in May/June, then take a few weeks to recover before your final buildup towards the Death Race. Getting a shorter trail ultra under your belt will give you a chance to fine tune your nutrition, gear and give you confidence for the big one.

One final piece of advice is to be sure to get some time in on the hills or mountains. This can be done either by running hill repeats, continuously run up a mountain, or doing continuous uphill runs on a treadmill. These also need to be increased very gradually though. Practicing some downhill running is equally as important as well to help strengthen your quads for the continuous braking action of descending.

I hope this helps.

Needless to say, this sounds like excellent advice. I particularly like the idea of alternating single long runs with two-day “long-run weekends” as a more tolerable way of getting in time on your feet. And I can also attest to the importance of getting in training on the hills. I just did a mountain race for the first time last weekend — a very short one, but the downhill absolutely ravaged my legs. I definitely couldn’t have kept going for another 120 km!

Thanks to Ben for the question, and to Derrick for taking the time to offer his expertise.