Don’t Stop Now

How to convert recovery laps into critical speed training.

we ran 300-meter repeats in sets of four. For the first three in each set, the

recovery was a 100-meter “float.” Between sets, we got fuller 500-meter recoveries. It was fun but tough, made all the more so because the entire group started each 300 together. That meant that if you weren’t the fastest on the 300s, you had to move on the floats to avoid missing the next start.

When I started coaching, I remembered those workouts. But the folks I was working with had too wide a speed range to regroup the way we’d done in my old club, so I had them stay with their normal training partners . . . but do the floats quickly, much as I’d had to do them, catching up with the faster folks in my long-ago training group. Soon, I was varying the formula with such workouts as “linked” 400s, 500s, or 600s (run in pairs on 100-meter floats, with full recoveries between), or “pasted-together” miles such as 600-400-600, with the hyphens indicating floats.

Then, in 2011, IAAF Distance Coach Peter Thompson, now residing in Eugene, Oregon, published his own version of such training on his website under the name “New Interval Training.” (See www. newintervaltraining.com.) Thompson had been discussing the program with other coaches since the mid-1990s, but the attention brought by the website was new. Suddenly it seemed that everyone in Oregon was doing float-based workouts.

“New” interval training isn’t actually new— something Thompson is the first to admit. Not only does it bear a lot of similarity to the workouts I remembered from my college club, its ancestors lie at least as far back as 1937. That’s

M any years ago my college-town track club did a speed workout in which

® Coach Peter Thompson.

Active-Recovery Lexicon

Every coaching program has its own terminology. For purposes of this article:

¢ An interval is a single bout of speed, regardless of pace. ¢ A float is a fast-paced partial recovery, generally 100-200 meters. ¢ A recovery is slower and longer than a float.

¢ A set is a collection of intervals and floats, separated by recoveries.

when Swedish Coach Gésta Holmér, in an effort to beat the “flying” Finns—who were the East Africans of their day—invented fartlek training.

Fartlek, as most runners know, is Swedish for “speed play” and involves surging and recovering on a much more continuous run than those generally used for track workouts. It worked. In the early 1940s, one of the most famous fartlek runners, Gunder Hagg, was the first to break 14:00 for the 5K. He also set a mile record (4:01.4) that wasn’t beaten until Roger Bannister broke four minutes in 1954.

No beating Pre

Another new-interval predecessor is a workout often associated with ’70s superstar Steve Prefontaine, although it was also run by other University of Oregon runners. Sometimes known as the “30-40” workout, or “in-and-out 200s,” it consisted of alternating between 30-second and 40-second 200s for as long as possible. “The record was five miles, by Prefontaine,” Alberto Salazar once told the Portland Oregonian newspaper. “I think the furthest I ever made it was four miles.”

None of these people, of course, were marathoners. But Australian marathoner Robert de Castella, who held the world record from 1981 to 1984, had his own variation on the theme: a continuous three-mile run on which he alternated between fast 400s and brisk 200-meter floats. The quarters were paced at one or two seconds per lap faster than 5K pace, and the 200-meter floats at about 15 seconds per lap slower than the quarters.

Ryan Hall, whose wind-aided 2:04:58 at the 2011 Boston Marathon was the fastest ever by an American, also likes such workouts. One of his favorites is a variant on Prefontaine’s, though he’s slowed the floats, thereby allowing himself to stretch the workout to six miles. “I run 30s for the fast 200s,” he told me shortly before the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials, “and 45 to 50 for the ‘out’ 200s.”

Yet another variant comes from Italian coach Renato Canova, whose current superstar, Moses Mosop, ran a wind-aided 2:03:06 in that same Boston Marathon. “Canova’s big thing is what is most often referred to as ‘alternations,’” says 2:14

marathoner Nate Jenkins. Jenkins describes a typical alternation-based workout as six to eight 800s at 10K pace, with 800-meter recoveries. “The recovery is long, but it is fast,” he says, “close to marathon pace.”

The key to all of these workouts isn’t the interval—it’s the fact that they don’t offer up long, easy recoveries every few minutes. “To me, that’s the greatest benefit,” says Jonathan Marcus, assistant track and field and cross-country coach at Portland State University (Oregon). “They hold the athlete accountable through the entirety of the session.”

In traditional interval training, the emphasis is on the fast part. The recoveries exist only to allow you to be sufficiently rested for the next bout of speed. In active-recovery training, the emphasis is reversed. “The recoveries are the most important part,” says Kelly Sullivan, head track and cross-country coach at Oregon State University. “You’re trying not to take your foot too much off the pedal.”

There should be a purpose in all things

But it’s not something you should do simply because it sounds tough. “The most important question about any session of training is, ‘What is the purpose of this workout?’” says exercise physiologist/coach Jack Daniels, author of Daniels’ Running Formula. “If you can’t answer that, then just go home and watch TV instead of running. Every type of training should be for some particular reason, not just to make the runner hurt.”

That’s some of the best possible advice for avoiding falling prey to the latest training fad. But there are indeed some good reasons to consider giving activerecovery training a whirl.

1. Just to start with, most runners find such workouts fun. And while “fun” might not be the most important factor in training, it’s a good way to break out of the doldrums. “[These workouts] are good for athletes who have burned out on classic runs,” says Marcus.

2. Such workouts can reduce the risk of injuries, especially for older runners. “Most masters athletes injure themselves by going too fast on reps,” says Thompson. Active-recovery workouts with floats help avoid this because you simply can’t get through the workout if you don’t keep the pace under control. Furthermore, he says, you don’t have to run as fast on the reps because the training effect comes from the recovery. “You get a bigger return off a slower pace,” Thompson says.

3. Quick-recovery workouts can substitute for traditional tempo runs. “Some athletes struggle with tempo runs,” says Andrew Begley, coach and husband of 10,000-meter Olympian Amy Begley. “[So] instead of doing a four-mile tempo run, the athlete can do four one-mile repeats with a one-minute recovery.”

But there’s another even more powerful theory emerging. This one involves lactate, a substance produced as an intermediate step in your muscles’ energyproduction processes.

Runners tend to think of lactate as a metabolic poison: a byproduct of “anaerobic” running that causes their muscles to tie up in the late stages of hard races. But the truth is that lactate is a fuel. It is generated during all types of running—aerobic or anaerobic—but can be used only in the presence of sufficient oxygen. What this means is that at low exercise levels, it’s burned up nearly as quickly as it’s formed. But at faster paces, you reach a level known as the lactate threshold, where your aerobic energy systems can no longer keep up. That’s when significant amounts of lactate begin to accumulate.

What quick-recovery training does is to yo-yo your body’s lactate levels: up/ down, up/down, over and over again. “The higher above your lactate threshold that you run, the more lactate accumulates in your muscles and blood,” says Olympic marathoner, author, and exercise physiologist Pete Pfitzinger. “When you ease back below lactate-threshold pace, your body uses the lactate as fuel. The theory is that by alternating running faster and slower than lactate threshold, you are training your muscles to more effectively use lactate.”

Thompson refers to this as the lactate “shuttle” and believes it helps explain not only why fartleks work but part of the success of East African runners, famous for surging and recovering, not only in racing but in training.

Training partners also help in any form of speed workout. One of the advantages of activerecovery training is that nearendless variations on the theme help keep workouts fun.

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“This type of training has been around for a while, but what has not been around has been an understanding of the physiology and why it works,” Thompson says.

Based on this new understanding, Thompson sometimes refers to his own New Interval Training workouts as “Lactate Dynamics Training sessions.” A good example might be something like de Castella’s workout. “If you look historically,” Thompson says, “you know this type of training works. The difference now is that we know why, so we can make the sessions even better.”

To do that, Thompson begins by looking at race paces, which he calls rhythms. Barring sprints and ultramarathons, there are basically eight important rhythms, he says: 400-meter, 800-meter, 1,500-meter, 3K, 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon. But you don’t need all of them to improve lactate usage at your target race. For training, Thompson narrows the focus to five: the target rhythm plus “two to each side.” In other words, if you’re training for 5K, you should include intervals at 1,500-meter, 3K, 5K, 10K, and half-marathon paces. (We’ll get to marathon-specific workouts later.)

Rethink the length of intervals

The goal now becomes picking intervals long enough for lactate to build up, then designing floats in which it clears while you’re still running reasonably quickly. That means that for lactate-dynamics training, it’s better to have a lot of relatively short intervals (and floats) than to grind out a small number of long ones. “It moves us away from the traditional idea that if you’re a half-marathoner you do long repetitions, if you’re a 10K runner, you do shorter repetitions, and if you’re a 1,500-meter runner you do much shorter repetitions,” Thompson says.

But it doesn’t mean you have to go continuously for mile after mile like Prefontaine, Hall, or de Castella. You can divide the repeats into sets, much like my old track club did with its 300s. In fact, many of Thompson’s New Interval sessions look a lot like those 300s. The main difference is that he sticks on an extra float (he calls them roll-ons because he thinks that better conveys the idea of not slowing down too much) at the end of the final interval of each set. He’s also happy to vary the pace within each set. Thus, a typical session might consist of sets of 400-300-300-400- (where the hyphen is a 100-meter float), with individual elements ranging from 1,500-meter race pace to 5K pace. (A fun version I’ve used for 5K/10K runners is to set the paces at 5K/3K/3K/S5K paces.) Or you could go longer and do 600-600-600- at 5K to half-marathon pace, extending the floats to 200-meters.

If all of that looks familiar, it is. “It’s classic fartlek,” says Bob Williams, a coach at Concordia University (Portland) who also works with private clients ranging from Olympic Trials contenders to age-groupers. “The nice thing about bringing it to the track is that you can nail the paces.”

Float, don’t walk

When I first started working with active-recovery intervals, I found that most runners were too tentative on the floats—fearful that they wouldn’t be recovered in time for the next repeat. “Imagine me coming by you,” I’d tell them, “saying, ‘Float, don’t walk.’”

That, in fact, is why Thompson calls the recoveries roll-ons rather than floats. He’s trying to persuade people not to drop the pace too far. You don’t stop, walk, then get going again. You drop the pace a little bit, then wait for the recovery to catch up with you. Learning the system requires a bit of trust that the needed recovery will actually be there waiting for you when you get to the end of the float.

A lot of runners want specific advice on the right pace for the float, but Thompson is reluctant to be too precise. “The athlete is the slate upon which the session is written,” he says. “As they get fitter, the roll-on becomes faster without forcing it . . . The roll-on should be as fast as [is] natural.”

If that’s frustratingly vague, figure that for most of us, lactate-threshold pace lies somewhere between 10K pace and half-marathon pace. Most likely you want the roll-ons to be somewhere around marathon pace. But what matters is that when you finish each repeat, you should keep moving, even though years of traditional training may tell you it’s too fast. When I’ve gotten the pace right in my own training, it’s only in the last 10 to 20 meters of a 100-meter float that I start to believe I’ll be recovered in time to go again.

Does it work?

Williams has been using Prefontaine-style in-and-outs for years for 1,500-meter runners. “But after reading through Peter [Thompson’s] rationalization,” he says,

Making the Transition

If your goal is simply to finish a marathon or half-marathon, none of these workouts is for you. But if you’re already doing speed, you can use them to replace what you’ve been doing—just don’t change your total volume of speed work. Thus, active-recovery intervals can replace conventional track work, and longer alternations can replace long tempo runs or marathon-paced runs, probably on a mile-for-mile basis. In both cases, though, you may need a transition period to get used to the new dynamic and learn the paces so you don’t get halfway into the workout only to discover you’re running way too fast.

“T decided to try varying the distances and floats. Much to my happiness, the athletes loved it. [And] their fitness got better.”

One of Thompson’s success stories is a Tanzanian runner who, having been plateaued for four years at about 31 minutes for the 10K, clipped 1:40 off his time following eight weeks of active-recovery training.

I myself have seen a female marathoner go from “sucking air” at 5:40 mile repeats to easily running 6 X 1 mile at sub-5:30s after a mere three weeks of once-a-week new-interval-style 300s and 400s, combined with weekly sessions of long intervals. Were the active-recovery sessions key to her improvement? “Being able to recover faster and train under sub-par conditions such as tired legs or lungs makes me a stronger and well-rounded runner,” she says. Plus, this type of training is also helpful after mile 20. “Everyone is tired towards the end of a race,” she says, “and in order to prepare, a runner must simulate those same conditions. Interval training with active recoveries helps.”

Short may be better

One of the uncertainties about active-recovery training is the degree to which it can replace traditional long intervals. “I think it’s the type of workout that can stimulate multiple energy systems,” says Marcus, “but it’s not the classic 8 X 1,000 that’s going to be straight VO,max.” (This, by the way, is why my marathoner alternated active-recovery training with traditional mile repeats.)

More substantial doubts come from South African Hendrick Ramaala, winner of the 2004 New York City Marathon and owner of a 1:00:26 half-marathon PR. “T believe that short, intensive speed sessions with short recoveries are a cause of injuries, and that long-distance runners need to avoid them as much as possible,” he told me by e-mail. (He noted, though, that part of his aversion to such workouts might involve training at altitude, where long recovery is essential.)

Pfitzinger thinks such workouts are most useful for elite runners in races ranging from 5,000 meters to the half-marathon. “Elite marathoners are not going fast enough to produce high amounts of lactate,” he says, “‘so the benefit is not as great for them.” As for nonelite runners, “[They] can benefit from this type of training, but they would likely also benefit from old-style interval training, increased mileage, or other changes in training.”

That said, a lot of marathon training is based around using tempo runs to shift the lactate-turnover level to higher paces, thereby allowing you to run a faster marathon without lactate buildup. Many marathoners think there’s a lot to be said for fast-recovery workouts as another tool for helping achieve the same thing. “I’m 100 percent sold that this is the way to go,” says Marcus, who ran a 2:31 in his own debut marathon.

The US. Navy’s Lt. Amanda Rice
(2:38:57 marathon PR) is a firm
believer in active-recovery workouts,
particularly de Castella’s workout and
long alternations.

Then there is training for marathoners

For marathoners, however, the two-rhythms-to-each-side rule breaks down. Partly that’s because ultramarathon paces aren’t on the list (and may not be all that distinct from traditional easy-run paces, anyway). Furthermore, that tule excludes both Hall’s workout and de Castella’s, as well as the 400-300-300-400- sets that worked for my own marathoner. (Elite marathoners, in fact, may do at least some repeats at paces all the way down to 1,500-meter pace or even faster.) But there are some very interesting workouts you can do at 10K, half-marathon, and marathon paces.

At these paces, you have to go farther to start building up significant lactate, which means somewhat longer intervals. Training for his own marathon, Marcus alternated between one kilometer at half-marathon pace and one kilometer at marathon pace, for total distances of 16 to 26 kilometers.

Another alternative is what Daniels has dubbed “cruise intervals” (see the Cruise Control sidebar on the following page). Williams suggests two variants, both of which might take some building up to. One is two sets of 3 X 1 mile, at half-marathon pace, on 200-meter floats. Between sets, give yourself a four-minute jog (but don’t forget the float at the end of each set.) The other variant is two sets of 4 X 1 mile at marathon pace, with the same floats and between-set recovery.

At the professional level, Alberto Salazar has recommended midlength workouts (about 14 or 15 miles, including warm-up and cool-down) in which runners spend up to 10 miles alternating between running miles at 10 seconds faster than marathon pace and 20 seconds slower. Hall does something similar, although he paces it differently. “[One] of my favorite[s] is a long run alternating between

© Victah/www.PhotoRun.net

Cruise Control

One of the simplest forms of active-recovery workouts is what Jack Daniels, author of Daniels’ Running Formula, calls “cruise intervals.” These are basically tempo runs with very short recoveries. A version I’ve used for a long time is 11 to 13 X 600 at 10K pace pace, on 20-second jog recoveries. That adds up to four to five miles, replacing a three- to four-mile steady-paced tempo run.

If you want to vary the distance, the formula I use is one minute of recovery for each mile of interval. Thus, if you do mile repeats, the recoveries are one minute each. If you do 800s, they are 30 seconds; 1,200s are on 45-second recoveries, and so forth.

You can go longer than a mile, too, but then you need to start slowing the pace slightly. Such intervals not only get you the pace-varying effect of a lactate-shuttle run, but they’re far less intimidating than a steadypaced tempo run. And some runners, Daniels claims in his book, have gotten quite fast purely on this type of workout.

a mile at marathon pace and a mile a minute slower than marathon pace, for 20 consecutive miles,” he says.

How often?

Thompson believes it’s possible to turn every run into a lactate-dynamics session. “Tf you accept that lactate underpins everything you do, then even your recovery runs can be lactate dynamics,” he says. “If you watch a dog run, dogs don’t run at a steady pace—they ebb and flow. As people learn to run naturally, it comes into all of their running, whether slow or fast.”

Nor does he see much reason for steady-paced tempo runs. I was once talking to him at a Portland, Oregon, track when a bystander asked for advice on a six-mile tempo at 90-second laps. Thompson’s answer: Why not run each mile as 90-90-85-95 instead, repeating that cycle throughout the tempo run? “When you understand lactate-dynamics training,” he says, “you might say, ‘Why would anybody do a tempo run?’ A tempo run is a constant rhythm. You might do better increasing and decreasing because the physiological effect is better.” (You might, however, still want to occasionally practice marathon-paced runs, simply to get used to the pace.)

Thompson’s enthusiasm is contagious, but it’s also a new theory. Most of us might want to view quick-recovery workouts as simply one more arrow in the

quiver of training techniques. If it works, use it more often. If not, don’t. One of the most fun—and most frustrating—rules of training is that every runner is different.

South African physiologist Tim Noakes once told me that physiologically, our bodies appear to adjust surprisingly easily to repeated, identical stresses. “Within four weeks [the body] has probably made all the adaptations it’s going to do,” he said.

That’s probably applicable here, as well. Mix it up. I’d suggest starting with a four-to-six-week block of active-recovery training, early in your speed work, once a week. (If you do two speed sessions a week, do something else on the other days.) At the end of that block, you might switch the active-recovery work to maintenance mode—doing it for maybe one-third of your work. For the rest, you might want to focus on traditional types of training, such as classic tempo runs and old-fashioned VO,max work like 1,000s, 1,200s, or mile repeats. Then, as your marathon nears, you could shift yet again to put the primary focus on long-tempo alternations, such as Salazar’s or Hall’s miles or Marcus’s 1,000s.

But above all, listen to your body and have fun. Some athletes do remarkably well on workouts that would be of no benefit to others. Some can handle workouts that would destroy the rest of us. There’s no magic bullet that will make all runners achieve their best, but there are many arrows in the quiver. And fast-recovery workouts are increasingly looking like good ones. ONE