KNOW YOUR LIMITS

Top physiologist, sub-four minute miler and advisor to Lennox Lewis, Joe Dunbar flew in for Las Vegas to tell a Nike Bowerman training weekend all the factors that determine how fast you can run and what you can do about them. Andy Barber of Running Fitness heard what he had to say.

If you want to run better, run further, run easier or recover faster you need to know what to do to achieve this. You need to know the areas that affect your performance and how you can influence them.

Some areas you can do a lot about, others such as age may be out of control. But the chances are there are areas of your life that you hadn't thought of and therefore things you can do that you haven't already tried. So if you thought you had done all you could to run as fast as possible read on, then think again.

Here' Joe's list:

Age

Unfortunately there is not a lot you can do with this one. But recognising what happens to your body due to the passing of time will help you plan your training and not make adjustments that are counter-productive. Joe said: "The first couple of years of training you will improve no question. Then you will come to a point where performance will start to decline. It is important to know and accept that as there is nothing more disappointing than when you seem to be working harder than ever but you are not improving and even struggling to keep up with where you used to be. You take longer to recover too. The biggest reason for this is the function of the heart it loses its elasticity."

As your heart doesn¹t work as well so you will not be able to run as fast as you get older. More and more training is not the answer that will just lead to breakdown.

Genetics

Hmmm. Another one you can not change. By accepting what nature has given you it is easier to play to your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

Joe said: "Genetics is about the type of body you have. And it also governs the type of person you are to some extent.

"You can change your body and mind with training. But some people are always going to be able to be better than others. It is one of life's frustrations that you have to deal with.

"For example, your muscle fibres are surrounded by blood capillaries. If you are Kenyan you have six to eight around them. If you are a westerner then you only have four around them.

"The ability to supply blood to the muscle is one of the most important training adaptations you are trying to make. So all other things being equal a Kenyan runner will be better."

But if you train your body will improve its ability to supply blood to the muscle and so start making up for those genetic differences.

Joe continued: "Another genetic factor is the type of muscle fibre you have fast twitch or slow twitch.

"Someone like Linford Christie would have a fast twitch to slow twitch ratio of 90:10. A marathon runner has more slow twitch."

Fast twitch, slow twitch. It is not a question of good or bad. It's more about what distance you are likely you are going to be best at and working on getting the muscle fibres you do have into the best possible shape.

Trainability

Joe explained: "If you give two people the same training programme they will benefit at different rates. Take Coe and Ovett. They ran at the same time and were running within fractions of a second of each other performances of a very similar level. But the ways they trained were very different, almost the opposite.

"Ovett ran more than 100 miles a week and would race over nine miles in the National Cross Country. Coe said he would rarely run 50 miles per week and he did a lot of strength training. But they ran within fractions of a second of each other's time. If you got them to do each other's programme perhaps they would run five seconds slower or be injured.

It is to do with the way your body is made you can't control that."

So don't be disillusioned if someone else seems to improve faster than you. It may be they respond better to training than you or it may be you will catch them up over time as improvement is rarely at a constant rate.

And don't be tempted to just copy another person's schedule just as it seems to work for them. Keep a training diary to see what training you run best off and what causes you injuries or staleness and learn from it. Remember you are unique.

Climate

It's official. You can blame it on the weather.

Joe revealed: "When you are running 70% to 80% of your energy is being turned into body heat. Your body is a fussy thing and needs to be kept within a very narrow temperature range. If you go too far above the optimal temperature your performance declines. If you are too cold your performance also goes down as your muscles are too cold and some systems shut down as well."

You can't control the weather but this means you should pay all the more attention to the next point.

Clothing

Joe advised: "In hot weather wear clothing that helps you get rid of heat.

"On the other side of things when it is cold particularly in the wet you need to keep warm and dry. This is particularly important on long runs. If you are too cold you lose heat very quickly too quickly. You have got to be wearing fabrics which keep you dry and warm."

So all that state of the art kit is not a fashion accessory. Get stocked up with the technical fabrics suitable for all weather conditions.

Nutrition

"People tend to focus on carbohydrates but nutrition is very simple," said Joe. "If you are training hard and regularly you can't eat too much. You are burning a lot of calories and need to replace them. It is an important factor - if you run on a half empty tank then you are not going to perform.

"Your muscles are most receptive to replenishing within 30 minutes of finishing training and racing. Eat 50g of carbohydrate, which is four to five Jaffa cakes, within 30 minutes of training then in the two hours after eat another 250g of carbohydrate. If you leave it too long the muscles then become less receptive to taking in the carbohydrate.

"If you have a sensible balanced diet you don¹t need supplements. Runners need 60% to 70% carbohydrate and four to five pieces of fruit and veg each day."

Some athletes have been known to take a bowl of cereal to training and after warming down just add milk and tuck in. Odd looking but highly effective fuelling.

Fluid

This was one area Joe stressed most people, professional sports people included, could do much better on: "You need to keep hydrated. With anything over 5K fluid is important. People don't normally have enough fluids on board to start exercise so what they are like when they have finished I don¹t know. A little and often all the time is the key a cup of water every 20 to 30 minutes. Generally water is fine but if you are in hot climate the challenge is to get the fluid in more quickly. You need something to help speed up the absorbing and retaining of that water. You sometimes see athletes with a 1.5 litre bottle of water and just before the training they gulp it down. They then excrete most of it and absorb hardly any of it.

"Drinking on the run is difficult so you need to practice that. In training drink what you are going to drink on race day."

Physiology

Your physical state is going to affect your performance but you can't use just one indicator as a die hard predictor of performance: "There are indicators such as V02 max. It is an index that relates to stamina or aerobic fitness. A good runner can take in and utilise lots of oxygen when they are running. If you look at 10K times and V02 max readings of people those with higher V02 maxes will have better 10K times. But if you take a narrow band of performances at 10K and look at their V02 maxes they will be all over the place. In general V02 max affects performance but many other factors come into play such as running economy."

Endurance Training

An area that most runners do pay a fair bit of attention to and which was covered a fair bit over the course of the Bowerman Training Weekend. Joe commented: "This affects running economy and your V02 max. You should do different runs at different intensities for the best training effect."

There¹s too much on this area to go into it all at this point but keep checking the mag for the latest info.

Strength

Like hydration this is a key area that is too often neglected. Joe said: "This is very, very important as it is one of the factors that distance runners often ignore. They think, R
If I just run all the time it will be fine.¹

"The biggest argument in favour of strength training is to decrease the risk of injury. But also, if you can increase your stride length and can take a stride half an inch longer over 10 miles that is a big factor.

"You can do resistance running such as hill training. Try not to run on too steep gradients or your style of running will vary and you will run with a different technique. Hill running should strengthen the muscles you use when running.

"Or you can go to the gym. This is useful for strengthening and toning the muscles and reducing the risk of injury. Perhaps the most important thing is improving the muscles of posture. A weak lower back often leads to hamstring problems. By training the muscles of posture you improve the performance and reduce the risk of injury."

Training History

Experience does count for more than knowledge and being able to tell yarns of how you once pulled clear for a magnificent victory in the London Marathon. If you ever wanted an incentive to keep going with the training even when things get tough it is this.

"The longer you have been training the better you will be able to perform until age comes in. The longer you have been training the less your body deteriorates in a two week break."

Flexibility

Ah, talking of areas that distance runners too often neglect. Joe told the group: "You can improve the range of movement of the joint and your performance. But by stretching you are also likely to be able to recover better and are less likely to pick up strains and injuries. Do some stretching to warm up before training. But to develop flexibility the best time to stretch is after training. You should stretch to a position of moderate discomfort. You should do a 20 to 30 second stretch two or three times. This is because the muscles have a stretch reflex. If you stretch a muscle it reacts by retracting a bit this is designed to stop it over stretching. This reflex doesn't relax for eight seconds so if you do a ten second stretch you are effectively only holding it for two seconds which will not be doing much good at all."

Technique

Joe said: "You should have everything in line with the direction you are running. Sprinters spend hours doing drills to improve their technique. For example they try to lift their knee with their toes pointing upwards rather than pointing out straight. That creates a shorter lever so it is less hard work to bring the leg through. If it is important to a sprinter it must be even more important to an endurance athlete who has to run further."

Biomechanics

Choose your footwear carefully as this is your most important piece of kit.

He explained: "Biomechanics are used by shoe manufacturers to fine-tune how they make shoes. They get a camera looking at how the foot lands and see what is typical then develop shoes that suit different types of people.

"It is important that you wear the right type of shoe. If you struggle a lot then you may need to get orthotics to modify your technique."

For more info on this refer to our shoe guide.

Tactics and strategy

When you race don¹t just run harder, run smarter. This way you will get more or your effort. Joe told us: "At 67 seconds per 400m lap you are moving at six metres per second. At this speed 8% of your energy is going into overcoming air resistance. If you can tuck in behind someone you can save 80% of that 8%. So that is 6% of your effort. That is why when you see athletes going for a record they get a pacemaker. It is not because they can't judge the pace they can probably judge it better than anyone else but they are using the pacemaker to give them shelter.

"You should also try to run at an even pace. It is easy to go out too fast, particularly if there is someone around that you don¹t want to be beaten by. Run your own race you can't control other people."

Lifestyle

Everything you do has an impact on your running to a greater or lesser extent. Use this to your advantage rather than suffering due to trying to ignore the fact: "Lifestyle is very important. There is no point in doing all the preparation if you are burning the candle at both ends rather than getting adequate rest and good nutrition.

"Your body has rhythms - circadian rhythms - these are cycles that take place in your body and govern all sorts of things. These are why we have jet lag and feel tired after lunch. They govern sleep, when we want to eat and factors such as the levels of potassium secretion which go up and down. You should try to eat and sleep and train at the same time of day. Your body thrives on routine so keep things controlled."

Health Status

Do what you can to stay fit and healthy, and to steer clear of infection.

"Some factors you can control. Sensible training and good nutrition will improve your health. But some factors you can't affect - such as people coughing near you on a bus."

It is well worth looking after your diet and the amount of rest you get because this will help you fight off infection.

So there you have it - a hatful of advice. And just by thinking of the areas mentioned by Joe the chances are you will think of even more things that you are doing that hinder your running or that you don't already do that maybe you should.