From Running Times online...
Quick on the Recovery
The benefits of workouts with faster-than-usual recoveries.
By Richard A. Lovett
As featured in the April 2012 issue of Running Times Magazine
In the early 1970s, University of Oregon runners did a workout in which they alternated 30-second and 40-second 200s for as long as they could handle it. "The record was 5 miles, by Steve Prefontaine," Alberto Salazar once told the Oregonian newspaper. "I think the furthest I ever made it was 4." At about the same time, Australian marathoner Rob de Castella was doing something similar: 8 x 400m at 1-2 seconds/per lap faster than 5K pace, punctuated by 200m "recoveries" that were only 15 seconds per lap slower than the intervals.
A more recent champion of briskly paced recoveries is Italian coach Renato Canova, whose trainee Moses Mosop debuted in 2:03:06 in last year's Boston Marathon and then won Chicago in course-record time. "Canova's big thing is what is most often referred to as 'alternations,'" says 2:14 marathoner Nate Jenkins, "where you run a fast speed for a recovery and a faster speed for the interval, i.e., if you have a goal 10K of 30:00, you might run 6 to 8 x 800m in 2:24 [the goal pace], with a recovery [also 800m] at 2:40." If that sounds, well, fast, it is. But so is a 30:00 10K. For a runner of that talent, Jenkins notes, the 800m recoveries in 2:40 come up at about marathon pace.
In traditional intervals, the emphasis is on the fast part of the repeat. The recoveries take a backseat and are often quite slow. But in fast-recovery training the emphasis is reversed. The repeats are modestly paced but the recoveries are far quicker than the norm.
What this means, says Kelly Sullivan, head track and cross country coach at Oregon State University, is that in this type of training, the recoveries are the most important part. "You're trying not to take your foot too much off the pedal," he says.
But it's not something you should do simply because others are doing it and 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. "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."
Happily, there are several reasons why fast-recovery workouts might be beneficial. First, they allow you to introduce quick bursts of speed into training workouts early in the season, while still meeting aerobic goals by keeping your heart rate up throughout the session, says Andrew Begley, whose trainees include 10,000m Olympian Amy Begley. Later in the season, they can be used to sharpen fitness by shortening the recovery times for much harder workouts such as "mile-down" ladders (1600m, 1200m, 800m, 600m, 400m, 300m, 200m), he adds.
Fast-recovery workouts are also useful, he thinks, for athletes who struggle with traditional tempo runs. "Instead of doing a 4-mile tempo run, the athlete can do four 1-mile repeats with a 1-minute recovery," he says--an approach that Daniels has dubbed "cruise intervals."
But there's also another, even more powerful theory emerging of why fast-recovery workouts might be highly beneficial. This one involves lactate, a substance produced as an intermediate product in the muscles' normal energy-production processes.
Read on here<http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=25579>.
