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Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Tuesday, January 06, 2004

D is for Damon Douglas

 

I wrote a few words about Damon in September. Today, I thought I'd post something Damon wrote.

In 1989, Damon spent some time at the U.S. Olypmic Training Center "Coaches College." He wrote me a letter and described an experiment he helped with.

A fellow coach at the "College" volunteered to be a guinea pig for an experiment. he was a very well conditioned endurance runner with some experience at trail running. First he ran at the track at a heart rate near his threshold pace. After a suitable time, I measured his lactate acid and found that he was somewhat, but not much, over threshold. After a 6 hour rest, he ran the exact same protocol -- same warm up, same heart rate-time profile -- except that, instead of running on the track, he ran on the rocky shoulder beside the track. Of course he ran at a much slower velocity on the rocks than on the track. On the rocks he had a little difficulty keeping his heart rate up to the same level as running on the track, so that his average heart rate was 167 on the rocks versus 172 on the track. However his blood lactate was significantly higher from running on the rocks....His "rock running" efficiency was not as high as his "track running" efficiency, and even at a lower heart rate, he got tired and sore faster.

John Underwood, the cross country ski team consultant, reported that he tested the thresholds of each team member at 5 different sports. The more the sport was "different" from cross country skiing the lower the threshold was from the cross country skiing threshold, which was always the highest threshold. The moral is very, very clear. In order to run well in the woods, you must train well in the woods.

posted by Michael | 1:09 PM

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