Endurance is something that I have struggled with for almost as long as I have been trail running. Hopefully, with the right kind of training, I will be able to improve my endurance levels at long last.
The factors that impact running endurance in decreasing levels of importance are metabolic endurance or how well your body delivers energy to your muscles, your running economy or making the mechanics of your running style more efficient, and VO2 Max or the maximum amount of oxygen you can process.
Endurance in trail running is how well your body can deliver energy to your muscles, how efficiently you use that energy, and how well you are able to manage/clear the lactate that builds up in your muscles during an effort.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the three ways to build endurance and see how to apply each of them in a practical way.
What Are The Three Key Components Of Running Endurance
The three key components of running endurance are your metabolism, running economy, and VO2 max. Although different, all three of these in their own way affect how efficiently your body can use its limited energy resources and how well it can manage the lactate that is produced during your effort.
Of the three, your VO2 max is generally determined by your genetics.
What Is Metabolic Endurance
Your metabolic endurance is your body’s ability to produce energy, deliver energy and oxygen to the working muscles, and clear lactate from the working muscles quickly. As a trail runner, your metabolic endurance is the easiest type of endurance to improve through your training.
Luckily for us, our ability to improve our metabolic endurance is entirely under our control. Our overall aerobic training volume determines the rate at which we can build our metabolic endurance. Our nutrition choices and the quality of our rest/recovery can either support or hinder the volume of aerobic training we are able to do.
I remember my high school cross country coach telling us that there is no secret formula or magic to getting us to a level of dominance as a team. We had the same cross country coach for middle distance athletics on the track during summer. With the help of our coach all we did year in and year out was patiently build our aerobic metabolism and stay healthy/injury-free.
How To Build Metabolic Endurance
As you already know, building metabolic endurance is the most effective way to improve overall endurance. In order to be better runners, we need to improve what is going on inside our bodies.
The way we build our metabolic endurance is through our overall training volume as well as the specific types of training we do as we build up that training volume.
The cornerstone to building the volume that you need to enhance your metabolic endurance is the consistent weekly long run. Almost always, my training programs from my various coaches have my long run set for a Sunday and my rest day set for Monday. The logic is that big races are often on a Sunday and therefore you get your body into the rhythm of doing big volume on the same day.
I learned over 10 years ago that a consistent Sunday/weekend long run was not a sustainable option. When I was training for my XTERRA national championship race, my coach insisted that Saturday had to be my big mountain bike ride and Sunday was my 2-hour or more long run. That plan failed miserably for me. I think I managed to get in just two long runs in the 12-week training block leading up to the race, although to be honest, it may have only been one. My result was far from ideal.
Over the years I have gained a little bit of wisdom about what works for me, to go along with my gray hair and gray beard.
I now make Sunday my rest day and do my long run early on a Monday morning. I head out in the pre-sunrise dark so that I can get back just after the sun is up. I find the sense of achievement in doing my long run on a Monday morning motivates me for the rest of the week. Unlike many of my friends, I find myself looking forward to a Monday morning.
There are different kinds of specific run workouts that build metabolic endurance besides your weekly long run, and they include Mafetone style aerobic workouts, progression runs, aerobic threshold steady-state runs, marathon pace, and half marathon pace. These are the aerobic paces that build aerobic metabolism.
Another type of run workout that builds metabolic endurance, but in a different way is the tempo/lactate threshold run. This is a specific workout that improves your body’s ability to clear lactate because you are right up at your lactate threshold. Lately, I have seen that several elite coaches use pin-prick tests to measure blood lactate after intervals to see how well their athlete is clearing lactate.
What Is Cross Training And How Does It Work
Cross-training for running is where you use a sport or activity that has cardio intensity as a substitute for a running workout. That way you can improve your metabolic endurance while using different muscles than what you would use for running. Your running muscles get a rest while you are still training.
When I was training for an XTERRA triathlon my entire training program was cross-training. Whether I was trail running, mountain biking, or swimming, each training session was cross-training for the other 2. I was doing 12 cardio training sessions a week plus weights training in the gym on Wednesdays but only ran 4 times a week. I saw a massive improvement in my trail running over that 12-week training block.
How To Use Cross Training As A Tool To Build Metabolic Endurance
I know that we see reports of professional ultra-trail runners doing crazy miles day after day, week after week. That is their job, meaning that they still have enough hours left every day to get enough sleep, plus massages, etc. The rest of us live in a world that includes work and family obligations.
We can’t all run 80 to 100 miles a week or more and still be able to sleep/recover enough to keep going week after week. I’ve tried it and it broke me. I ended up way overtrained and not the best person to be around.
Great options for cross-training are cycling, elliptical, and some swimming. What I like about including some swimming is that the flow of water across my legs while I’m swimming acts almost like a bit of a massage. All of these options are non-weight-bearing exercises that allow my legs some recovery from the impact of running while still keeping my training volume high.
I’m not saying that cross-training is a complete substitute for running. You still need to maintain run volume for your run-specific muscles. I made that mistake while I was training for an XTERRA triathlon. I neglected my weekly long run for three months and paid the price.
The cross-training strategy is to keep your run volume high and increase that gradually. You then add cross-training on top of your run mileage to ramp up your overall training volume quickly.
I competed in cross country at high school and my best season of cross country was the year I was cycling 4+hrs a week and doing a 2hr cycling race on the weekends on top of cross country training.
What Is Running Economy
Your running economy determines how little energy you use to run at a given speed. Runners who are more efficient are able to use less energy to run at the same speed and hence their energy tank will last longer, meaning they will have more endurance.
Running economy is not simply the metabolic process of using less energy for the same speed. It is more about the mechanics of how you run in order to be more efficient. Your running mechanics are largely a combination of coordination and the neuromuscular pathways that connect your brain to your legs.
How To Improve Running Economy For Better Endurance
When it comes to improving my running economy I have found that it is possible to use training methods outside of running as well as those that involve running directly.
The most obvious way to improve your running economy is by practicing your running a lot. In other words, high mileage improves mechanical economy as you are practicing the thing you want to be better at.
Think of it this way, when you first try a new type of movement like when you jump rope you will use more energy than you need to for each jump. The more you practice jumping rope the better your skill level will become as your body adapts the movement to be more efficient. The exact same thing applies to running if you do a lot of running on a regular basis.
Coordination and running economy are both based on how you move. Not only is running for a long time at an easy pace helpful, but also running really hard for short intervals. When you sprint your body will quickly eliminate the parts of your running stride that are a hindrance to your sprinting speed. If you do these sprints regularly, you will begin to notice a carry-over of the same efficiency into your regular running.
I do strides 2 to 3 times a week as a short interval set within a long run. I also do hill sprints. Living in the mountains means that everything around me is either uphill or downhill so I don’t need to look very far to find somewhere to do a session of hill sprints.
Regularly running really fast is a coordination exercise and improves the neuromuscular pathway between the brain and legs. The way this correlates to my regular running is that I am able to run at the same pace but with much less energy. I seem to be able to get more out of my body and end up running faster.
Besides running further or running faster there are other things that improve your running economy. Lift heavy weights – leg day in the gym also stimulates the same neuromuscular pathways.
I do form drills as part of warm-up and warm-down before and after every run so I can practice the coordination movements I need. I find that the form drills strengthen the muscle memory within my library of movement skills.
Regular sprints, running a lot, lifting weights, and form drills will make running more efficient and enjoyable because running will feel smooth and more effortless.
What Is VO2 Max
Our VO2 max is the one thing that most of us are the most aware of as it is in the sports media regularly. From what we see VO2 max is one of the best indicators of performance. We all want a high VO2 max.
VO2 max is the maximum volume of oxygen that your body can process. Studies show that VO2 max is genetic and largely untrainable.
How To Improve VO2 Max
There is a commonly held myth that there is a connection between your VO2 max score and your fitness level. This is untrue as there are some highly trained athletes who have low VO2 max and some athletes with high VO2 max that are really unfit. It is the least correlated with your sporting performance of the three metrics.
Don’t worry about VO2 max as it isn’t something that you have much control over. Your VO2 max may shift by up to 1% when doing really high volume.
The nearest thing to VO2 max that we can control is hematocrit or red blood cell count. That will increase the amount of oxygen that your blood can carry. If your blood carries more oxygen you can hold a VO2 max effort for a lot longer as your blood has a reserve tank of oxygen for you to use. Living/training at altitude increases hematocrit and therefore boosts performance.
It will be a better use of your training time to work on metabolic endurance and running economy, the two aspects of endurance that you can both control and improve, rather than VO2 max which is largely a static number.