Hello Ladies and gentleman. This is the Japanese running master Ikegami. The topic today is the reason why I’ve gotten runners faster without changing their running style.
Do you try to change your running style as the first things first?
Or do you think if you improve your running technique, you can get faster?
It’s not wrong. Improving your running technique is also important. But it’s not the main thing. I will explain it in this blog post.
Long story short, what you need to get faster in long distance running and marathon is not a practice but training. A lot of people misunderstand this.
What do I mean by that?
That means the most important thing is physiological change, especially physiological energy system.
Most people think about the running technic. The reason is very simple. If you want to be a better baseball player, what do you do first?
You go to a baseball team or school and learn the skill from coaches and other players by practicing, right?
What about if you want to be a better basketball player?
What are you going to do first?
Again, you go to a local basketball team or school and learn the skill from coaches and other players. By practicing, right?
What about football?
If you want to be a better football player, what are you going to do?
You are going to go to a football team or school and learn the skill from coaches and other players by practicing, right?
Yes, that’s true. Nobody starts running first because he or she wants to be a better baseball player. Maybe later they start running to improve their basic fitness level to get further improvements as a baseball player. But obviously it’s not the first things first.
So, most people start learning the running technique first. But it’s wrong. Yes, if you are a sprinter, you can get faster by improving the running technique. But it’s not the first things first in long distance running and marathon.
The two most important things in long distance running and marathon is, first to produce more energies with oxygen. We produce energy by catabolizing ATP into ADP. ATP stands for Adenosine Triphosphate and ADP stands for Adenosine Diphosphate.
But here is the problem. This system lasts only a few minutes if we don’t resynthesize ATP from ADP. And there are 4 ways to synthesize ATP.
First by using Phosphocreatine. It’s the fastest way to produce energy. That’s why you want to use this energy system when you sprint, swing a bat or have a shot put. But it lasts only 8 seconds and produce lactic acids and protons.
Second, you can produce energy by using glycogen without oxygen. This is the second fastest energy system in our bodies. This energy system also produces lactic acids and protons.
The problem of the first two energy system is to decrease your PH level in the blood in active muscles. Active muscles are muscles which you use during running. As you might know, there is the optimum PH and temperature in our bodies. All enzymes work the best at the optimum temperature and PH. And we need enzymes for all chemical actions in our bodies. Without enzymes, we cannot produce any energies, so we all literally die sooner or later.
I’ll give you an example, no one can run faster in the summer than that person runs in the winter. The winner’s time in the Olympic games and World Championships is much slower than the winning time in the Berlin Marathon because of the temperature. If you are a runner, you should know that already based on your experience, right?
You cannot run fast in the Summer. Usually, it is impossible to make your 5000m personal best time if it’s over 30 degrees in Celsius (86 degrees in Fahrenheit). If you do it, you could run much faster in the Winter.
The reason is very simple. Your body gets overheat and that inhibits enzymes which produce energy in your body. Exactly speaking, you produce less energy on time. The speed is very important in long distance running and marathon. Many people only care about how many stored glycogens they have in your body. But actually, it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is how much energy you can produce on time. Because our body has much energy already. You can run 100 miles without having foods.
On the other hand, if you produce less energy on time, you are forced to run slower even in an 800m race. So, the speed is very important. And again, if the temperature is over 30 degrees in Celsius (86 degrees in Fahrenheit), your body gets overheat and it inhibits enzyme’s activities in your body. That’s why now you can produce less energy on time and you are forced to run slower.
And the same thing happens to you if you have too many lactic acids and protons in your blood. In this case, your body temperature does not change but PH Level in your blood in the active muscles goes down and it gets out of the optimum level. It inhibits enzymes which are for producing energy and that forces you slow down.
The energy system which produces energy with Phosphocreatine and glycogen without oxygen is called the anaerobic metabolism. With the anaerobic metabolism, you can run faster in relatively short distance because these energy systems are the fastest energy system and the second fastest energy system in our bodies.
On the other hand, you cannot keep the fast pace in longer distance events because the anaerobic metabolism produces a lot of protons and lactic acids. These inhibit your metabolism and sooner or later you need to get slower.
And also, this is important, once protons and lactic acids are accumulated in your active muscles too much, it is difficult do get rid of them. It’s much easier to start running slowly to the extent that lactic acids and protons are not accumulated at all and keep that pace to the goal.
Have you ever seen someone goes out too fast like crazy and die to the end and a lot of runners pass by him or her in the second half of the race?
Yes, we always do. In every local event, we see at least one that kind of person. And sometimes we don’t realize that guy is crazy because everybody goes out too fast like crazy. At least in Japan it is very typical in Junior High School track and field events or Ekiden races. They very often go out too fast and completely die to the end. Not a few runners but at least half of them (maybe more) go out too fast and die to the end. I’m wondering why no teacher and/or coach teaches kids how to make a proper pace. I don’t know why. Most teachers and coaches just push them and call it a challenge.
I’m not sure this is because Japan is a country of Kamikaze attack and Banzai Attack or not.
But even though I was a born in a nation of Kamikaze attack, my physiological system is completely same with Americans and Kenyans. There is no difference. So, if I go out too fast, I get forced to get dramatically slower in the second half of the race because too many lactic acids and protons get accumulated in the active muscles and that inhibits the energy production on time.
Then what can we do?
We still have two more energy systems which are called aerobic metabolism. With aerobic metabolism, we always use oxygen as firewood.
So, this is the third energy system, we produce energy with oxygen and glycogen. And the fourth energy system uses oxygen and fatty acids.
The third energy system works faster. But the problem is that glycogen is much less stored than fatty acids in the body. This is going to be a problem when we run marathon because once glycogen is depleted, we are forced to rely on the fourth energy system which uses fatty acids and oxygen. And this energy system works slower than the energy system which uses glycogen and oxygen. So, we get forced to get slower.
I also experienced this in a race. I ran the Wien Marathon (Vienna Marathon) in 2019. I aimed running under 2:10. I was very confident to run under 2:10 and always kept about 3:04/km pace to the 30km point. And then I started struggling, from 30km to 35km was 16:40 which is 3:20/km pace and then from 35km to 40km was 18:20. I thought it was better to stop running many times. But finally, I reached at the goal line with the time of 2:15:23. I still don’t know how.
Anyway, the difference between the aerobic glycogen system and the aerobic fatty acids system is going to be a big problem in marathon, only in marathon. From 800m to the half marathon, it doesn’t matter. You have enough glycogens anyway.
The most important thing is that with aerobic energy system, lactic acids and protons do not get accumulated in the active muscles. That’s why we can keep running fast without getting slower.
So, the most important thing in training is improving aerobic metabolism which means you are able to produce more energies with oxygen and without lactic acids and protons. This is the most important thing.
And if you run marathon, also it’s important to improve your aerobic fatty acids system. The faster your aerobic fatty acids system works, the more glycogens you have after the 30km point and with that energy you can run faster in the last 10km of the marathon race.
Many people believe that glycogens are depleted after 30km point unconditionally, but it’s not true. The truth is that your glycogens get depleted if you start out too fast for your aerobic fatty acids system. If you go out too fast for your aerobic fatty acids system, you need to rely on your aerobic glycogen system too much already in the first half of the race. That means you spend too much glycogen in the first half and that’s why you don’t have enough glycogen in the second half of the race just like if you spend too much money in the first half of the month and you do not have enough money in the second half of the month anymore. That’s it.
And the second most important factor in middle- and long-distance training and marathon training is to get your legs tougher. That means, your muscles have endurance and power, not only power or endurance, but both.
A lot of Japanese amateur runners come to me and ask me what kind of drink, gel or supplement prevents cramp after the 30km point. This is a very bad habit in the modern society. People always want an easy and quick solution. But sometimes a difficult and long solution is the best.
First of all, I want you to think about why legs get cramped during a race. Yes, it’s true that your legs get cramped because of the lack of water and/or electrolytes. But it’s a rare case. In the most cases, they just have a lack of endurance power in their legs. Legs should resist on speed and endurance as much as possible.
Have you ever seen that someone gets a pulled muscle in a local sport event when they sprint? In this case, their legs could not resist on that speed. In marathon usually their legs cannot resist on the endurance that’s why they get cramp.
But the question is, is it only because of the endurance?
No, it’s always because of the speed and the endurance.
Let’s say you started out with marathon 3 hours pace. And after the 30km, you get a cramp. The main reason is because you already ran longer than 2 hours. But you would not get a cramp if you started out with marathon 4 hours pace.
The same thing very often happens to elite runners, after the 35km, their legs start getting heavier and heavier and start cramping because the pace is 3 minutes per K. They never get a problem if they run 3:30/km pace. This kind of problem always comes from the speed and the endurance.
So same thing could happen in an 800m race. Although people usually cannot realize that. Because we don’t know why someone gets slower exactly. Maybe because of too much lactic acids or maybe their legs reach at the limit. We are not sure. But in any cases, we need legs strength and endurance both.
So, let’s summarize things once. The two most important things of training for middle and long distance running event including marathon is that first, you want to improve your metabolism, especially aerobic metabolism and also aerobic fatty acids metabolism for marathoners.
And another most important thing is to improve your legs strength in terms of the speed and the endurance.
Now the question is how can we do that?
What kind of training we need to get those two things?
Now, let me ask you the only one serious question, so I don’t waste your time.
Do you want to know more about training?
If your answer is Yes, my free E-book ‘’Three factors you get dramatically faster without any injuries and overtraining is perfect fit for you. All I want to ask you today is click here, download my free E-book and read it at least 3 times.
Does that sound fair enough?
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